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Microsoft Builds Open-Source Browser Using HTML, JavaScript, and CSS

Posted by Soulskill on from the opposite-day dept.

An anonymous reader writes: Microsoft's new browser, Edge, has a new rendering engine, EdgeHTML. Like Edge, the new rendering engine is only available in Windows 10, but it does more than just power the company's new browser: It's also readily available to developers. To show off what EdgeHTML can do, Microsoft has built a browser using predominantly JavaScript, HTML, and CSS. Next, the company released the browser on the Windows Store and the sample code on GitHub.

74 comments

  1. Still uses WebView by OverlordQ · · Score: 4, Insightful

    You could write a web browser in any language as long as you could call out to external libraries.

    --
    Your hair look like poop, Bob! - Wanker.
    1. Re:Still uses WebView by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      I think the point is to show that it's not just iphone apps that can be crippled browsers masquerading as an app.

    2. Re:Still uses WebView by Penguinisto · · Score: 3, Interesting

      You could write a web browser in any language and claim it is open source, even if you call out to external proprietary libraries to do all of the grunt-work.

      FTFY, but only to properly frame the BS that Microsoft is trying to perpetrate. You see, EdgeHTML is quite proprietary.

      --
      Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
    3. Re:Still uses WebView by radarskiy · · Score: 2

      What's the last language you used without calling out to an external library?

    4. Re:Still uses WebView by mrbester · · Score: 2

      English. I have an extensive library of my own...

      --
      "Wait. Something's happening. It's opening up! My God, it's full of apricots!"
    5. Re:Still uses WebView by Merk42 · · Score: 2

      You've never said any of these words?
      "Gesundheit"
      "Voilà"
      "Tacos"

    6. Re: Still uses WebView by MasterOfGoingFaster · · Score: 1

      Forth, you insensitive clod.

      --
      Place nail here >+
    7. Re:Still uses WebView by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      English absorbs words and they become part of the language, albeit ones with roots in different languages.

    8. Re:Still uses WebView by davester666 · · Score: 2

      yeah, how many apps are just a webview and an iAd view, basically monetizing somebody else's content.

      --
      Sleep your way to a whiter smile...date a dentist!
    9. Re:Still uses WebView by Darinbob · · Score: 1

      Hmm, C, if you count me writing the parts of the library I needed. Especially C/C++/Assembler if you count statically linking and building all libraries from full source code, which is actually very common. But using a third party proprietary object-only library, that's really really rare for me.

    10. Re: Still uses WebView by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      So you didn't even call functions that are part of the C standard library?

    11. Re: Still uses WebView by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Actually, yes. None of the standard library is needed if you don't print or accept input but just do silly work. However, with a proper terminal, I DID manage to get input and output by reading in from the keyboard directly and out to the screen directly.

      But even so, none of the actual work done in most C programmes (or FORTRAN or ... ) are "Run the library after we get the input". So none of the effectual unique processing is done outside in libraries.

      For example, calling out to an "external library" bash has a fully functional browser that can be written in a single line:

      $ firefox

      How much of it is done in bash and not in this external library? Bugger all.

      And that's kind of the point here with this thread: the EdgeHTML thing isn't doing any of the "web browser activity" in the open source and HTML'd/CSS'd/JavaScripted bit, but done in the library webview. Very little more than the bash example above...

    12. Re:Still uses WebView by bbelt16ag · · Score: 1

      Embrace, extend, and extinguish. remember people they have done this before.

      --
      NEVER NEVER NEVER NEVER NEVER NEVER NEVER NEVER GIVE UP! "No limitations, no boundaries, there is no reason for them."
    13. Re:Still uses WebView by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

      English absorbs words and they become part of the language, albeit ones with roots in different languages.

      Dude, we didn't even change the pronunciation of "taco", or those other words (much). They're not loanwords if you're trying to use them faithfully and you know what language they belong to. Ice-a creamu, that's a loanword. CD pray-er, debatable.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    14. Re: Still uses WebView by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If you use them from another language they're "borrowed words". Sorry, but you're wrong.

    15. Re: Still uses WebView by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The C standard library is not an external library and certainly isn't proprietary.

  2. Sounds like turtles by Bob+the+Super+Hamste · · Score: 1

    This almost sounds like it is going to be turtles all the way down.

    --
    Time to offend someone
    1. Re: Sounds like turtles by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No turtles you clod, but cows!

    2. Re: Sounds like turtles by sexconker · · Score: 1

      Browsers are not for cows. It is not cows all the way down. There is no need to moo.

    3. Re:Sounds like turtles by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Only a racist man would refuse to deepthroat a black cock.

      I couldn't care less about the color, but we're talking about a Microsoft cock. That's where I draw the line!

  3. I heard you like browsers by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    I heard you like browsers, so I put a browser in your browser so you can browse while you browse

    1. Re:I heard you like browsers by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I don't mind the idea of using a feature similar to a user agent switcher, so that I can view browser content within its native environment, within my browser of choice.

    2. Re:I heard you like browsers by Dagger2 · · Score: 2

      Firefox did it first, of course: chrome://browser/content/browser.xul

    3. Re:I heard you like browsers by thegarbz · · Score: 1

      I heard you like browsers, so I put a browser in your browser so you can browse while you browse

      Came here to look for this comment. Did not leave disappointed.

    4. Re:I heard you like browsers by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Glad to have fulfilled your expectations. I felt that the coment was pretty much obligatory in this situation.

    5. Re:I heard you like browsers by daveime · · Score: 1

      Yeah, and as of version 40.0.3 it still manages to lock up tabs and refuse to close them when you click on the little X. Want to take a guess what appears in the developer console when this happens?

  4. Duh by jones_supa · · Score: 1, Insightful

    It's just a WebView component embedded inside a web page.

    1. Re:Duh by unrtst · · Score: 0

      It's just a WebView component embedded inside a web page.

      One thing I wasn't able to deduce from the article is whether or not "x-ms-webview" components can exist in publicly served webpages. Are the only for use in Universal Windows Platform (UWP) applications?

      If they are available elsewhere (ex. open up a local html file with one, or from an intranet site, or from the public internet), it would seem that this *could* be a step backwards in some ways. To quote one of those articles:

      The crux of the functionality stems around the powerful WebView control. Offering a comprehensive set of APIs, it overcomes several of the limitations which encumber iframes, such as framebusting sites and document loading events. Additionally, the x-ms-webview, how one declares a WebView in HTML, provides new functionality that is not possible with an iframe, such as better access to local content and the ability to take screenshots.

      ... so the page loading the component could, or example, be a really clean phishing attempt (ex. loading your bank and screenshotting the webview).

      Actually... IGNORE EVERYTHING I JUST WROTE. I should have looked at actual tech pages: https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-...
      It's only for windows runtime apps, and when a windows store app uses it, it ends up being turned into an iframe. Nothing new to see here.

    2. Re:Duh by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      >Offering a comprehensive set of APIs, it overcomes several of the limitations which encumber iframes, such as framebusting sites and document loading events

      You mean that think Sandboxed Iframes has been able to overcome for a while now?
      Hell, you could defeat framebusters with a simple msgbox, or some other trickery of return values.
      You can even defeat it using some virtual URL trickery, or directly changing the URL state. (forgot the actual name for that, it lets you hide away some complex URLs on client-end while not affecting history events or page state)

      No idea what they were going on about. Framebusting has been trivial to defeat for, well, pretty much forever.

      Also, isn't this basically MSHTML 2.0?
      Hope it is more useful, MSHTML blew ass.

    3. Re:Duh by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's confusing terminology. The Web Browser control and other methods to use the IE browser window allow one to use and partially control the IE browser window itself. The new "WebView" control is the same thing for Edge, for Metro apps rather than compiled Windows software. So there's the confusion of two different browser windows existing simultaneously -- one Windows and one Metro -- and both being available for use in Windows programming. But it's also further confused by Microsoft's choice of names. In the past "WebView" has always referred to Windows Explorer windows blended with IE in Active Desktop. Also known as ShellFolderView, the client area of folder windows in WebView actually was an IE browser window until XP, and has still retained the same basic Shell object model since then. The intention was and is to conflate IE with Windows Explorer, blending Windows with the Internet in the minds of customers. It seems very odd, then, that Microsoft would decide to reuse that same term for an entirely different thing. Perhaps it's part of a generalized attempt to phase out Win32.

  5. Re:More spyware and ads? by erikkemperman · · Score: 0

    So fork it. It's open source. Or is it? The title suggests it is but TFS mentions "sample code" on GH. Which is it?

    Also I thought open source was Unamerican according to MS?

    --
    Gosh, thanks. That must be why the other ships call me Meatfucker -- GCU Grey Area (Eccentric)
  6. Er.. by krkhan · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I work at Microsoft and generally feel glad about open-source advancements made around the company but this hardly warrants a "open-source browser" headline. Welcome to 2005.

    1. Re:Er.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      I work at Microsoft and generally feel glad about open-source advancements made around the company but this hardly warrants a "open-source browser" headline. Welcome to 2005.

      But doesn't this integrate better with Win10 than the Mozilla engine you linked to? MS is trying to make WIn10 appealing and it appears that the future of desktop applications will really be a better integrated browser which is the ultimate irony when one considers the legal battles MS encountered when it made IE so tightly integrated with the desktop.

    2. Re:Er.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That's why it's here and not any of the ones that you like to think of. This is a militantly anti-Microsoft forum. You could probably name a dozen projects that would be cheered on Slashdot until they learn who is backing it. To maintain the expectations of the aggressive userbase, this lame story attempts to phrase a tiny demo as the greatest advancement in Microsoft-backed open-source development in history.

    3. Re:Er.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yes, we're just in denial about Microsoft's awesome open source track record.
      Like Mono, that great open source ("we probably won't sue you over patents as long as you get your copy from the right place") implementation of .NET.

    4. Re:Er.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It was a promise that they felt they needed to include so users wouldn't be afraid of an Oracle style lawsuit when implementing .NET similar to how Oracle sued Google for implementing their own version of Java.

    5. Re:Er.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If true, don't you think that Microsnot has done its utmost to deserve such disdain?

    6. Re:Er.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Maybe you're not updated, but forget Mono... .NET itself is open source now.
      As for the track record; it's growing: http://microsoft.github.io/

    7. Re:Er.. by LordThyGod · · Score: 0

      Maybe you're not updated, but forget Mono... .NET itself is open source now. As for the track record; it's growing: http://microsoft.github.io/

      *Yawn*. Why would anyone outside the MS ecosystem possibly care? I am glad for them, but nobody else is going to GAS.

    8. Re:Er.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That threat kept many many people from ever using Mono for anything.
      Heck, the promise actually made things worse than saying nothing would have.
      If they were serious about it they wouldn't have included those anti-free-software clauses.

    9. Re:Er.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      A subset of .NET is opensource and no one is going to make the effort to port it to better OS's.

      Mono was dead in the water from day 1.

  7. Open? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Open like rasberry pi. The outside might be open, but the core is closed as hell.

  8. Re:More spyware and ads? by erikkemperman · · Score: 2

    Oh wait, I just read it again and guess I misunderstood the first time.. This browser written in HTML/CSS/JS is the sample, demonstrating the awesomeness this EdgeHTML engine.

    Anyway, I'm not going to be able to check it out due to my Unamerican OS.

    --
    Gosh, thanks. That must be why the other ships call me Meatfucker -- GCU Grey Area (Eccentric)
  9. Edge is for cows. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    You are all cows. Cows say moo. MOOOOOOO! MOOOOO! Moo cows MOOOOO! Moo say the cows. YOU EDGY COWS!!

  10. Re:More spyware and ads? by JackieBrown · · Score: 1

    lso I thought open source was Unamerican according to MS?

    You are referencing a statement made almost 15 years ago. Shocking that a culture can change, right?

  11. Re:More spyware and ads? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Looks like it's an MIT license.

  12. Re:More spyware and ads? by erikkemperman · · Score: 1

    True enough. Still, I wasn't aware of any major change of heart in their part. I haven't been following them too closely, but I would expect to have heard about something that significant. Would love to be wrong, actually.

    --
    Gosh, thanks. That must be why the other ships call me Meatfucker -- GCU Grey Area (Eccentric)
  13. Re:More spyware and ads? by JackieBrown · · Score: 2

    I'm a linux / android guy who only uses windows on my work assigned locked down laptop. But my desire to run those OSs stems from their open source nature (although it did start with a frustration of windows - but that was over 10 years ago.)

    But I have been reading a lot of stories on slashdot that at least some divisions are becoming open source friendly.

  14. Re:More spyware and ads? by thoromyr · · Score: 3, Insightful

    yeah... it isn't a browser, its a skin for the HTML/CSS renderer and JS engine. I'm not sure what they are trying to prove: Mozilla's gecko hasn't exactly taken the application world by storm... and *it* is actually crossplatform.

  15. What License? by Lead+Butthead · · Score: 1

    If it's not GPL but another "you can look, but we own everything you add, you cannot distribute it to anyone, and we can close it up anytime we want" license, I think I'll pass.

    --
    ELOI, ELOI, LAMA SABACHTHANI!?
    1. Re:What License? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      MIT license, but so what? All the real work is done by a proprietary library.

  16. A browser written in HTML, JS and CSS? by TeknoHog · · Score: 1, Interesting

    Well I just wrote this shell using nothing but Bash, so nyah nyah nyah!

    --
    Escher was the first MC and Giger invented the HR department.
    1. Re:A browser written in HTML, JS and CSS? by JustAnotherOldGuy · · Score: 0

      Well I just wrote this shell using nothing but Bash, so nyah nyah nyah!

      That's nothing...one time I moved a file from one place to another using only the command line.

      --
      Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
    2. Re:A browser written in HTML, JS and CSS? by TeknoHog · · Score: 1

      That's nothing...one time I moved a file from one place to another using only the command line.

      I think I know how you did it. It's true you generally need a mouse and a GUI to actually _move_ a file, as you need to drag it one pixel at a time, otherwise you run into Zeno's paradox. You can't just instantly quantum-leap a file into another position, at least not without reversing the polarity and crossing the streams. However, there are command-line utilities such as xautomation to control the mouse pointer, so presumably you used one of those to automatize the movement.

      --
      Escher was the first MC and Giger invented the HR department.
    3. Re:A browser written in HTML, JS and CSS? by JustAnotherOldGuy · · Score: 1

      I think I know how you did it.

      I hate to reveal my secret, but I will tell you that it involved typing mysterious, cryptic things that are better left to the imagination.

      --
      Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
    4. Re: A browser written in HTML, JS and CSS? by Bing+Tsher+E · · Score: 1

      I know how to use the pip command in CP/M too.

    5. Re: A browser written in HTML, JS and CSS? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "I know JCL."
      "Show me."
      "Stop trying to submit a batch job and submit it!".
      "I need DSNs. Lots of DSNs."

  17. GitHub link to WebView component code please? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Interesting

    This "Open-Source" browser makes use of the WebView component:
    https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/apps/dn301831.aspx

    Where is the open source code for this component, please?

  18. This is a replacement of MSHTML by H0p313ss · · Score: 1

    This is to get people away from using the ubiquitous MSHTML ActiveX control.

    --
    XML is a known as a key material required to create SMD: Software of Mass Destruction
  19. Re:More spyware and ads? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    > You are referencing a statement made almost 15 years ago. Shocking that a culture can change, right?

    Not so fast!

  20. Re:More spyware and ads? by JustAnotherOldGuy · · Score: 2

    So fork it. It's open source. Or is it? The title suggests it is but TFS mentions "sample code" on GH. Which is it?

    Also I thought open source was Unamerican according to MS?

    No, it's a "cancer", as per Steve Ballmer (although technically he was referring to the Linux software kernel).

    Steve Ballmer said that "Linux is a cancer that attaches itself in an intellectual property sense to everything it touches," during a media interview with the Chicago Sun-Times.

    --
    Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
  21. Re:More spyware and ads? by mrbester · · Score: 1

    It's more shocking that it can, but doesn't.

    --
    "Wait. Something's happening. It's opening up! My God, it's full of apricots!"
  22. Re:More spyware and ads? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Some divisions are becoming open source friendly because MS customers demanded compatibility with many of the open source tools.

    On top of the MS has been trying to benefit from the advantages of open source, but at its core it is still closed source. Open Source projects often include just open source programming code that use proprietary closed source libraries to do the actual things.

    Well that was a few years ago when I wanted to check the MS is open source too that some MS fan boys claimed. It just as open source as a HTML+Javascript page that renders perfectly in a proprietary browser, but loses a lot of features in a open source browser. In other words, they benefit from an 'open source' community to make third party tools better. Third party tools that might one day fill the Windows App Store with handy tools. As long as it only runs on proprietary Windows, MS is happy with open source.

  23. Not news by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Windows programmers have been able to use the IE rendering window since Windows 98. It can also be used to write complex software in the form of HTAs, powered by HTML/CSS/vbscript or javascript. One of the early demo projects for VB was to "make your own browser" by dropping a Web Browser control (essentially an IE window) onto a form and adding some navigation code. So it's hardly news that something similar is now available, but only for use in Metro trinket apps that no one has any use for.

  24. Re:More spyware and ads? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Some divisions are becoming open source friendly because MS customers demanded compatibility with many of the open source tools.

    On top of the MS has been trying to benefit from the advantages of open source, but at its core it is still closed source. Open Source projects often include just open source programming code that use proprietary closed source libraries to do the actual things.

    Well that was a few years ago when I wanted to check the MS is open source too that some MS fan boys claimed. It just as open source as a HTML+Javascript page that renders perfectly in a proprietary browser, but loses a lot of features in a open source browser. In other words, they benefit from an 'open source' community to make third party tools better. Third party tools that might one day fill the Windows App Store with handy tools. As long as it only runs on proprietary Windows, MS is happy with open source.

    All of MS is OSS friendly now, and very few of the customers demanded anything... they figured this out by themselves, mostly after Satya took over. Take a look at MS' github.

    - "But at its core, it is still closed source"

    So for MS it's bad, but for Google it's all good. Very little of Google's systems is open source you know.

  25. the "Chromium" version of Edge? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    So where can I find the "Chromium" version of Edge? Just as Google Chrome has the open source Chromium browser without Google, where's the Edge without Microsoft?

    The version without the spyware and rootkits.

  26. Say hello to XUL by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Microsoft version.

  27. sorry DONT WANT SPYWARE 10 er WINDOWS 10 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    sorry DONT WANT SPYWARE 10 er WINDOWS 10

  28. Please... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    How can this crap be a story in slashdot?

  29. Re: More spyware and ads? by jmac_the_man · · Score: 1
    Microsoft IS doing a whole bunch of Open Source stuff, though, most of which has been covered on Slashdot. They're working on opening the source to .NET, which is probably the biggest one.

    They're also developing a bunch of cross platform stuff that isn't open source, but legitimately runs on other platforms. Like Cortana, one of the big new features they're using to market Windows 10? That's in open beta on Android, and they will be releasing it for iOS as well.

  30. Re: More spyware and ads? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    What good is open source when it all runs on a Windows 10 which is spyware to its core?

  31. Re:More spyware and ads? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    MS's github is mostly dogshit with the better parts locked up tight.