Microsoft Brings Edge To Android and IOS (venturebeat.com)

An anonymous reader writes: If you want more proof that Microsoft is embracing Android and iOS, boy, do we have it for you today. The company has launched Edge for iOS in preview, promised Edge for Android is coming soon, and launched Microsoft Launcher for Android in public preview. Edge for iOS preview is available via Apple's TestFlight and is limited, per Apple's rules, to 10,000 users. Microsoft is inviting Windows Insiders in the U.S. to sign up here. Android users can also sign up at that same link -- the preview will hit the Google Play Store in the coming weeks. Microsoft is hoping to release Edge for Android and iOS out of preview "later this year." The Microsoft Launcher is available in preview for English users in the United States on Google Play. Microsoft promises to bring it to other markets "over time" and launch it out of preview "later this year," as well.

Comments

Is there a user base for this?

[sqorbit]

Any average user most likely just sticks with the browser that comes with the phone. Most "power" users won't use Edge anyway. I can't see a large base of installs on iOS or Android for this.

Re:Is there a user base for this?

[xxxJonBoyxxx]

Sure - they expect at least 80% of their current Zune-on-Android and Zune-on-iOS users to switch within the first three months.

Re:Is there a user base for this?

[stealth_finger]

The only reason I use it is I'm stuck with a windows phone and it's basically the only option. It's a massive power hog too. Just in the past 6 hours it's used 31% of the battery, even though I'm at work and only really used it over lunch. That includes 9% in background even though the option that very clearly says never allowed in background is checked.

Re:Is there a user base for this?

[iampiti]

I don't know. Firefox, with all its cred on desktop computers has pretty low marketshare on Android so, if they can't even make a good dent on mobile I don't know how Microsoft could. And, differently to desktops, they don't have a dominant OS on mobile to spam people with to use Edge.

Re:Is there a user base for this?

[JohnFen]

I don't know. Firefox, with all its cred on desktop computers has pretty low marketshare on Android

Firefox burned its cred years ago. That's why they have one of the lowest shares of the desktop browser market, and why they're making such a huge deal out of Firefox 57.

Since I just bashed Firefox, I feel the need to toss in a compliment: after trying the beta, it could actually meet my needs! It's not as awful as I feared, and fixes a lot of the problems Firefox has had. The only reason I'm not using it as my daily driver now is the lack of NoScript. Assuming that the port of NoScript won't lose functionality that's important to me, I'll switch over as soon as it's available.

Re:Is there a user base for this?

[nine-times]

I think that, most likely, this is a sign that Microsoft is planning to push an Android phone that will come with a lot of the components replaced by Microsoft equivalents.

Re:Is there a user base for this?

[JohnFen]

Except, the huge volume of pee running down the legs of all the 'Web Developer' script kiddies whose cherished scripts would no longer run on everybody elses' computers.

That would be icing on the cake!

Re:Is there a user base for this?

[Gr8Apes]

Just in the past 6 hours it's used 31% of the battery, even though I'm at work and only really used it over lunch. That includes 9% in background even though the option that very clearly says never allowed in background is checked.

You sure you didn't upgrade to iOS 11?

Re:Is there a user base for this?

[tbuddy]

Can't sell phone with the Play Store without Chrome. Selling a phone without Play Services is product suicide.

Re:Is there a user base for this?

[Groo Wanderer]

It must suck to have to use a competing browser on a platform you don't control and can't remove. Forced bundling like that should be illegal, Microsoft should sue!

(Note: If your browser strips HTML 7.4.3c HTML tage, thie above is meant to be sarcastic)

Re:Is there a user base for this?

[Billly Gates]

I would happily use it considering I keep getting Chrome hijacked with short battery life and a hand warmer on Android as it doesn't support extensions to block these. If Edge has extensions like ublock it would be a game changer

Re:Is there a user base for this?

[dicobalt]

No. This is as retarded as Safari for PC.

Re:Is there a user base for this?

[ArmoredDragon]

I have never understood why they don't just bring the whole NoScript functionality into Firefox as built-in functionality.

Because NoScript is retarded. I personally prefer YesScript, Privacy Badger, Adblock Plus, and Self-Destructing Cookies combination, because I don't want to have to fiddle with every god damn website I visit for the first time...it just got so old after a while.

Besides, NoScript is being ported to Firefox 57. FireFox's version of web extensions isn't quite as kneecapped as Chrome's is. I currently run Chrome because FireFox got too slow over time, but after trying a 57 nightly, I already have plans to switch back. Servo also seems quite promising, so I'd expect FireFox to only get way better performance over time.

Edge on WIndows...why?

[grasshoppa]

I don't know anyone who uses Edge on Windows, why would anyone willingly choose to download and install it on a different OS?

Re:Edge on WIndows...why?

[xxxJonBoyxxx]

>> I don't know anyone who uses Edge on Windows

Have any relatives who bought their own Windows laptop or tablet in the past year? You might be surprised...

Re:Edge on WIndows...why?

[grasshoppa]

Yes, I'm the family tech. Most new equipment comes with Chrome.

Re:Edge on WIndows...why?

[c]

Have any relatives who bought their own Windows laptop or tablet in the past year? You might be surprised...

I think you'd find that they don't use Edge, they use "that button, down there".

They count for traffic stats, but for brand building or awareness they're worthless...

Re:Edge on WIndows...why?

[JohnFen]

Have any relatives who bought their own Windows laptop or tablet in the past year? You might be surprised...

I don't know about that. I have a few non-technical friends who bought new Win 10 laptops recently, and among the first things each one of them did was to install Chrome.

Re:Edge on WIndows...why?

[LVSlushdat]

and among the first things each one of them did was to install Chrome.

That's all Edge is good for is as a downloader for Chrome/Vivaldi/Firefox/Opera... After 20 years of using/supporting MS products, I dumped them about 7 years ago when I retired.. Be a SUPER cold day in hell when I put an MS product on my Android phone (or ANYwhere else on my systems)...

Re:Edge on WIndows...why?

[MiniMike]

Have any relatives who bought their own Windows laptop or tablet in the past year? You might be surprised...

Yes, followed by "I want the same internet as on my old one".

I was not surprised.

Re: Edge on WIndows...why?

[UnknowingFool]

Yes because all of that makes up for Edge's terrible compatibility. Where do I sign up so that my browser doesn't work on many websites that are out there that all other browsers seem to handle?

Re:Edge on WIndows...why?

[krisbrowne42]

When starting with Windows 10 (have a device which won't run anything else) I tried edge for several months. It was often faster than Chrome, actually... Except when it froze hard for long periods, which would persist until I rebooted the device, even with nothing else visibly running. back to Chrome as the default browser.

Re:Edge on WIndows...why?

[grasshoppa]

Wow, really? I've had the exact opposite behavior with Edge. It was "stickier" than Chrome ( random, if brief, pauses during page load and scrolling ).

Mind you, it might have had something to do with the ads that chrome didn't load that Edge did. When I tried Edge it didn't have any adblocker worth talking about. Not sure if that's changed since then.

Re:Edge on WIndows...why?

[ChunderDownunder]

There are a couple of nasty rendering bugs that cause lengthy freezes. It could be my old laptop (C2D, intel graphics) where it is expecting hardware acceleration.

Selecting/editing text seems to intermittently make it unresponsive. Ask Cortana makes the screen awkwardly repaint.

Hopefully the Spring creators update fixes these in a couple of weeks.

Re:Edge on WIndows...why?

[youngone]

According to this not that surprised.

Nobody Likes Our Browser?

[hduff]

Nobody likes our browser? Let's make it available for more platforms that we've never really supported. That's the ticket!

Re:Nobody Likes Our Browser?

[FudRucker]

maybe they want even more people to not like their browser

Following the usual M$ procedure

[Fudoka]

The way Micro$oft usually works isn't embrace usually followed by extinguish?

Re:Following the usual M$ procedure

[Merk42]

Microsoft doesn't make software for $PLATFORM:
M$ is evil! Vendor Lock-In!!

Microsoft does make software for $PLATFORM:
M$ is evil! Embrace Extend Extinguish!

Doesn't matter

[DontBeAMoran]

Whatever browser comes out for iOS means it's rendered internally via WebKit.

Re:Doesn't matter

[irrational_design]

Exactly. What's the point of using any other browser in iOS?

Re:Doesn't matter

[negated]

Source: https://arstechnica.com/gadget...

"As is often the case with mobile browsers, the new browsers are Edge in name only. They provide a user interface that looks quite Edge-like, and they sync with your Microsoft Account, but they don't use the Edge rendering engine from the PC. On iOS, the browser wraps the WebKit browser engine from Safari. This is essentially unavoidable on that platform, as Apple's rules preclude the development of third-party browser engines. On Android, where the rules do permit the development of third-party engines, Edge is built on top of Chromium, the open source counterpart to Google's Chrome."

Re:Doesn't matter

[Luthair]

Probably things like bookmark and tab sharing

Re:Doesn't matter

[Gr8Apes]

Probably things like bookmark and tab sharing

Does anyone actually do this? It's a serious question. I can't imagine having my desktop tabs and bookmarks used on a phone. In fact, one of the things I like most about a phone browser is the fact that I get a "light" mobile web page in some instances. In others, the sites are largely useless.

Re:Doesn't matter

[JohnFen]

I do, but in a different way. I don't use the bookmarking system built into any browser. I run a bookmark server myself, so no matter what browser I'm using, or where I'm using it, I always have my bookmarks available.

Re:Doesn't matter

[unique_parrot]

Pardon me to ask, but how? Owncloud?? Is it locally or also OTG?

Re:Doesn't matter

[JohnFen]

I run a webserver (Apache) out of my home, and this is one of the pages. I'm currently using Online Bookmarks http://www.frech.ch/online-boo... for the bookmark server. That works, although it's antiquated. One of my future plans is to write a better one.

Re:Doesn't matter

[Gr8Apes]

This I can understand doing, and I used to do something similar. It's been down a while because that box moved.

Re:Doesn't matter

[dicobalt]

So Microsoft can spy on you instead of Apple?

Re:Doesn't matter

[Billly Gates]

I think you're confusing this with JavaScript. Yes it shares Safari JavaScript but there is no technical reason to not port the HTML and CSS layout code

What did I do?

[FictionPimp]

I'm sorry Microsoft, what did I do to deserve this?

Re:What did I do?

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

O! FictionPimp!! Ye were the Foremost of the Moon Dynasty in thy prior birth.

Ye were the son of Jaya and Malini, the noblest of the Royals who ruled Pancahsheel

When ye were young, you used a needle and tortured a beetle needlessly. That beetle cursed you to be born 77 times and suffer torture in each life. That continues.

Thy shall go to Benares, the fairest of all cities, and pray to Maheshwara on the banks of Ganges, and thy sin will be absolved and you will suffer no more!

Re:What did I do?

[Big Hairy Ian]

I'm sorry Microsoft, what did I do to deserve this?

I don't know but I hope they use lube!

So why does Android need another browser/launcher?

[iamacat]

Nothing wrong with releasing software, but it needs a reason for existence. When Chrome was released for Windows, the point was speed, minimalistic UI and automatic, hassle free updates. Will Edge automatically reformat desktop pages for mobile? Will Microsoft launcher automatically synchronize apps and widgets across devices? If not, they are wasting a lot of time for user base that will not be significant enough for business.

Everything is Safari underneath

[iTrawl]

I'm not up to speed, but isn't every browser on iOS just a wrapper around UIWebView/WKWebView? The only reason for Microsoft to release "Edge" is for exposure.

But... all is not lost. There's an up side as for a user: having several Safaris around to group tabs by interest is actually useful.

Re:Everything is Safari underneath

[CastrTroy]

I'm just wondering whether the Android version will actually be Edge compiled for Android or if it will just be a skin around Chrome / Android WebView.

Re:Everything is Safari underneath

[irrational_design]

Exactly. The name and interface might be Edge, but underneath it's all Safari.

Re:Everything is Safari underneath

[OneHundredAndTen]

The only reason for Microsoft to release "Edge" is for exposure.

It has already been exposed as a criminal organization. With this, it will be exposed as a pathetic criminal organization.

Re:Everything is Safari underneath

[thegarbz]

The only reason for Microsoft to release "Edge" is for exposure.

Not quite. It's about synchronisation too. That's one of the reasons I use Chrome on Android even though it's by all accounts slower than Samsung's own browser from what I can tell, I get my desktop bookmarks and history automatically synchronised.

I can see this push of Edge onto the mobile platforms as a way to promote Edge on Windows with seamless integration, ... assuming they have it... and I sure as hell won't bother testing it.

Re:Everything is Safari underneath

[ChunderDownunder]

The summary should have linked to Microsoft's blog

They mention Blink. So it'll be bug-for-bug compatible with upstream Chromium.

This could be a cross-platform porting strategy for MS: develop a browser skin by embedding Blink and V8. Write a shim around EdgeHTML and ChakraCore to conform to the Chromium embedding API. Gradually replace the non MS code with their own. And as far as JavaScript, they've been working on Node for Chakra already.

Survival and growth

[iampiti]

If they want Edge usage to grow and it ever being popular they had to do this since their mobile OS totally floundered.
I wish they also had hard competition on the desktop, maybe then they would have to reverse course on some of the stupid things they did with Windows 10.

My one question...

[JohnFen]

Why? Are there really people who are going to use it?

Re:My one question...

[Groo Wanderer]

Oh you;ll pay, one way or another.

80% of Zune users

[DrYak]

they expect at least 80% of their current Zune-on-Android and Zune-on-iOS users to switch {...}

What ? At least 4 of them ?

That's some optimism !

Re:80% of Zune users

[Gr8Apes]

At last count, that was 2 of them. Bill and Melinda no longer use those apps.

One good thing

[Groo Wanderer]

One good thing is that Google lists number of downloads for an app. It will be interesting to compare results on a platform where the use of a browser is not forced and it is uninstallable. Once there is a number posted, and after a few months you can subtract out the number of MS employees, you should get an idea of how many hundred people are masochists with no regard for security. I am betting less than 10K.

10,000 Users?

[TechyImmigrant]

A limit of 10,000 users for all the Edge users on Android should be plenty.

Chrome installer?

[amigabill]

Will we have to start using it to install Chrome on those platforms too?

MS Psychology [Re:Nobody Likes Our Browser?]

[Tablizer]

At face value, I agree it looks silly; but knowing MS, it's probably part of some plot to control more on the other platforms. I suspect they plan some kind of tie-in or forced bundling with some other product or service they plan to release. For example, maybe MS-Office for Android/iOS will intentionally run faster or better on Edge. The current Edge releases for portables is probably just a way to get a handful users to beta-test it for them.

Re:MS Psychology [Re:Nobody Likes Our Browser?]

[Tablizer]

I didn't say letting users test is bad, I'm only trying to predict the steps in MS's larger plan based on past behavior.

Re:MS Psychology [Re:Nobody Likes Our Browser?]

[irrational_design]

Except, under the hood every browser on iOS is Safari. That is, every browser must use Safari's rendering and javascript engines. Edge will just be a different interface on top of the same browser. So MS-Office can't run any faster on Edge versus Safari since Edge is Safari (with a different name and interface) on iOS.

Re:MS Psychology [Re:Nobody Likes Our Browser?]

[Tablizer]

Not necessarily. For example, MS could create a language FooScript for their MS-Office iOS app. Edge could have a compiled-in interpreter for FooScript while other browsers have to use a JavaScript emulator to run FooScript. If you run something that uses FooScript in Edge, it uses Edge's compiled-in interpreter, but if you run it in Safari, it runs via a slower/buggier FooScript emulator written in JavaScript because of course Safari would have no built-in FooScript emulator (at least for a few years).

MS has played similar games to with other products.

Re:MS Psychology [Re:Nobody Likes Our Browser?]

[Dixie_Flatline]

Isn't that against the iOS rules? I thought you weren't allowed to have an interpreter of any kind built in.

Re:MS Psychology [Re:Nobody Likes Our Browser?]

[irrational_design]

I wonder about this too. I've heard the same thing, but I use a personal wiki (Trunk Notes which is amazing) that has a Lua scripting engine built into it so that you can script your wiki pages. Is that different than the FooScript mentioned above?

Re:MS Psychology [Re:Nobody Likes Our Browser?]

[Tablizer]

I don't know what Apple allows, but that was merely an example to illustrate a point. There are other computation-intensive features that can follow a similar pattern, such as a 3D graphics rendering system, sound synthesizer, neural net trainer, database/sorting engine, etc.

It doesn't even have to be computation-intensive: it can simply be a feature/tag that Edge supports that Safari doesn't. Being computation-intensive just gives MS a better excuse to get away with it.

Re:MS Psychology [Re:Nobody Likes Our Browser?]

[Dog-Cow]

It's completely impractical. iOS does not allow JIT for 3rd-party apps. There's nothing MS could do to provide a well-performing scripting language.

Re:MS Psychology [Re:Nobody Likes Our Browser?]

[brantondaveperson]

That used to be true, but at some point the rules were significantly relaxed, and now you can get fantastic apps like this one:

Pythonista on the App Store

It's pretty great - you can even get GLSL code into the graphics card. I've no affiliation with it, and it's not free, but it was really worth the money.

if they cant bet em from the outside

[FudRucker]

they will corrupt them and rot them from the inside,

microsoft is going to have to keep and hold a nice long track record of benevolence and goodwill rather than the corporate bullying & greed they have had for the last 20 years before i change my mind about them,

I use Edge on desktop. It's fine.

[xristo]

I use Edge on Win10. I do also have Chrome, Firefox, and Opera installed. With Opera being my fallback browser on the super rare occasion Edge fails me. The only time Edge failed me was actually the website checking for the browser type and just displaying a "not supported" message instead. I wonder if Edge would have done fine or not with that site. On mobile, the articles say that mobile Edge is a wrapper around the native browser SDKs with Microsoft services added. That's fine to me. That means it'll work just as well as Chrome/iOS mobile and as a bonus, I can start reading a site on the mobile and then continuing from where I left on my desktop (or visa versa). One thing to note: Win10 Mobile's Edge running on a Nokia 616 phone (1gb ram and 4 slow cores) runs giga-circles around Chrome on Android 7.1.2 on my Nexus 5x with 2 gbs of RAM and 6(?) cores. Competition is good. It made MS create a good browser. In my opinion a *very* good browser.

Re:I use Edge on desktop. It's fine.

[CastrTroy]

That's one thing I always noticed when I was using Windows Phone. It was fast even on less expensive hardware. My Windows Phone was the Blu Win HD LTE with 1 GB RAM and Snapdragon 410, but even with so little memory it was very responsive. Android could learn a few things from Microsoft in this regard.

Re:Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

Only reason I can think of is that Edge may sync bookmarks between desktop and mobile, and if people like using Edge on their desktop, this may be useful.

Re:Firefox for Android is awful.

[Cajun Hell]

For all its faults, I think Firefox is the best web browser for Android. The Android version of Chrome is so broken, it can't even run the plugins that people need these days (e.g. ublock origin, privacy badger). Seriously, how can you tolerate Chrome (same goes for Pale Moon, for some weird reasons) on Android? (I'll admit the desktop situation is different and it's hard to motivate myself to start Firefox there.) Don't all the ads drive you nuts?!?

Android desperately needs more web browsers. I don't believe Microsoft has what it takes to compete, but maybe seeing them "try" will inspire a more serious developer to really try.

Re:Firefox for Android is awful.

[JohnFen]

No, you're not alone. The last time I tried it, Firefox on Android was essentially unusable. It may have improved since then, I don't know -- I found a different browser that works well enough for me purposes, so never felt the need to try Firefox again.

Nobody uses Edge on Windows

[MobyDisk]

Nobody uses Edge on Windows, so why would anyone use it on Android or IOS? I can back up my claim: I work at a Microsoft shop, and everyone here uses IE (for corporate stuff that doesn't work in Edge, Chrome, or FF) or they use Chrome. Our Microsoft Premier support rep doesn't use Edge. My parents got a new Windows 10 computer, and after complaining about the browser I told them to install Chrome.

Edge has all the problems that Windows 8 had. It is a desktop browser, but it works like a tablet browser. The menus are hard to find and hard to navigate. Things like "favorites" are buried. It's also unresponsive: Try visiting a slow site, then typing a new URL in while the page loads. The browser will lock-up until the slow page loads, then it will either navigate successfully to the new URL, or ignore what you typed in. It's just plain buggy. Which is a shame because it is, technologically, better than IE. It has better support for web standards and is much faster. But if Microsoft employees don't use it, then it won't improve.

Re:Nobody uses Edge on Windows

[Gr8Apes]

it is, technologically, better than IE. It has better support for web standards and is much faster.

Those two sentences are in direct opposition to everything else you said earlier (unresponsive, locks up, buggy) which also explains your initial sentence

Nobody uses Edge on Windows

Re:Nobody uses Edge on Windows

[MobyDisk]

Those sentences are not in opposition to each other. Perhaps you are not a native English speaker? Permit me to explain. I assume your confusion is because of the words "faster" and "unresponsive." "Faster" refers to speed, whereas "unresponsive" refers to latency. Imagine that I click a button, and it gives me the result quickly. But then if I click another button, it takes a long time before it responds to my button press. The first is speed, the second is latency.

In the case of Edge, Edge is faster 1) because it has a newer JavaScript engine, and 2) since it supports newer web features applications don't have to rely on complicated workarounds like polyfills. But Edge is unresponsive and locks-up because it continues rendering a page even after the user has clicked stop or navigated to another page. So it is rendering the wrong thing, but it is rendering it very quickly. :-)

Hahahhaha Ha Ha Ha Haaahahahahahaah!

[mindwhip]

Hahahhaha Ha Ha Ha Haaahahahahahaah! Hahahhaha Ha Ha Ha Haaahahahahahaah!
Why?
Hahahhaha Ha Ha Ha Haaahahahahahaah! Hahahhaha Ha Ha Ha Haaahahahahahaah! Hahahhaha Ha Ha Ha Haaahahahahahaah!
Really why?
Hahahhaha Ha Ha Ha Haaahahahahahaah!
I guess someone had some spare budget for programmers and they had to give them something to do for busywork...

Re:Hahahhaha Ha Ha Ha Haaahahahahahaah!

[CanadianMacFan]

They couldn't even get the people on the Microsoft campus to use their phones so now they are trying to get them to at least use their browser on the competitors phones.

No thank you.

[Blinkin1200]

No thank you. My primary browser is Ghostery. Other browsers that get occasional use on my phone are Dolphin, Chrome. My android tablet has those and also has Firefox, Chrome Beta, Opera, and Samsungs Internet browser.

I have enough browsers. Never used Edge, never want to.

Re:So why does Android need another browser/launch

[Cajun Hell]

Sometimes I think I'm on a different planet than everyone else. You think your subject line is a rhetorical question with no answer, and I think it's easy to answer (but no, I don't think Microsoft is able to address the situation).

So why does Android need another browser/launcher? Because the existing ones are lameass! They are ad-company-centric instead of user-centric. Firefox is the only one of 'em that blocks bullshit worth a damn, and we don't even know how long that one will be around and after every update it seems like a lose an extension or two.

Android users need a good browser, because they don't have one yet.

And if you think this is a not-so-veiled cry for help ("hey, anyone heard of a good web browser for Android?") I'll totally admit that, but I'm pretty sure mine is the true rhetorical question. I've tried many. They suck.

Re:So why does Android need another browser/launch

[iamacat]

So why do you think users installed it when they already had IE? Back in the day unified address/search bar was new and handy for one thing.

Re:So why does Android need another browser/launch

[iamacat]

Hmm, nothing to your liking here?? Supporting small developers is the way to get things fixed.

Would be nice if Android was first.

[edgedmurasame]

If they want Android adoption, put it first.

Re:So why does Android need another browser/launch

[tbuddy]

Because it was better than Firefox. Being less awful isn't a big accomplishment. Opera used to be my go to back in the day since it ran on Windows, Mac, and Linux well and Seamonkey was pretty much awful.

Can this even go anywhere in IOS land?

[DarkOx]

I have not looked into it recently but for loooong time Apple would not allow anything in the app store that rendered web pages with something other than their own APIs.

So you could install another browser but it was essentially just a different UI on IOS-Webkit. Has something changed?

Is Apple going to allow Microsoft to actually release this in the app store, or is this really just and "Edge UI" wrapped around the native web view APIs?

Re:Firefox for Android is awful.

[JohnFen]

Seriously, how can you tolerate Chrome (same goes for Pale Moon, for some weird reasons) on Android?

I have a hard time tolerating Chrome on the desktop, let alone on a phone.

But there are a number of browsers for Android outside of the Firefox, and Chrome. There's certainly room for improvement -- none of the ones I've tried are exactly wonderful -- but I did manage to find one that's adequate for my needs (Boat). I don't use my phone much for the web, though, so my needs are pretty basic.

For English users in the US?

[OneHundredAndTen]

So, Americans in the US won't have access to it?

Edge on iOS?

[jonwil]

Why would you want a Microsoft skin around the Safari browser widget rather than an Apple or Google or Firefox skin?
What will Edge give you that the others dont when they are all using the same browser engine?

Re:Why?

[RDW]

I don't see anyone rushing out to use a browser on Android that nobody want to use on the desktop

Well, I use Opera on Android, and nowhere else. But only because it does text reflow on zoom.