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Microsoft Is Building a New Browser As Part of Its Windows 10 Push
mpicpp sends word that Microsoft may be working on a new browser. "There's been talk for a while that Microsoft was going to make some big changes to Internet Explorer in the Windows 10 time frame, making IE 'Spartan' look and feel more like Chrome and Firefox. It turns out that what's actually happening is Microsoft is building a new browser, codenamed Spartan, which is not IE 12 — at least according to a couple of sources of mine. Thomas Nigro, a Microsoft Student Partner lead and developer of the modern version of VLC, mentioned on Twitter earlier this month that he heard Microsoft was building a brand-new browser. Nigro said he heard talk of this during a December episode of the LiveTile podcast. Spartan is still going to use Microsoft's Chakra JavaScript engine and Microsoft's Trident rendering engine (not WebKit), sources say. As Neowin's Brad Sams reported back in September, the coming browser will look and feel more like Chrome and Firefox and will support extensions. Sams also reported on December 29 that Microsoft has two different versions of Trident in the works, which also seemingly supports the claim that the company has two different Trident-based browsers. However, if my sources are right, Spartan is not IE 12. Instead, Spartan is a new, light-weight browser Microsoft is building. Windows 10 (at least the desktop version) will ship with both Spartan and IE 11, my sources say. IE 11 will be there for backward-compatibility's sake. Spartan will be available for both desktop and mobile (phone/tablet) versions of Windows 10, sources say."
Enh. TFA seems long on speculation. I can see Microsoft doing this in an effort to (a) create a browser that is performant on portable hardware, (where their competition clearly beats them) and (b) try to (eventually) dump the millstone of decades of backwards compatibility, which is, in general, a good thing. [1] But just because it's a logical move is not proof in and of itself that Microsoft is actually doing it.
But I wonder how different, and especially how "lightweight" this hypothetical browser can be if it's using the same rendering engine? Wouldn't it just be IE with a different skin?
[1] apropos of nothing: Over Christmas break, at my daughter's request, I installed an old Windows 95 game on her Windows 7 PC, and it worked! I was deeply impressed. And a little appalled.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
Yup, Blink drops a lot of the Apple stuff but also adds a lot of Google specific stuff. Swings and roundabouts really.
I am less concerned about the browser engine. But how well it follows the W3C Specs!
If Trident does X,Y,Z faster than WebKits X,Y,Z but WebKit is faster at P, Q, R. Then we can choose the best browser for our needs... However they ALL NEED TO RENDER THE WEB PAGE THE SAME WAY!
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
As a Gecko user, I'd hate for Webkit/Blink to become the only option. The interests of Google and Apple shareholders don't necessarily coincide with mine.
MS may still be the Great Satan but it's their time and energy being spent.
It's my understanding that MS is going to try to diverge from their waterfall development model and aim for a model more akin to the Chrome development model of rapid small releases, but they've probably gotten enough blow back from their corporate clients that there will be two browsers, one a more classic IE with a slower less disruptive development model, and the new browser with the rapid paced model. This is probably a good thing, as a slower target with longer release cycles is good for those of us that have to support third party systems that rely on the client browser to be the UI (basically every enterprise system that's not so crufty as to use a client/server or green screen) and will allow us to have a centrally managed and security updated browser with features that web devs will love.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.