Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Microsoft's Chromium-Based Edge Browser Looks Just Like Chrome (neowin.net)

Posted by BeauHD on from the spot-the-differences dept.

Last December, Microsoft announced that it has embraced Google's Chromium open source project for Edge development on the desktop, a move that shocked many. We now have some leaked screenshots of the browser in its current state, and they appear to show a browser resembling Google Chrome. Neowin reports: A lot of the design language and icons have remained similar to what they were like before, but there are definitely many changes that will be familiar to Chrome users. For one, the options to see all your tabs and to set aside the currently open tabs have been removed compared to the current version of Edge. To the right of the address bar, you'll be able to find your extensions, as well as your profile picture similar to what Chrome looks like. Bing is integrated into the browser -- as you'd expect of a Microsoft-made browser -- and the New Tab background can be set to rotate based on Bing's image of the day. Scrolling down will reveal a personalized news feed powered by Microsoft News, similar to the old Edge. The layout of the feed can be customised based on your preference from among a number of options.

The settings options for the browser have also changed. While Edge settings are currently available via a slide-out menu from the right, the new Edge's settings are accessible through a new tab similar to Chrome. It'll show the Microsoft account you're logged into, as well as the usual array of toggles and tidbits you'd expect. Ominously, the about page for the browser now acknowledges the contributions of the Chromium project, as well as other open source software, a stark reminder that this isn't the Microsoft of yesteryear. This is a new browser, and a new Microsoft.

128 comments

  1. Chrom-i-edge-i-um by nwaack · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Maybe MS is going for the "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em" tactic here. Personally, if I were the execs at MS I would've wanted to team up with Firefox to try to take down the giant rather than pretend to be just like the giant.

    1. Re: Chrom-i-edge-i-um by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Microsoft teaming with firefox would be the decisive death of firefox for more reasons than one.

    2. Re:Chrom-i-edge-i-um by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      EEE

    3. Re: Chrom-i-edge-i-um by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yes, yes it does. When do we get edge back exactly? Never? Should we hold our breath or Firefox and opera all that's left in the world?

    4. Re:Chrom-i-edge-i-um by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "*cough* *cough* a failure! " - From a Huawei defender who pretends stealing IP and violating sanctions laws and then walking into Canada is all braniac-level Chi-Com planning... go buy a propaganda outfit, cut out the middle-kingdom.

      Firefox is not your chosen monopoly, GFY.

    5. Re:Chrom-i-edge-i-um by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Let someone here help me out by advising folks at OpenOffice/LibreOffice, that an unfamiliar interface [of their product] as compered to a popular product (MS Office), does them no favors.

      The menu-based interface of LO/OOo is a hell of a lot more familiar and useful than the crap-fest that is the MS Office ribbon.

    6. Re:Chrom-i-edge-i-um by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Libre wins vs office on loading time, on bloat, on... telemetry! I mean come the fuck on. Boga is a NUTBAR. Bogaboga - pay me $10 a month not to kick your dumb ass, please. (let's see.)

    7. Re: Chrom-i-edge-i-um by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      I find this highly relevant to the Microsoft experience.

    8. Re:Chrom-i-edge-i-um by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Well, they really aren't "joining 'em" so much as they're taking the Chromium open source project, making Microsoft's properties the defaults in the browser (Bing, Outlook, etc) and then making it the new standard browser in Windows. I know the first thing I usually do is replace Edge with Chrome. But if Microsoft has their own Chromium-based browser, I'll be less inclined to do so. Well, I still will for myself since I'm heavily invested in Google's tools. But for family members and such, I'll just leave Microsoft's browser as the default.

    9. Re:Chrom-i-edge-i-um by geek · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Firefox is notoriously difficult to use for this purpose. It's why you never see it done outside of just rebranding it entirely like Waterfox and Ice Weasel.

      Mozilla has rested stubbornly on their laurels for 20 years. Turning that ship around and making changes will be hard. The other part of this though is that people do not see Google going away any time soon. Using their engine is a safe bet. Mozilla could be dead in a year based on market share, declining interest and a general perception of being last centuries tech. Right or wrong thats how it is.

      Also, I have heard and can't prove that Google is incentivizing companies/orgs to use Chrome. I would not doubt if there wa smoney changing hands here.

    10. Re:Chrom-i-edge-i-um by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Neither of these are actually web browsers. They are adverting monetizers that happen to also show some some content that's the advertiser doesn't have to pay for. That is what they were designed to do and the only thing they do well. They are meant to server their masters needs not their users.

    11. Re:Chrom-i-edge-i-um by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It is the year of Linux On Windows.

    12. Re:Chrom-i-edge-i-um by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      the creators of bob, windows me, internet explorer, and windows 10 love failures. they have birthed more than any other tech company. they love failure. maybe their embracing google's chrome / chromium will finally be the downfall for both.

    13. Re: Chrom-i-edge-i-um by mSparks43 · · Score: 2

      the fact that its news here that when you clone a source folder, the ui looks just like the build of the folder you cloned is somewhat depressing.

    14. Re:Chrom-i-edge-i-um by serviscope_minor · · Score: 3, Informative

      Mozilla has rested stubbornly on their laurels for 20 years.

      And by stubbonly resting on their laurels you mean creating an entirely new language and surrounding ecosystem for the sole purpose of being able to write a stable multithreaded browser engine.

      Something which no one else managed.

      That's pretty much the polar opposite of resting.

      --
      SJW n. One who posts facts.
    15. Re:Chrom-i-edge-i-um by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Gecko is very difficult to embed as an engine, while Webkit/Blink are rather easy and have more marketshare. MS's choice was obvious.

    16. Re:Chrom-i-edge-i-um by AmiMoJo · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Mozilla has rested stubbornly on their laurels for 20 years.

      You didn't notice that they replaced the entire add-on ecosystem, replaced the JS engine and ripped out tonnes of legacy code? Strange because a lot of people on Slashdot were complaining about it.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
    17. Re: Chrom-i-edge-i-um by cyber-vandal · · Score: 1

      IE is a huge success. It's one of the reasons that migrating away from Windows is harder than it needs to be. Windows 10 hasn't failed either. Win7 has just over a year left of support so many orgs have already moved or are going to.

    18. Re: Chrom-i-edge-i-um by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Shocking!!! /s

    19. Re:Chrom-i-edge-i-um by squiggleslash · · Score: 1

      Firefox is notoriously difficult to use for this purpose.

      No, it *was* notoriously difficult to use the technologies that underpin Firefox, although not impossible - Galeon, and early versions of its fork Epiphany (both at one time default GNOME Browsers), used Gecko for example, as did (does? Haven't used OS X in a while) the Mac OS X Browser Camino.

      Firefox has more or less undergone a complete rewrite since people started migrating from Gecko, which they were using, to other platforms. So it's hard for me to take seriously a statement that the suite of technologies Firefox uses are "notorious" for anything based upon technical decisions third parties made years ago.

      --
      You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
    20. Re: Chrom-i-edge-i-um by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I agree that Firefox needs to keep Microsoft far away.

    21. Re: Chrom-i-edge-i-um by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Windows 7 has less than a year. January 14, 2020.

    22. Re:Chrom-i-edge-i-um by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I didn't find either Gecko or Webkit to be easy to embed as an engine. Most of the projects that attempted to produce such a control were quickly abandoned and neither browser maintained a stable enough interface to venture out more than a version or two from anything that managed to work. Meanwhile, the IE control bundled with .NET 2.0 drops right onto the form and works on every version from 6 to 11. Pretty typical of open source hipsterism I'm afraid and it's sad to see Microsoft going down that path.

    23. Re:Chrom-i-edge-i-um by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Dude the US has put illegal unilateral sanctions against Iran to "punish" them for the crime of sticking to their word regarding the nuclear agreement. This is ridiculous in itself but then you might reminder Canada and US are different countries, on paper. Iran and Hezbollah along with Russia and Syria won the war against the terrorists and this is how you're thanking them. Duh.

    24. Re:Chrom-i-edge-i-um by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The "failure" that is Firefox only has 5% users but this means about 100 millions users. It's possible although I have no idea that absolute number of users is increasing. It may be not good enough but I want to believe!

      I propose Firefox may have its own "app store" on Android just meant for downloading and updating Firefox and Firefox Focus or whatever else they're doing. (I believe Fortnite has set a precedent? Although, there's an obvious liability and a broader danger in multiplying little updaters.).
      The set of Android users is bigger than the set of Android users who have a google account and use Google Play actually.

    25. Re:Chrom-i-edge-i-um by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Browsers or software using gecko have all but disappeared since Mozilla followed the rolling release cadence with Firefox 4.0 and up.
      Some may have carried on but are stuck with Firefox 52 or 56 like Seamonkey. So I believe we are really stuck on this front until/unless Servo rendering engine gets adopted which bills itself as an embeddable engine. This would be the real rewrite not just "Gecko with Quantum" even though the latter is a good browser and got components and stuff from the former.

      Correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm reading it this way.
      You might more easily find software on your linux distro that uses "mozjs" i.e. javascript execution engine from Firefox ESR version (so there's mozjs38, mozjs45, mozjs52...)

    26. Re: Chrom-i-edge-i-um by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      From those screenshots it's obvious that they've changed various menus. If not the main user interface. Also, the point of them moving to Chrome is to standardize. It makes sense you'd also standardize the same user interface. Why make it confusing and different? Just so they can act like they did something new? Everyone knows it isn't new. They're basically installing Chrome by default. I guess what people are wondering is why they don't just do *that* instead of wasting time rebranding it as Edge.

    27. Re:Chrom-i-edge-i-um by geek · · Score: 1

      Mozilla has rested stubbornly on their laurels for 20 years.

      You didn't notice that they replaced the entire add-on ecosystem, replaced the JS engine and ripped out tonnes of legacy code? Strange because a lot of people on Slashdot were complaining about it.

      No they just took Chromes extension ecosystem with a handful of very small modifications. They rested on their laurels.

    28. Re:Chrom-i-edge-i-um by geek · · Score: 1

      Mozilla has rested stubbornly on their laurels for 20 years.

      And by stubbonly resting on their laurels you mean creating an entirely new language and surrounding ecosystem for the sole purpose of being able to write a stable multithreaded browser engine.

      Something which no one else managed.

      That's pretty much the polar opposite of resting.

      No one cares that they wrote a new language. It's completely irrelevant to the choice someone would make to using it. 99.9999% of the people have no fucking clue what the language is, what it does, or why it matters. It was also pointless on Mozillas part. Google didn't need to do it and they are eating their lunch. Maybe if they had just fixed their shit to begin with and not wasted all that time making a new language their browser wouldn't suck?

    29. Re: Chrom-i-edge-i-um by mSparks43 · · Score: 1

      Presumably because chrome is otherwise a spyware infested shit show they don't want to be associated with.

    30. Re:Chrom-i-edge-i-um by Waccoon · · Score: 1

      Are you kidding? Firefox had severe memory management problems for well over 10 years, resulting in chronic freezes and pauses every few seconds. They spend hardly any time trying to fix that and kept redesigning the UI many times over, despite users balking about useless cosmetics and "brand experience."

      Mozilla only ramped up efforts when market share severely tanked.

    31. Re:Chrom-i-edge-i-um by serviscope_minor · · Score: 1

      No one cares that they wrote a new language.

      People want a faster browser. That's something they care about. Firefox these days is more responsive on modern machines because it makes better use of multiple cores. That's all down to the new language. People don't care directly, but they certainly care about the implications.

      It was also pointless on Mozillas part. Google didn't need to do it and they are eating their lunch.

      Ah yes, Mozilla should have spent their money on becoming the world's largest adversiser so they could use some sweet mononpoly abuse in order to get dominance in the browser market.

      their browser wouldn't suck?

      That series of ads google ran on their home page about Chrome being faster. They really stuck with you it seems.

      --
      SJW n. One who posts facts.
  2. One less browser to test against by 93+Escort+Wagon · · Score: 4, Funny

    So now, if someone complains that a site doesn't work in Edge, we can just check it in Chrome. And if it works in Chrome, we can tell the user "file a bug with Microsoft, they didn't copy Chrome correctly".

    --
    #DeleteChrome
    1. Re:One less browser to test against by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

      One fewer browser to test against...

      Yes. Now instead of testing against Firefox and Chrome, we only need to test against Firefox and Chrome. Much simpler!

    2. Re: One less browser to test against by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You're saying it always works in Safari?

    3. Re: One less browser to test against by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      whats trekking through Africa got to do with web browsers?

    4. Re: One less browser to test against by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You're saying it always works in Safari?

      I think he was saying it probably never worked in Safari.

    5. Re: One less browser to test against by Cmdln+Daco · · Score: 1

      When did Apple rename Cyberdog?

      Does the dog wear a pith helmet?

  3. Come on, squared tabs, its totally different! by sasparillascott · · Score: 1

    These are squared off tabs, not rounded....courage! /s

    1. Re: Come on, squared tabs, its totally different! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I want my tabs triangulated.

    2. Re: Come on, squared tabs, its totally different! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      With Microsoft, count on it. "Clippy would like to know your location/age/sex"

    3. Re: Come on, squared tabs, its totally different! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Oh are we still stuck on that long dead feature? I'm so sorry you don't like the tabs. I promise I won't lose a minute of sleep over your need for triangles. There are therapists one can talk to about these problems.

    4. Re:Come on, squared tabs, its totally different! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Courage? Just really poor design is all.

    5. Re: Come on, squared tabs, its totally different! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      rumour has it clippy was found raping apk in an Americunt jail.

  4. Wrong giant I think... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

    The GIANT was Microsoft. They had a 20+ year lead! They blew it. Over. And Over. And IE7-11... It's beyond even posting a link about for chrissake. Google came in, saw barely-eaten lunch, and the rest is monopoly-for-a-reason-instead.

    As much as Google is xyz_bad_thing, Microsoft has been xyz_bad_thing for 20 years, in every single direction including search monetization. Google is simply not as completely incompetent in every single thing they have attempted.

    Horse-race won, windows 10 by a lap.

    Frankly IMO it's amazing Mozilla is still halfway competitive, I don't like a lot of the pocket'ing dumb moves, the NPAPI environment switching does-and-does-not help the environment,
    but from a grand view it's Firefox I trust as a brand least likely of the three to try to steal my data and market it back to me unwillingly. On that basis Mozilla gets my support dollars.

    When I use chrome, I cripple the fuck out of it so it's as slow as Firefox anyway.

    1. Re:Wrong giant I think... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      about:config
      extensions.pocket.enabled = false

      Pretty much every complaint I've ever heard about Firefox can be fixed in about:config.

    2. Re:Wrong giant I think... by MerlinAldous · · Score: 0

      Aye, that be true. Just leaving this here: https://coincircle.com/l/fLS02...

    3. Re:Wrong giant I think... by Cmdln+Daco · · Score: 1

      I typed about:config into Chrome and it threw an error screen back at me.

    4. Re:Wrong giant I think... by Rhipf · · Score: 1

      Would Chrome be used by as many people as it is if it wasn't side loaded with so many other programs?

      I really don't know but it would be an interesting study I think.

      People complained about Microsoft bundling IE with Windows but I don't remember Google getting much flack for side loading Chrome (there was some but not really that much).

    5. Re:Wrong giant I think... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      One dumb issue : they're introducing some whatever feature with a shield icon that goes somewhere in or near the URL bar. Pocket icon looks not unlike a shield

    6. Re:Wrong giant I think... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I think Yes.

      The main reason people use Chrome is because stock IE just sucks. It not only crashes, but IE (and Apple and Safari) all try to play this game where they create non-standard language code. Building websites is a chore because you have to test and encompass each of these codes for your site to work properly. Sometimes a browser just can't do what others can and features have to be omitted.

      That said, Firefox is the leader (in my opinion) on maintaining these standards. Chrome is a close second.

      The upper hand with Chrome is their syncing capability with their mobile counterparts with Android and iOS (because we all know Apple Safari sucks). Chrome is just the next logical choice. Firefox was extremely late to the mobile browser game where Chrome already dominated with it's inclusion of Chrome in Android.

      For me, Firefox was my choice browser and I still keep several version installed for testing, but my go to is Chrome. This change occurred when Firefox broke at some point. It was a one off issues that made me temporarily have to use Chrome and I loved it and never went back. I'm sure this is how most people end up on Chrome, plus most people use Google. If you google browsers, Chrome will always be the top choice.

    7. Re:Wrong giant I think... by exomondo · · Score: 1

      People complained about Microsoft bundling IE with Windows but I don't remember Google getting much flack for side loading Chrome (there was some but not really that much).

      It wasn't a very good decision at the time, the 'browser ballot' was a mess and the result would have just been that people would have had to acquire a browser separately to install on their system even if that browser wasn't their browser of choice they would need it just to download their browser of choice. Netscape didn't lose because Microsoft bundled IE, they lost because Navigator wasn't a better browser (it wasn't necessarily worse though) so even though people had the choice they used IE. This was proven in the mid 2000s when the joke was always that IE was just there to download Chrome and that was fine, because Chrome was a better browser.

      At least with Windows/IE you can install any browser you want, if you look at iPhones and iPads (iPads completely dominating the tablet market) not only do they ship with Apple's browser but you can't change it and use a different one, even Chrome and Firefox for iOS are just a UI over the underlying Safari.

  5. Embrace Extend by Revek · · Score: 0

    One more time, "Embrace Extend"

    1. Re:Embrace Extend by beheaderaswp · · Score: 1, Insightful

      One more time, "Embrace Extend"

      .....Extinguish.....

      --
      Another consultant who stuck it out.

      "We are the Priests, of the Temples of Syrinx..."
    2. Re:Embrace Extend by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      One more time, "Embrace Extend"

      Right...and that would work here how exactly? They would extend it with what exactly? Some non-standard thing so compelling that web developers would be willing to eschew all non-Windows users?

      Perhaps you haven't noticed but Microsoft does not monopolize personal computing, far from it in fact. They have no power to dictate the web.

    3. Re:Embrace Extend by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If only this were the last time but I highly doubt idiots like you will stop posting this nonsense in every story about Microsoft despite the fact it never ever actually happens nor do you have any idea what it means in this context or any idea what you think it even might mean. I am curious though: What made you post that? Is it just that you read it and thought "oh yeah people will mod me up" so you parroted it or do you actually have a theory?

    4. Re:Embrace Extend by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You dopes in Silicon Valley have no idea how the rest of the world uses computers. The only thing that's eaten into Microsoft's stranglehold on the desktop has been the rise of disposable Android phones and iPhones/iPads.

    5. Re:Embrace Extend by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The only thing that's eaten into Microsoft's stranglehold on the desktop has been the rise of disposable Android phones and iPhones/iPads.

      Yes, Android phones, iPhones, iPads and Chromebooks so designing websites or web applications only for Windows would be stupid at this point.

    6. Re: Embrace Extend by Maelwryth · · Score: 1

      If MS controlled Chromium works there is no reason to download Google controlled Chromium placing all the data gathered by Chomium in the hands of Bing.

      --
      I reserve the write to mangle english.
  6. Great news! by roc97007 · · Score: 2

    Still using Firefox, though. 'Cause, maybe they've changed, maybe they haven't. I'm going to give it a little longer and see.

    What I'd like to know, is what are we going to do with all those website that require Internet Explorer to work properly?

    ...besides not go to them, that is. That's not always possible. I just ran into this the other day -- an admin portal on a server that only worked with IE. It's not like I can go in and change the firmware.

    --
    Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
    1. Re:Great news! by cdsparrow · · Score: 2

      This won't make any difference for those sites. If they require IE, then they won't work in edge or edge chromium.

    2. Re:Great news! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      What I'd like to know, is what are we going to do with all those website that require Internet Explorer to work properly?

      Use IE. Back then there were web apps that were developed using those technologies because nothing else existed that could do it, standards orgs are horrendously slow so nobody was going to wait for them to catch up. The obvious choice was to use the only technology available to accomplish it, which was IE. Now we have web standards that can do pretty much everything those old IE/ActiveX applications could do so yes, the burden is to re-write them.

      For all the pontificating about FOSS where was the browser back then? Or the ActiveX alternative back then? FOSS is just a slow-follower and that is why proprietary solutions (certainly not always Microsoft) end up as the incumbents while the FOSS solution is an also-ran.

    3. Re: Great news! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I'm going to guess they will carry over the group policy that allows Edge to redirect certain domains to IE (and vice versa). It's actually a great feature. I wish them the best with this, because if there's one thing Google does well, it's care absolutely fuckall about the enterprise. I fully expect Edgeium or whatever the hell it's going to be called to have full group policy and enterprise management and deployment support, and not be phoning home god knows what to Google and updating itself 3 times a day.

    4. Re:Great news! by AmiMoJo · · Score: 1

      The Bank of Japan's web site requires Internet Explorer. Part of it runs on an ActiveX control.

      When Microsoft announced that IE is being retired, they went into panic mode. Having stubbornly resisted making a proper site for two decades now, they now have to redevelop it from scratch.

      --
      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:Great news! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      We just don't support IE. If Microsoft can't be arsed, why should we?

      Anyone still using it has such a wildly irresponsible and incompetent IT department that their business is guaranteed to be more trouble than its worth.

      Frankly us even spinning up that crap in a VM for testing is a potential security vulnerability that we don't want to be liable for.

    6. Re:Great news! by iampiti · · Score: 1

      IE is still shipped with Windows 10 as a completely separate browser from Edge so I guess the answer is...just use IE for those sites.
      IMO Microsoft's decision of starting from scratch when developing the engine for Edge was the right one. Trying to emulate all the broken IE's behaviours would've been madness.

    7. Re:Great news! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      What I'd like to know, is what are we going to do with all those website that require Internet Explorer to work properly?

      https://www.google.com/search?q=dumpster+fire&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X

    8. Re:Great news! by roc97007 · · Score: 1

      IE is still shipped with Windows 10 as a completely separate browser from Edge so I guess the answer is...just use IE for those sites.

      IMO Microsoft's decision of starting from scratch when developing the engine for Edge was the right one. Trying to emulate all the broken IE's behaviours would've been madness.

      Oh I agree that starting over with Edge was the right thing to do, and not having backwards compatibility probably reduced the size of Edge by a couple orders of magnitude. :-)

      Yes IE still ships with Windows 10. My current company issued me a mac (Part of my responsibility is mac support) and IE is no longer supported on the mac. So for the two or three IE-only websites I have a Windows 10 instance running in a virtualbox. Which is kinda cool and kinda ridiculous at the same time. [1]

      [1] Cool in that it works at all, and ridiculous in that I essentially have a browser installed on my laptop that takes up 23 gigabytes of storage.

      --
      Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
  7. Assistance in telemetry by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Helpful tip : Clippy would like to know the age/sex/location of "my ass" [ ok ] [ fine ]

    1. Re:Assistance in telemetry by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Advertisers are freely shuffling back and forth all sorts of information disgusting or private info about your skin rash, infertility, hormonal disorders, thyroid disorder as its own category!, even laser vision surgery (google's "Laser Vision Correction").
      Are you interested in labor rights? There's "1121 /People & Society/Social Issues & Advocacy/Work & Labor"

      Best of all these are tracking whether you're Jewish!!!

      https://brave.com/update-rtb-ad-auction-gdpr/IAB-taxonomy-v2-excerpted-and-marked-up.pdf
      https://brave.com/update-rtb-ad-auction-gdpr/Google-publisher-verticals-excerpted-and-marked-up.pdf

      These documents leave "innocuous" categories out and sort by sensitiveness, you can also get the full documents and the little article on brave.com/update-rtb-ad-auction-gdpr

  8. Yeah, duh. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Of course early internal builds are going to look just like chromium.

    Because they just started with a fucking snapshot of chromium and are going to tweak it to their liking.

    If anyone thinks this is going to be anything other than chrome with the google bits hacked out and replaced with Microsoft bits they're high as a kite. (And if you're, say, deep in to Microsoft services like Azure and office 365 this is frankly GREAT)

    The whole point of this project is to not to re-invent the wheel. They tried that with Edge and failed.

    They just want an industry standard browser that they can hold the leash on and integrate with their services. They'll probably end up contributing back to the chromium project once they've got the hang of it too.

    1. Re:Yeah, duh. by exomondo · · Score: 1

      They'll probably end up contributing back to the chromium project once they've got the hang of it too.

      It's already happening.. You're right, they need a standards-compliant browser because they don't own the platform anymore and it's pretty clear they don't want to, Microsoft want their software and services to run everywhere which means compatibility with web standards is critical. There's no point building your own standards-compliant HTML engine when you can just use and contribute to a collaborative one that way you know the software and services you build for your browser will run on others too.

    2. Re:Yeah, duh. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      They just add their telemetry (==browsing history, user data, passwords entered) collection services along with google and the project is feature complete. Perhaps installer will also need to be changed to deny installation to anything but Windows 10, but that is the feature reserved for next version.

    3. Re:Yeah, duh. by serviscope_minor · · Score: 2

      There's no point building your own standards-compliant HTML engine when you can just use and contribute to a collaborative one that way you know the software and services you build for your browser will run on others too.

      For most people no.

      For Microsoft, I htink this is a mistake, personally. I mean they're one of the largest companies in the world. They can certainly afford to do so by scraping some change out of the back of Bill's old sofa.

      Given how strategically important it is, and they they have integrated browser rengering all over their OS, it seems an odd choice to me to not keep control of it. Thinking in terms of years rather thna quarters that is.

      --
      SJW n. One who posts facts.
    4. Re:Yeah, duh. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Browser as a platform is not something Microsoft can control anymore. It makes little sense to keep building the browser if there's never going to be any distinctive feature that will make Microsoft stand out from rest of the pack.

      Apart from that, new technologies like WebAssembly are gearing up to finally end JavaScript dominance in "client-side behaviors" land.

      It makes more sense for Microsoft to invest in their cloud services and app store platforms, rather than keep investing in implementing the standard (and then matching all unspecified, edge case behaviors) with other browser vendors.

    5. Re:Yeah, duh. by AmiMoJo · · Score: 1

      Microsoft has been failing with IE and then Edge for decades, and there is just no sense in continuing to throw money at it.

      They had everything. Beat Netscape, were they default and uninstallable on Windows. MSN was the default homepage, and most people didn't know how to change it. And they failed. MSN failed, Bing failed, IE became a joke - the browser you use to download a decent browser.

      Edge was their last ditch effort to gain some traction. Since that also failed, they are left with just needing a browser to ship with the OS and not wanting to use a third party one, so throw a skin on Chromium and call it a day.

      By the way, the HTML rendering engine in the OS isn't actually Edge. It's a separate DLL that uses the HTML engine from Word, of all things. It used to be IE, but they switched to the Word one because it was more secure and only supported a safer subset of IE's features.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
    6. Re:Yeah, duh. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Don't be rediculous. They are replacing the RENDERING engine. They will end up with the unconfigurable horrid and useless Edge interface wrapped around a chromium based rendering engine.

      It will still be good for nothing except downloading a real browser ...

    7. Re:Yeah, duh. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The huge mistake in my opinion was to not release Edge on Windows 7. Browser is supposed to the universal cross-platform platform isn't it? A full billion Windows 7, 8, 8.1 users had no choice than download Chrome, Firefox or both.
      It's hard to make people seek your browser when you can't download and run it. You don't just leave it as an exclusive for the club of early Win 10 adopters. DirectX 12, sure, no big deal that's only for people still gaming and not even that needed. I would perhaps have WANTED to run it because it was getting good press as a fast browser with minimal UI (though the GUI was criticized for some critical shortcomings) but I'll never have my own opinion.

      I did my part and have had some friends and places run Firefox, at least.

    8. Re:Yeah, duh. by Gavagai80 · · Score: 1

      This is Microsoft's play to take control of the browser people use. They offer an Edge that works just like Chrome, so lazy Windows users go ahead and use their default Edge instead of installing Chrome. Once they've got 80% market share back, they can fork Chromium to add Windows-only components and get websites to implement those, and ta-da they've got lock-in again like in the good old ActiveX days.

      --
      This space intentionally left blank
    9. Re:Yeah, duh. by exomondo · · Score: 1

      Given how strategically important it is, and they they have integrated browser rengering all over their OS, it seems an odd choice to me to not keep control of it. Thinking in terms of years rather thna quarters that is.

      Well I suppose that's the benefit of free software, they can have control over it. They can fork it and take control whenever they wish but the browser engine is really just an implementation of the HTML standard so when a cross-platform one already exists it's hard to see what you bring to the table if you create another one. Kind of like Firefox, I can see niche reasons for using the browser side of it but it wouldn't really make any difference if they switched from Gecko to Blink, in fact I doubt anybody would even notice.

      I take your point though, a monopoly isn't a good thing but neither is NIH syndrome.

    10. Re:Yeah, duh. by exomondo · · Score: 1

      Once they've got 80% market share back, they can fork Chromium to add Windows-only components and get websites to implement those, and ta-da they've got lock-in again like in the good old ActiveX days.

      Even if they managed to get 80% of the browser market on Windows that would only be about 25% of the browser market overall and nobody is going to develop websites that only work on 25% of people's browsers.

    11. Re:Yeah, duh. by serviscope_minor · · Score: 1

      but the browser engine is really just an implementation of the HTML standard

      Maybe not for much longer. It's only a practical standard if there are multiple implementations of it. There are now twoindependent ones remaining, and a concerted effort from varous parties to get rid of the second.

      wouldn't really make any difference if they switched from Gecko to Blink, in fact I doubt anybody would even notice.

      Well, it'd be slower. People might notice that.

      --
      SJW n. One who posts facts.
  9. embrace extinguish by kiviQr · · Score: 0

    Pretend to be chrome, people don't care, pre-installed explorerium takes over the world. Pinki and The Brain!

  10. The best time to use Firefox is 10 years ago by koavf · · Score: 5, Insightful

    And the second best time is today. It is a sad day for the Web when Microsoft shifts not to making Edge's code free software and developing a community around it but throwing in their lot with the Apple/Google/Opera behemoth based on Blink/WebKit. And to be clear, I don't even have a beef with their browsers and rendering engines on a technical level (other than proprietary components of Chrome, Opera, and Safari) but how can it be good for the Web if virtually everyone is using the same browser that is controlled by a handful of mammoth companies?

    1. Re:The best time to use Firefox is 10 years ago by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's horrible for the web, but it's great for most hackers. That by extension makes it great for end users where near every proprietary devices these days seem to come with a web browser, specially some vulnerable version of Chromium. So, you're almost always guaranteed that you can inject your sweet, sweet arbitrary code and do whatever you want with your hardware. Of course, so can just about anyone else.

    2. Re:The best time to use Firefox is 10 years ago by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's good for web developers.
      Making web app work fully with crap legacy browsers could often double dev time.

    3. Re:The best time to use Firefox is 10 years ago by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Only if you're a shitty developer.

    4. Re:The best time to use Firefox is 10 years ago by thegarbz · · Score: 1

      It is a sad day for the Web when Microsoft shifts not to making Edge's code free software

      If you wanted to spread STDs can't you just screw people in traditional ways?

    5. Re:The best time to use Firefox is 10 years ago by koavf · · Score: 1

      Making the code open would be virtually no cost and maybe someone could get something useful from it. I am sure *some* community would form around EdgeHTML. And really, we can't know how bad the code is because we can't directly audit it.

    6. Re:The best time to use Firefox is 10 years ago by koavf · · Score: 1

      But it's not good for developers: if one entity controls the Web, then everyone is beholden to that one entity. If there are at least two viable options, then developers need to develop based on standards rather than a single company's whims or financial interests.

    7. Re:The best time to use Firefox is 10 years ago by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Don't worry, a significant minority will stick to IE11 for years to come.

    8. Re:The best time to use Firefox is 10 years ago by thegarbz · · Score: 1

      Making the code open would be virtually no cost and maybe someone could get something useful from it.

      What "useful" Edge feature are you interested in? A rendering engine that fails miserably to render a large portion of pages? A PDF engine which craps itself when displaying PDFs? Timeline integration (MS is writing plugins for that already).

      And really, we can't know how bad the code is because we can't directly audit it.

      The code quality itself is probably high. The result of running the code we can directly see, and even Microsoft has abandoned trying to maintain it. I don't think much good would come of making something open source and you're wrong that it comes at no cost. Edge is still a browser widely used, and while security by obscurity is not a valid security measure, obscurity still raises a bar for exploitation. Releasing the code would likely serve to highlight a lot of bugs and security flaws which MS would then need to whack-a-mole until such a time as Edge is no longer in wide use.

    9. Re:The best time to use Firefox is 10 years ago by koavf · · Score: 1

      I can't speak to which features of Edge I would like to see--I've opened the browser four times for a few seconds. But either way, the world benefits from being able to poke around at high-quality code. I don't have the skills and knowledge to develop a web browser but again, I think others would. Security exploits are a low priority for me, since virtually no one uses Edge now and everyone who does is probably just passively doing it because it's the default browser on Windows. All of those users will shift over to the Chromium/Blink-based Edge whenever *that* becomes the default.

  11. Shocking! by im_thatoneguy · · Score: 3, Insightful

    You mean to tell me that a relatively new customization of an open source project... still looks a lot like the original!? I'm shocked!

    1. Re:Shocking! by thegarbz · · Score: 1

      No you don't understand. This is a leaked screenshot of the current state. If this wasn't what they were planning on releasing then they wouldn't hide it and it wouldn't need leaking now would it. Therefore it's a finished product. The only reason it will be released in November is because that's when they will finally get the March 1903 Windows 10 release in a usable state.

  12. IP theft by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Those damn Chinese steal everything.. Oh wait.. wrong thread...

  13. Like, CHAAA! Chromium based?? Helllllooo! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Wake up people. What were you expecting? Netscape? We already have that, and it's alive and well.

  14. Re: Every Extend Extra Extreme by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Why do you even care about mindsets. Just call them out every time.

  15. Not the same ole Microsoft? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Insightful

    Embrace, Extend... Extinguish.

    1. Re:Not the same ole Microsoft? by SurenEnfiajyan · · Score: 1

      But this time it seems Google.

  16. Was the story written by a blind person? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    I had a look at the screenshots and as far as I'm concerned they look absolutely nothing like Chrome at all. They display the hideously ugly appearance the Microsoft currently seems to favour. i.e. Total lack of style. Even the style in Windows 1 was much more attractive.

    1. Re:Was the story written by a blind person? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Even the style in Windows 1 was much more attractive.

      https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/df/Microsoft_Windows_1.0_screenshot.png

    2. Re:Was the story written by a blind person? by bn-7bc · · Score: 1

      wikipedia added some auth params to the url that stopped it from working on my end here is the working link

    3. Re:Was the story written by a blind person? by bn-7bc · · Score: 1

      never min local user erro, I managed to copy the spave ayt the end of the link oh well

    4. Re:Was the story written by a blind person? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      So, what's the difference with Chrome? flat light gray vs flat light gray is flat light gray. I thought these Edge Chromium shots were "fine", they look like nothing in particular.

    5. Re:Was the story written by a blind person? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      This should be shown to all hipsters. Real screenshots are taken on a film camera and displays have a border area that's part of the display surface itself.

      Now for the software itself : it looks like it does not have disappearing scroll bars. Nice corner handles to resize windows like in OSX but they're both on the top-right and bottom-right not the bottom-right only. Programs can have or not have a menu bar and still work.
      Holy crap the window title is centered like in Gnome 2/Mate/XFCE and others. This makes it superior to Windows 7 and 10 with the window title on the leftmost of the title bar.

  17. Edgome by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    and the mono culture expands.

  18. the proprietary web by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    One browser for all. Whoever controls that browser determines how the future web works.

    R.I.P. Linux, if anyone decides to stop supporting you on Chrome, you will lose access to the web.

    1. Re: the proprietary web by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Not sure if troll or imbecile.

  19. Thanks but no thanks by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    This is a new browser, and a new Microsoft.

    Thanks for the good laugh. Makes my day.

    Just i hope no-one seriously believes this. If any, they are targeting Google's chrome users because they see chrome got popular, and they want their share of the revenue. And so they did what many do in such case: make an almost exact clone.

  20. Doesn't Matter by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    If nobody was using Edge (and nobody was), then nobody will suddenly switch from Chrome to Microsoft Chrome either.

  21. Microsoft is dead. Face it. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Microsoft's Windows is dead, Windows 10 being officially the last release, then switching to Microsoft's Linux.
    IE is long dead. Edge is now dead at birth.
    Desktop Office suite is dead. O360 is in agony.
    Azure is a Windows-only laughingstock, dominated by Linux anyway.
    DirectX is dead after the world embraced Vulcan.
    XBOX soon to follow DirectX.

    Time to sell shares. Was months ago.

    1. Re:Microsoft is dead. Face it. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Xbox is dead like iOS is dead. They bought their way into a duopoly or triumvirat at best

  22. Microsoft is now adopting the China model by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    If you can't beat them....

    Just pirate a copy and call it your own...... if you bundle it with windows and it works exactly like chrome but just call it edge..... then everyone will be using edge and then you can charge google to make chrome an option which no one will pay for. Wa hahahahah!

  23. It was very expected by SurenEnfiajyan · · Score: 1

    It was actually very expected from using absolutely other's code. But don't worry, even without this Windows 10 UI is a big fucking mess. Keep on destroying Windows, Microsoft. I just don't understand, what was seriously wrong with the original Edge (for it's purpose and market share), do they really expect Edge to become a very popular Chrome rival?

  24. FAIL by sproketboy · · Score: 1

    ntr

  25. Looks Pretty Edgy To Me by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    You see Chrome I see Edge.

    But, regardless of which it is, I don't want either of them.

  26. Only Chrome and Firefox now by DarkRookie2 · · Score: 1

    We are down to two browser, and the only thing really separating Firefox is that their backend is different.
    For now.
    How much longer until til they decide to switch to Chrome for their stuff.

    --
    http://progressquest.com/spoltog.php?name=Son+Of+Son+Of+DarkRookie
    1. Re:Only Chrome and Firefox now by squiggleslash · · Score: 1

      And the front end. Sure, Firefox keeps copying stuff from Chrome, and it's annoying, but there's still enough of a difference in front ends that it's still possible to have a preference.

      If Chrome ever handles large numbers of tabs properly (scrolling makes sense, reducing the size of them so you can't tell any more what tab has what doesn't), and separates the URL bar and search box, I'll accept the two are more or less identical on the front end, and might even switch given Chrome is going to become the defacto standard anyway.

      --
      You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
    2. Re:Only Chrome and Firefox now by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Three, if you're counting Webkit and Safari? I don't know how Webkit is that different from Chrome but you might count on major things working properly with it because of iphones and ipads.

      The only non-Apple Webkit browser I can name though is the Gnome browser (others died off or switched to Blink). I doubt many people run it at all but it stands a chance at being useful on GNU/Linux phones. This will probably be and remain a footnote but you never know.

  27. Switching profiles FTW by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Switching profiles in the new Edge is pretty much the feature that won me over from using Chrome. Itâ(TM)s nice to have a configuration for âoeworkâ and one for âoepersonalâ use.

  28. One more motive to still on Firefox... by fbobraga · · Score: 1

    ... more then a unique engine to show webpages is needed, so we don't back to IE6 nightmare

  29. Nice!! by niff · · Score: 1

    So the chrome downloader will look like chrome?

    Thanks for that smooth user experience, Microsoft.

  30. Not the same! by baker_tony · · Score: 1

    The menu dots in Chrome are vertical, in MS's version they're horizontal!
    Nothing alike.