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Microsoft Is Embracing Chromium, Bringing Edge To Windows 7, Windows 8, and Mac

An anonymous reader writes: Microsoft today embraced Google's Chromium open source project for Edge development on the desktop. The company also announced Edge is coming to all supported versions of Windows and to macOS. Microsoft wants to make some big changes, which it says will happen "over the next year or so." The first preview builds of the Chromium-powered Edge will arrive in early 2019, according to Microsoft.

And yes, this means Chrome extension support.

21 of 139 comments (clear)

  1. Re:A chromium based browser to download a chromium by Oswald+McWeany · · Score: 2

    ...based browser? So it will download Chrome even faster or/and it will periodically set itself as the default browser?

    I think they're hoping "why would anyone download Chrome if they have the same thing in different colour paper with our product?"

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  2. Adblocking by 110010001000 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The #1 feature I want on a web browser is adblocking.

    1. Re:Adblocking by qbast · · Score: 3, Informative

      You are an idiot. Install ublock origin on chrome, open devtools (network tab), load some page and see how many network requests do not get executed (they fail immediately with net::ERR_BLOCKED_BY_CLIENT error).

  3. Re:Standards Compliant Finally by squiggleslash · · Score: 2

    This is an official announcement, the previous story was a (well sourced presumably) rumor.

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  4. Slowing innovation?? by RyanRife8866 · · Score: 2

    Will this not just slow innovation? Now there will basically be one browser that is run by a single committee that filter & block new features as they see fit. Back in the days of IE vs Netscape at least MS was doing whatever they hell they wanted trying to be innovative and trying lots of new features (for better or worst). Seems like the whole tech industry is trying to force everyone to adhere to the "standard" and that will eventually kill competition and innovation.

  5. Re:Standards Compliant Finally by Actually,+I+do+RTFA · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Please. IE6 broke every standard it could (although IE5.5, for macs, was remarkably compliant.) They started adhering to more standards as it went through 7, 8 and 9 (the most standard uncompliant thing in 9 was websites could include tags that said "render this like you were IE6, 7 or 8") By 11 I'm not aware of any issues, and Edge was designed to the specification. I recall MS would proudly pointing to stupid edge cases it didn't comply, show how no one did, and explain why complying would cause major issues.

    Meanwhile, Chrome has been becoming more and more like IE6, inventing new optional add-ons, and doing its own EEE to the free webstandards. Meanwhile, Google has been downranking pages that don't use their EEE "features" to force websites to integrate them. It's at least as evil as MS wanting to own the browser on PCs, because at least then it just would render the page slightly off if you didn't buy into the monopolist's browser. Now, you (essentially) don't exist, cause you're on page 103 of the search results.

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  6. Re: Oh, goody. by ScienceofSpock · · Score: 2

    What do you think Safari is based on?

  7. What about Windows XP by jfdavis668 · · Score: 4, Funny

    Don't leave out all those users with pirated copies of XP.

  8. Re:Standards Compliant Finally by 93+Escort+Wagon · · Score: 5, Insightful

    It's about time Microsoft had a standards-compliant browser so we don't have to have two sets of code; one for Microsoft, and one for everyone else.

    Well, there are a couple issues I can see.

    1) Monocultures are generally a bad idea, and this is moving us further down the road towards a web monoculture. I'd rather Microsoft work harder to implement standards compliance in their existing rendering engine.

    2) Google seems to be doing the same thing Microsoft did 10-15 years ago - trying to push people into adopt Chrome-optimized web sites and Google-specific coding. I hated it when Microsoft did it, and I hate it now.

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  9. Re: Oh, goody. by squiggleslash · · Score: 5, Informative

    KDE Konqueror.

    KHTML (Konqueror) was first. Apple forked that to make Webkit. Google initially used Webkit and then forked Webkit to make Blink.

    Blink powers Chrome/Chromium, Opera, and the future versions of Edge. It's based upon Webkit.

    Webkit powers Safari. It's based on KHTML.

    KHTML powers Konqueror. It's something the KDE team hacked together from chewing gum, old razor blades, and discarded coffee grinds.

    Discarded coffee grinds powers Mr Coffee. They're based on coffee beans.

    You see where this is going.

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  10. Re: Oh, goody. by doconnor · · Score: 2

    Mr. Fusion?

  11. Re: Oh, goody. by ScienceofSpock · · Score: 2

    WOW. Can't believe I brain-farted that bad. I must need more coffee

  12. So bye bye Mosaic by squiggleslash · · Score: 2

    While it wasn't the original web browser, Mosaic was probably the web browser that did the most to popularize the web, with Netscape - which was a ground up rewrite by some of the original Mosaic team - taking that and pushing it even further forward.

    In the early nineties, Spyglass licensed Mosaic, and implemented a much modified version called Spyglass Mosaic.

    In 1994, Microsoft licensed Spyglass Mosaic, and the first version of IE was essentially a reskinned Spyglass Mosaic.

    Since then, the code has been built upon multiple times. So IE11 still has some traces of Mosaic in it. Edge is a fork of IE11, so it's fair to assume that trace elements of Mosaic are in there too.

    This is basically the end of that chapter of history. Chromium is based upon KHTML. Firefox never had any links beyond shared developers with Mosaic, both Netscape 1-4, and Netscape 6, were complete ground up rewrites.

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    1. Re:So bye bye Mosaic by squiggleslash · · Score: 2

      No, while they made it sound like it was, Edge started off with a fork of the IE11/Trident codebase which then underwent heavy refactoring, with a lot of removal of legacy code and rewrites to support modern standards. More information here.

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  13. Re:A chromium based browser to download a chromium by viperidaenz · · Score: 2

    Because Microsoft will support it. Ticking the "Vendor support agreement" box is a requirement for a PHB signoff

  14. Re:A chromium based browser to download a chromium by Rob+Y. · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Nice try. But, now that they've announced versions for Windows 7 and Mac, it's pretty obvious that, in addition to not wanting to spend development resources on a redundant browser engine, they're real goal is to get Edge telemetry onto non Windows 10 boxes. So if you want to get rid of spyware, you're gonna have to use vanilla Chromium.

    I guess if desktop Linux were a factor, they'd be 'porting' it there too - but (much as they 'love' Linux these days) they're still not fond of the idea of desktop Linux as a viable competitor to Windows.

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  15. SO: Microsoft is pushing Edge over the ... by grep+-v+'.*'+* · · Score: 4, Funny

    ... Edge?

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  16. For the sake of browser diversity by xack · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Microsoft needs to release the old edge source and keep it going as a back up in case Chromium goes evil. Plus we need to get Firefox to be a good browser again wih XUL support for extentsion diversity.

  17. Re:A chromium based browser to download a chromium by Luckyo · · Score: 2

    Are you aware that Win10 telemetry was pushed on win7 via updates something like a year ago? It makes no sense to fuck themselves over as anyone who doesn't care about telemetry already has it installed.

  18. SPDY is HTTP/2 by tepples · · Score: 2

    remember Chrome implements a bunch of standards like SPDY (Google-only extension)

    I thought SPDY had been standardized as HTTP/2. Do you refer to old draft versions of the protocol that should have been phased out by now?

    and enforcing https on .dev

    The owner of any top-level domain can set HSTS preload guidelines for that domain.

    except what if I'm not on the public internet?

    Use an explicitly reserved TLD, not a TLD that someone else owns. For multicast DNS, use .local; for static allocation on a private DNS server, use .internal.

  19. Re:Oh, goody. by Gavagai80 · · Score: 2

    The problem with IE/Trident was that it was closed source -- and worse, Windows-only. Blink is easily forked if Google does anything bad with it, as proved by KTML being forked into Webkit being forked into Blink.

    The great thing about Microsoft switching Edge to Chromium is that web developers no longer need to keep a copy of Windows around to check.

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