Microsoft is ditching the Edge browser for Windows

[Arty]

Browser diversity starts with us. Jeffrey Zeldman Presents

Personal site of author, designer, Automattician, and A List Apart founder & publisher Jeffrey Zeldman. Teaching and writing about web design and web standards since 1995. Also featuring “My Glamorous Life,” “Fifteen Minutes,” and other entertainments.

www.zeldman.com

He forgot to mention Safari. It has been separate browser from Chrome for several years. Its not just Chrome and Firefox.

 

[Kirby]

Safari must die, just like IE 6

 

[Digital Doctor]

Oh look, another new browser from Microsoft that nobody is gonna care about and that is only going to cause problems... ¯\(ツ)/¯
At this point they might as well could've opted in to just ship with Chrome or any other existing project and do everyone a favor.
Using chromium might be a step in the right direction, but knowing Microsoft, they're gonna build something that is comparatively unusable, as always, when they attempt to build a web browser.

EEE.

Tried and true strategy

 

[x3sphere]

Safari must die, just like IE 6

Yeah I despise Safari. Apple doesn't make it easy to test either if you aren't a Mac user or don't own Mac hardware. I've setup macOS in a VM but it's a pain compared to Windows and not officially supported.

 

[TLDR]

Yeah I despise Safari. Apple doesn't make it easy to test either if you aren't a Mac user or don't own Mac hardware. I've setup macOS in a VM but it's a pain compared to Windows and not officially supported.

If it's just for WebKit, you could look at some random Linux distro featuring GNOME as their browser uses WebKit as well (and not Blink)

GNOME Web - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[Arty]

Or you can always setup a Hackintosh. See https://www.tonymacx86.com (they are using XenForo)

 

[x3sphere]

Or you can always setup a Hackintosh. See https://www.tonymacx86.com (they are using XenForo)

That's what I've done basically, just setup a Hackintosh in a VM rather than on bare metal. It would be nicer if Apple just provided free OS images that were bootable without the need to do that though, like MS does: https://developer.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-edge/tools/vms/

And yeah I run various other browsers for WebKit testing, but some issues only affect Safari in my experience, so it is a necessity to test under macOS.

 

[Suzanne O]

I use firefox as it's better than IE products.
Microsoft's web browser is ordinary

 

[Jeffin]

Bring back this guyView attachment 190036

Oh, this just took me back to the time when I had my first PC. Can't remember if it was a Pentium or a 486. Anyway, I preferred Merlin the Wizard to Clippy. Those were the days.

 

[BirdOPrey5]

Though I had several computers before it my first "PC" was a 486 DX2 processor at 100 MHz IIRC,,, a/s/l?

 

[Suzanne O]

If i use anything else other than firefox it's safari.
I could use chrome but that is just as bad as edge if not worse.

 

[RobinHood]

Sneak peek - it....kinda...looks...okay!

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If the Office and OneNote integration is good it could be great for research and snipping web pages.

Built in tracking prevention options in the core too

 

[Chris D]

I just hope that enough people get behind it. The number of people still browsing the internet with IE11 is just wrong.

It’s available on macOS too.

 

[Arty]

I just hope that enough people get behind it. The number of people still browsing the internet with IE11 is just wrong.

I hope so too, but don't think its realistic. If it behaves like Chrome rather than old Edge, some might intentionally disable update. IE11 isn't going anywhere unless MS includes new browser in automatic update for older Windows.

I wish MS went with Mozilla instead of Chrome. Monopoly almost always leads to stagnation, sometimes forcing proprietary things on people knowing that people don't have a choice. MS switching to most used browser is another step to Google domination on yet another market.

 

[whynot]

The number of people still browsing the internet with IE11 is just wrong.

They do that because Edge is missing functions, uncomfortable.

 

[RobinHood]

It’s available on macOS too.

Yeah, that's interesting. It will be nice for many users to be able to use their Microsoft Account to log into their browser and have all their data, links and passwords follow them around, like with normal Google Chrome.

I've started using Windows 10 again this last month or so after going OSX only for the last couple of years and I really like now.

They seem to be pushing hard on Android Integration too to emulate features like Airdrop and SMS relay from MacOS and iOS.

Use Phone Link to Sync Your Android or iPhone to Your Windows Computer | Microsoft

Sync your smartphone and Windows computer wirelessly using Microsoft Phone Link. Text, call, back up photos, and more no matter if you have an Android or an iPhone.

www.microsoft.com

I think I saw somewhere that you can get a full screen Android Phone Emulator in Windows 10 soon. - Yep - Windows 10 App Mirroring.

The feature is being made available in the latest Windows 10 Insider builds, and it may take a few days before it shows up in the Your Phone app. That said, your devices may not be compatible yet; Microsoft notes that the feature only works on “Select Android phones” running Android 7.0 or higher, which right now only includes Samsung’s S8, S8+, S9, and S9+.

That's going to be really compelling when that comes out as it will be even more powerful than SMS relay in the MacOS chat app, you can use any app on your phone and type replies.

It's such a shame there's no iOS integration with these Windows 10 phone features. If there was, I'd probably be happy to drop MacOS completely and just stick with Windows 10 and iOS.

I think the only program I use that's MacOS only is Sketch, and I hear Figma is web based and just as good, so I could probably just switch to that.

 

[TLDR]

I wish MS went with Mozilla instead of Chrome

I'm not sure if Microsoft had much of a choice, like is Gecko even an option when MS decides not to make Edge itself open source?

MS switching to most used browser is another step to Google domination on yet another market

Well, I don't specifically see that danger arising. You know, Netscape and mshtml both were closed source in the 90s, so having one of these a monopoly was a bad thing because literally one party controlled everything. That is a little different with WebKit/Blink. It's open source. Apple has WebKit, Blink is a fork of WebKit. They both rely on each other. And Microsoft now also relies on Blink. At least how the engine works is going to be as it is now - you can see what is done and you can participate in the development.

I see another problem here. I rather see the problem that there will be bugs (and let's be honest, that's a fact). And once dominance is established, web devs don't have much reason to look left or right, so Mozilla will slowly turn into yet another WebKit/Blink because otherwise websites would not load correctly. And on the other hand, WebKit/Blink can't fix these bugs because this would break websites (if they wait for too long in the first place).