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Microsoft is Building a Chromium-powered Web Browser That Will Replace Edge on Windows 10: Report (windowscentral.com)

Microsoft is throwing in the towel with Edge and is building a new web browser for Windows 10, this time powered by Chromium, news blog Windows Central reported Monday. From the report: Microsoft's Edge web browser has seen little success since its debut on Windows 10 back in 2015. Built from the ground up with a new rendering engine known as EdgeHTML, Microsoft Edge was designed to be fast, lightweight, and secure, but launched with a plethora of issues which resulted in users rejecting it early on. Edge has since struggled to gain any traction, thanks to its continued instability and lack of mindshare, from users and web developers.

Because of this, I'm told that Microsoft is throwing in the towel with EdgeHTML and is instead building a new web browser powered by Chromium, a rendering engine first popularized by Google's Chrome browser. Codenamed Anaheim, this new web browser for Windows 10 will replace Edge as the default browser on the platform. It's unknown at this time if Anaheim will use the Edge brand or a new brand, or if the user interface between Edge and Anaheim is different. One thing is for sure, however; EdgeHTML in Windows 10's default browser is dead.

10 of 377 comments (clear)

  1. Windows will run on a Linux kernel too by Eravnrekaree · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Next thing they will be replacing the Windows kernel with the Linux kernel with a Win32 compatibility layer for running Windows apps on Linux, and a driver compatibility layer for existing Windows drivers. I'm not kidding. Mark my words. It will happen. Will also include even moving the Windows GUI over to Microsoft's own Wayland server. The UI look and feel will be maintaining but the underlying architecture replaced with wayland with a compatability layer for Win32 apps.

    Microsoft is a cloud company, the Windows kernel really is just an added expense that it wants to shed so will move Windows over to a Linux kernel, seamlessly, due to the compatibility layer, windows apps and drivers will run fine. They can thus share development costs with other users of Linux.

    This is exactly whats happening with Edge as well. Overall, its a pretty good thing, actually.

    1. Re:Windows will run on a Linux kernel too by Arzaboa · · Score: 3, Interesting

      It seemed like they have wanted to get rid of the kernel since at least the days they were sued from inter-coding IE and windows. Will be interesting to see the timeline.

      --
      The Internet is becoming the town square for the global village of tomorrow -- Bill Gates

    2. Re:Windows will run on a Linux kernel too by Gravis+Zero · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Fuck that. DirectX should just die. If you want to play "older" DX based games then there is always WINE and the Vulkan implementation of D3D11/D3D10.

      --
      Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
    3. Re:Windows will run on a Linux kernel too by rwbaskette · · Score: 5, Interesting

      The groundwork for doing this is already there.

      SQL Server 2017 for Linux required the creation of a PAL (platform abstraction layer) that allows essential kernel function for SQL Server to run.

      It's really interesting stuff.

      Add a dash of gdi borrowed from wine and you might have something.

      "SQL Server on Linux: How? Introduction":
      https://cloudblogs.microsoft.c...

    4. Re:Windows will run on a Linux kernel too by phantomfive · · Score: 4, Interesting

      No one was claiming that at the time of XP: they were saying Linux would replace Windows, that is, users would switch. This would be Microsoft abandoning their kernel.

      A compatibility layer on top of a Linux kernel? The only reason I have trouble seeing it happening is because the compatibility layer would take more effort than just keeping the Windows kernel around.

      --
      "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
    5. Re:Windows will run on a Linux kernel too by gweihir · · Score: 1, Interesting

      That is nonsense. Take any old Unix code and you can compile and run it on Linux. You probably are thinking about binary compatibility though. That is a problem on your side.

      --
      Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
  2. Re:Time to move fro IE to Edge by ArhcAngel · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Heh, If that were actually the reason corporations still use IE. Try hundreds of thousands of corporate apps/intranet web sites dependent on ActiveX. Microsoft abandoned their JAVA competitor but aint no CIO that wants to foot the bill to retool all of those corporate web apps to something else as long as IE 11 still works on Windows 10.

    --
    "A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it." - K
  3. Hope can be bitter by ancientt · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Microsoft could really change some minds and win some hearts. They've done a lot of good things, and Satya Nadella has done a lot to win me over. I wanted to love Edge, and I've tried over and over, but never succeeded. If Microsoft is really willing to change their course, this could be a huge step in winning me, and people like me back.

    Unfortunately I can't forget the past. Twenty years of pain and suffering from their decisions has made me reluctant to trust them. I can't help but remember all the things they've done to abuse their customers. I was a Linux at home guy for decades thanks to Microsoft failing to provide a system I could really make do what I wanted or needed. I've been on Windows 10 at home for nearly a year now and thanks to WSL and Chrome, I almost don't miss it. Give me bash and Chrome and they're getting close. An abused dog takes a long time to learn to trust. We've all been the abused dog by Microsoft, we want to love and hope, we want to believe. This time, we hope it will be different, but we don't trust easily.

    --
    B) Eliminate all the stupid users. This is frowned upon by society.
  4. Re:Really? That won't help. by AmiMoJo · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Which browser does AC trust?

    Firefox - slyly installs binary plugins without consent, keeps adding new bullshit like Pocket

    Chrome - allegedly spies on you

    Vivaldi - has the same telemetry as Chrome (unique ID, IP address, some system info), malware protection

    Opera - Chinese owned, same spying as Chrome

    Safari - bundles more Apple crapware, UI is janky on Windows, Apple spies on you the same as Google does

    Edge - Microsoft spyware

    Maybe IE6 wasn't so bad...

    --
    const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
    SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
  5. Re:Won the war failed the objectives. by im_thatoneguy · · Score: 4, Interesting

    You missed a third thing:

    Netscape sucked. A lot. Everybody talks about 'standards' but Netscape was as guilty of being non-standards based as IE at the time. In fact a lot of the DHTML stuff that IE pioneered ended up forming the basis of quite a few technologies.

    Also I'm just going to point out that CSS Box mode from IE is making a large resurgence because it was always arguably the more sane model.

    IE vs Firefox or Opera was a completely different landscape than IE vs Netscape. IE vs Netscape was two incredibly proprietary non-standard browsers competing in the wild west. I switched to IE not because it was bundled but because I was so fed up with Netscape's poor technology.

    Once it died and was resurrected as firefox while Microsoft abandoned IE development, Firefox started offering compelling technological advantages to switch but at the time Netscape was bad. That's what I think most people forget. They remember the Firefox vs IE days and just back project their memories of Firefox onto Netscape when that was far from the case.