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Microsoft Edge On Windows 10: the Browser That Will Finally Kill IE

Posted by samzenpus on from the new-tool-in-the-box dept.

An anonymous reader writes: Windows 10 launches today and with it comes a whole new browser, Microsoft Edge. You can still use Internet Explorer if you want, but it's not the default. IE turns 20 in less than a month, which is ancient in internet years, so it's not surprising that Microsoft is shoving it aside. Still, leaving behind IE and launching a new browser built from the ground up marks the end of an era for Microsoft. “Knowing that browsing is still one of the very top activities that people do on a PC, we knew there was an opportunity, and really an obligation, to push the web browsing experience and so that’s what we’ve done with Microsoft Edge," Drew DeBruyne, director of program management at Microsoft told VentureBeat.

17 of 255 comments (clear)

  1. Is it still integrated with the shell? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Because if so, it'll be just as dangerous as it ever was.

    1. Re:Is it still integrated with the shell? by Guspaz · · Score: 5, Informative

      IE hasn't been integrated with the shell for a decade. If you type a URL into an Explorer window in Win7 or 8, it just launches your default browser, which may not be IE.

    2. Re:Is it still integrated with the shell? by im_thatoneguy · · Score: 5, Informative

      No it's written in WinRT which is to say it's sandboxed from the rest of the operating system using the WinRT app model. One of the annoying things about developing for WinRT is just how low privileged an application in WinRT is without any means to escalate except by explicit user permission. Shell access is impossible. COM is nearly non-existent. The only way to get data to and from the application in the WinRT framework is through a specific API contract that makes Soviet Russia look like a libertarian paradise by comparison.

      In short, by writing Edge in WinRT they automatically picked up a lot of security features automatically. I would be really surprised if in its current state it could be used to modify system files.

  2. Um... by MightyMartian · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I think Firefox dealt it the mortal blow, and then Chrome finished the job.

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    1. Re:Um... by ArcadeMan · · Score: 5, Informative

      And then Chrome turned around and finished Firefox.

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    2. Re:Um... by squiggleslash · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I'm pretty sure Firefox turned around and finished Firefox. *sigh*

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  3. It's like winning the lottery! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    New Browser code from Microsoft written from the ground up? Time to go look up details on Microsoft's Bug Bounty program.

    1. Re:It's like winning the lottery! by cbhacking · · Score: 4, Informative

      The browser UI is new, but the rendering engine is still based on Trident. They just removed all the legacy stuff, and focused on clean implementations of the standards without worrying so much about backward compatibility. Edge will puke about as badly as Chrome or Firefox will if fed code and markup intended for IE7, instead of falling back to IE7's rendering style.

      Which isn't to say there aren't going to be security bugs, of course. But then, the same is true of all the big browser vendors.

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  4. I found this bit quite funny by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    You might be wondering, why didn’t Microsoft put Cortana in a different place in Edge; why the address bar? DeBruyne spelled it out for us: “Second to the start menu, it’s probably the most trafficked place in the Windows user interface.”

    So why did you remove the start menu in windows 8?

    1. Re:I found this bit quite funny by vux984 · · Score: 5, Interesting

      So why did you remove the start menu in windows 8?

      Lol, well said.

      However, to be fair to MS, they didn't "remove it" they revamped it. They rightfully identified that there was a ton of functionality jammed into it, and that it was a shitty UI for most of it, while simultaneously its primary design driver was a vestigial hierarchical folder structure from Windows 95 that really was quite hideous and unusable, and rarely used.

      Every one used the start menu to shutdown, to get to control panels etc, to access frequently used and pinned apps, and to search.

      shutdown? because that's where it was. No real need for it to be there relative to anywhere else.
      control panels same thing. So they moved them (and also added them to right click start menu).
      pinned apps... you can still create taskbar menus and pin apps etc in win8.

      search -- there's two types of search:
      -- type one ... "power user quick launch" . For example type cmd to launch command or pow to launch powershell, etc etc... the win7 start menu worked well for this

      -- type two -- actual search. Where you want to find something that you don't know what its called, or to find a document. Having your whole search interface in a small popup in the corner that was liable to disappear on you at random was silly and useless. The win7 start menu sucks for real search.

      Finally... heirarchical start menu browsing... was clumsy in Windows 95 and all but useless in a modern PC. Nobody used it unless they had to, and browsing multiple levels of nested folders was clumsy.

      The start screen in windows 8 ... was better for search. And the other commands were relocated. The problem with windows 8 was simply that the new locations were non-obvious. (how do I shutdown?) And the "type one" quick search-launch functionality was now really clutzy switching to a full screen app for quick launch makes no sense. (And really the whole 'go full screen' was a mistake. The old start menu was broken... but the new one was also broken, better in some ways, but worse in most.

      But they were looking for a solution to a definite problem. Anyone who honestly looks at the windows 7 start menu has to acknowledge that it does too much, and does MUCH of it poorly. It needed attention.

      Unfortunately windows 8 was a step in mostly the wrong directions. Too touch centric. Too much key functionality hidden off screen. Charms bar was just bad. Not having window border controls for mouse users was just bad. Defaulting to using 'modern ui' for viewing pictures etc was just bad. 8.1 cleaned up a lot of that, but it was still not ideal. Too much was driven by the tablet/mobile design rather than really trying to solve the problem for desktop users in a way that made sense for desktop users.

      Windows 10 (build 10240) seems like a pretty good compromise so far. There's still plenty I don't like, but I think its a genuine step forward from 7 rather than a step sideways.

    2. Re:I found this bit quite funny by jmyers · · Score: 4, Insightful

      The fastest way to launch a program is to click on a shortcut. The start menu is for discovering what programs are on the computer. Searching is useless if you don't know what is installed.

  5. I don't want to 'feel' it, I want it to be real by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    "He then laid out Microsoft’s three goals with Edge:"

    1) Build a browser that feels “responsive, fast, and lightweight” but that is also “clean, doesn’t get in your way, and also works great with the modern web.”

    No, idiot, build a browser that IS responsive, fast, and lightweight. I don't care how it makes me 'feel'.

    2) Build a browser that is trusted and lets people feel safe.

    Again, no, I want the browser to BE safe, and don't care how it makes me 'feel'. All this touchy feely crap you can leave to the hippies. Also if you want me to trust your browser, then make the code open-source and the software FREE (as in speech, not beer)

    3) Build a browser that is “personal and productive,” fitting in with what Microsoft is trying to do overall as a company.

    No, I don't want a personal browser, I want a simple browser that answers 1 and 2 without the bloat that is IE (or worse Office)

  6. Re:Another browser by Tumbleweed · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Nope, we just keep supporting the standards, and Edge will work just fine. If all goes well, we'll actually be able to DROP support for more older browsers as more people migrate off XP & Vista.

    That's the dream, anyway. :)

  7. Re:Will Edge be ported to Windows 7? by wile_e_wonka · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I guess you haven't found the "tablet mode" feature.

  8. Re:Quick question by Waffle+Iron · · Score: 4, Funny

    Other than superficial UI bullshit, does Windows 10 have any features? Was there any kernel development? If so, what was produced?

    Yes, they've now added an "Ex" suffix to every system call. You now have to specify an average of 17 flag constants each with a name that averages of 30 upper-case characters, as well as initialize and provide "long pointers" to an average of five large C structures for each request you make to the OS.

  9. Any ad blockers for it yet? by wonkey_monkey · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Hey Cortana, how can I block ads when I'm using Edge?

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  10. Comment removed by account_deleted · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Comment removed based on user account deletion