Microsoft adopting Chromium for Edge rendering is a big deal — let me count the ways

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If you’ve been following the “Edge is dead (but it isn’t)” story, you know that Microsoft announced a couple of days ago that they’ll stop developing
[See the full post at: Microsoft adopting Chromium for Edge rendering is a big deal — let me count the ways]

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Elly, ch100, abbodi86, GreatAndPowerfulTech

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Woody:

You may not be from Missouri but your software years ago was. Specifically from Des Peres, Missouri, about a mile from my house in Kirkwood! I still regard “Enveloper” the most useful utility I ever encountered.

= Ax Kramer

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woody, Customer Support

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But give me one reason why I should use a shabby Edge instead of the original Chrome browser then…?

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anonymous wrote:

But give me one reason why I should use a shabby Edge instead of the original Chrome browser then…?

“Edge outperformed Chrome and Firefox when it came to quickly spotting and blocking: It immediately stops 89 per cent of phishing sites in their tracks; some 10 per cent higher Chrome and 12 per cent more than Firefox.”
The fastest, most secure browser? Microsoft Edge apparently

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Microfix

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Read that earlier today, was quite taken aback by the resultant test scores. Perhaps MS Edge doesn’t phone home as much as FF or Chrome, as it has the OS to do that instead

Windows - commercial by definition and now function...

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“UWP apps (formerly “Metro,” and many other names) aren’t going to last much longer.”

This isn’t even slightly a correct read on the situation, Woody.  UWP is the replacement for Win32 + COM runtime environment, and is a vastly, vastly better starting point for building any kind of application (not just ones that look like Windows 10 apps, people!  You can build console apps, games, and totally GUI-less UWP apps)…. it’s also the replacement for both Windows Forms and WPF as a GUI programming platform for desktop applications.

Saying that Microsoft is going to drop UWP because they’re adopting Chromium in Edge just doesn’t make sense.  This would be like saying that Visual Studio is going to drop C++ support because they’re trying to get people to publish services to Azure.

All Microsoft is talking about here is one specific feature of UWP: the ability to integrate a “web view” into your application.  This capability has been around since Windows 98 SE; the UWP version is called WebView, it’s part of the XAML controls.  (The same sort of capability, also called WebView, been available in macOS since 10.3.)  The commitment they’re making is that they won’t change how this functions for UWP apps that have taken a dependency on the web view.  So, like, you don’t have to worry that suddenly your application’s rendering will break on a future Feature Update because of some unforeseen incompatibility between EdgeHTML and Chromium.

It’s kind of a crummy situation for Microsoft because now they have to support two deprecated browser engines instead of one….. but that’s what they’re committing to.

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ch100, abbodi86, BobbyB, woody, Customer Support

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Re-reading what MS has said, and what I wrote, and I have to agree with you.

I’ve modified my original statement. But I still have my suspicions.

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Woody, I think strictly speaking, @warrenrumak is right.
But for all practical purposes and for less technically minded users, your description is good enough and certainly easier to understand.

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flackcatcher

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warrenrumak wrote:

UWP is the replacement for Win32 + COM runtime environment, and is a vastly, vastly better starting point for building any kind of application (not just ones that look like Windows 10 apps, people! You can build console apps, games, and totally GUI-less UWP apps)….

But can it modify the Windows UI and other similar things that require deeper kernel access?  Many of us rely/relied on things like Classic Shell, 7+ Taskbar Tweaker, Old New Explorer, etc., to make the bizarre UIs of Windows 8.x and 10 usable.  I’ll admit to not having programmed since it was called programming, not “coding,” and that I never wrote anything that used any kind of a GUI, but it’s my understanding that UWP is a lot like the WebExtensions for Firefox vs. the older, more powerful “legacy” extensions that can get right into the browser itself and extend/modify its function in a way that the more limited WebExtensions never could.  While that has obvious security implications (in a good way), it also is tremendously limiting.

If a UWP program were to adopt a traditional Win32-style UI, using my system theme, the desktop/Win32 common controls, etc., so that it looked like it belonged on the system, I wouldn’t have as much of a visceral reaction to them, but thus far every example I’ve seen is one of those ugly, flat, oversized, system-theme-ignoring “app” things.  It may be possible to create UWP “apps” that look like what Microsoft now calls “Desktop Apps,” but the question of whether they actually will ever look like that in practice remains.

As long as we users still have a choice, we can vote with our… er, fingers, I guess, since we use those to download and install programs, not our feet.  The concern is that once UWP gets to a certain point, MS will raise the Win32 drawbridge and give us no choice but to use only UWP, much the same as Mozilla did with its addons.  While I would appreciate the ability to easily uninstall things without worrying about bits being left behind and the sandboxing, I would not appreciate losing massive amounts of control over my own PC, which MS has already demonstrated that they want to take from me with their actions thus far.

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wavy, Bluetrix, Cybertooth, Wheel_D

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I would say this is bigger than it appears because MS will not be developing a rendering engine but using an open source on. This is a strategic shift from both IE and Edge. Given Chromium is a multi-platform browser that is not closely coupled with the OS, it will effectively split the browser from the OS.

I wonder, if this switch is  successful, if MS might do something like make a Windows version based on the Linux kernel. Something, if done correctly, could save a ton of money and keep MS as an OS supplier. The key to this would be to build a compatibility layer that will allow W32 applications to run. This might work as most users only care that X will run on their computer not how it is done.

The current leadership seems to see OSes and browsers as products to offer but not as a focus for the future. So using FOSS for both long term makes sense. They have a browser and an OS to offer even if both are mostly FOSS. But this would reduce the costs to MS to produce and maintain both.

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johnf, fk5353, BobbyB, woody, Mele20

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lurks about wrote:

I wonder, if this switch is successful, if MS might do something like make a Windows version based on the Linux kernel. Something, if done correctly, could save a ton of money and keep MS as an OS supplier.

Oh my goodness, just get this whole idea out of your head right now.  Rebuilding Windows on top of a Linux kernel would create thousands more problems than it solves.

Every Windows application out there, whether they use core Windows APIs, or COM, or GDI, or DirectX, or the .NET Framework, or WIC, or MFC, or any of the thousands of features and capabilities that come as standard with Windows…. they all expect the underlying operating system to behave a certain way.   You call the Win32 CreateFile function, you expect it to return a HANDLE.  A HANDLE is expected to behave certain ways — this understanding is baked deeply into both Windows itself, and the countless libraries and applications surrounding it.

The WINE project has been trying to get this stuff right for 25 full years now, and while they’ve been successful in building a compatibility layer between Win32 and POSIX, it has never been successful at getting more than about 70% of Windows apps to work.  And most of the effort goes into stuff like games, since that the thing that many Mac and Linux people miss the most when switching away from Windows.

Also…. let’s be real here, there is no way that Microsoft is going to cede control over one of their multi-multi-multi-billion dollar Windows industry to the whims of the famously emotionally unstable Linus Torvalds.

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I am not saying they should but what is the long game here. Windows is being deemphasized to being a product of a division not its own division. So what is MS going to do with Windows long term as it does not figure to be as important a product as it was 5 years ago. So thinking out a bit long term they could continue with their own kernel and maintain the complete OS or they could follow Apple’s lead and switch kernels. Given the amount of problems W10 is having across the board, they might be better to follow Apple’s lead bring out a successor OS based on BSD or Linux. Given the licensing, I would actually expect BSD is the more likely route than Linux. Also, Wine et. al. lack one thing that MS has to develop a compatibility layer: access to the Windows source code and design documents.

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johnf, flackcatcher

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lurks about wrote:

I am not saying they should but what is the long game here. Windows is being deemphasized to being a product of a division not its own division. So what is MS going to do with Windows long term as it does not figure to be as important a product as it was 5 years ago.

This is factually incorrect.  You need better sources.

The core Windows server + client products currently has 32,000+ people working on it, 11,000 of which are contributing engineers.

These numbers are as high as they’ve ever been.

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warrenrumak #239275 : “This is factually incorrect.  You need better sources.”

This is a very interesting point that you just made. Would you mind mentioning some of those better sources? Some relevant URL links will be most appreciated.

Thanks.

Ex-Windows user (Win. 98, XP, 7); since mid-2017 using also macOS. Presently on Monterey 12.15 & sometimes running also Linux (Mint).

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Kirsty

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The .NET Rocks podcast, literally just this past week, had a couple of people on from the internal Windows developer support teams at Microsoft – the numbers come from them.

I also have internal connections at Microsoft; the reporting that Microsoft is de-emphasizing Windows was reported in the media, but it certainly is not reflective of what’s actually going on.  Are they de-emphasizing some things like Edge and Cortana?  Sure, but developers are being moved to other Windows-related projects.  The backlog of things to do with Windows is huge, and they’re still working on it.

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warrenrumak wrote:

lurks about wrote:

I am not saying they should but what is the long game here. Windows is being deemphasized to being a product of a division not its own division. So what is MS going to do with Windows long term as it does not figure to be as important a product as it was 5 years ago.

This is factually incorrect. You need better sources.

No, lurks about does not need better sources.  It was reported here and in other places that Windows no longer has its own division.  Longtime leader of the Windows and devices division, Terry Myerson, has left Microsoft, and that division is no more.  As the Seattle Times article says:

The shifts de-emphasize the company’s flagship operating software and put the spotlight on its growing businesses: Office productivity software,  artificial intelligence and cloud technology, which allows users to tap into rented computer power and data storage over the internet.

That’s right in line with what lurks about wrote.

The core Windows server + client products currently has 32,000+ people working on it, 11,000 of which are contributing engineers. These numbers are as high as they’ve ever been.

That doesn’t at all contradict the idea that Windows doesn’t have its own division anymore.

Windows licensing revenue has fallen (along with the PC in general) even as MS has to pay all those thousands to work on a product that has gone from the center of the Microsoft universe to one that barely gets mentioned in the Ignite dog and pony show.  We were told “Cloud first, Mobile first” in no uncertain terms, and “mobile” is out now. It’s painfully clear that Windows is on the back burner now, and has been ever since Nadella came on board as CEO.

Reportedly, only 10% or so of Microsoft’s profit (and falling) comes from Windows, which is not a very good return on the massive resources it has to put into Windows development.  Microsoft is a lot of things, but stupid is not one of them, and they must know that they cannot treat their customers as they have been since the onset of Windows 10 if they want to keep them as customers.  The only conclusion that makes any sense is that they don’t want to keep them in the long term.  They want to monetize them to the highest degree possible for as long as they will tolerate it.  This is something that never happened in the Gates or Ballmer eras, where Windows’ long-term viability was too important to consider the cynical and ultimately destructive attempts to monetize Windows that we’ve seen under Nadella.

Unless we believe that MS in the Gates and Ballmer eras didn’t want money as much as they do now, the only conclusion that really makes sense is that the goal is to get out of the general-purpose OS business completely.  All of that vendor lock-in they worked so hard to build will keep people in the line of fire for years to come, so Microsoft will be able to liquidate the asset that is the 90% desktop market share.  This can’t be done without eventually killing the product, but if MS really wants to be a cloud company, that’s not a bug, it’s a feature.

The vast number of people working on Windows doesn’t disprove the idea that Windows is no longer a primary focus at Microsoft.  It illustrates why MS would want to cut it loose– 32,000 people (about 25% of their total 2018 workforce) for 10% of the profit (and falling).  I have no doubt that there’s a date circled on a calendar somewhere in Redmond, and that date is when MS has projected that the largely fixed costs to develop Windows are only just covered by the revenue Windows brings in.  Beyond that date, Windows will be a net money sink for Microsoft.  That date may never come to pass… the desktop market may stop its plunge as equilibrium is reached between the PCs that die and the PCs that are sold.

I don’t think the PC market is dying at all, but it is downsizing as most consumers move away from the platform to what The Reg calls fondleslabs.  The need for desktop PCs (including laptops) is less than what it was before, but they’re too useful to ever die completely.  I only wish that Microsoft had the confidence in the platform that I do… it’s quite evident that they do not, given how readily they were to stomp all over their desktop customers to try to get a footing in the mobile market.

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flackcatcher, Cybertooth, lurks about, Mele20

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I never mentioned any figures about manpower on Windows as the exact number is not really relevant to my conjecture. By using as base such Debian or FreeBSD MS would not need to devote as much resources to Windows as they do currently. The costs to develop and maintain Windows would drop. If the drop is significant enough Windows would still be a very profitable product for MS.

Taking Debian as the base, MS would only need to come up with a WINE like compatibility layer (which could be a very nice separate commercial product on its own) and a desktop environment. The compatibility layer would take some effort but WINE and Crossover (commercial version of WINE) show it can be done now with some success even without MS involvement. The desktop environment is much less complex than a full OS and depending on what MS decides to do they could even fork an existing one to make a Windows desktop. So they have two somewhat independent products to maintain, neither requiring anywhere near the commitment a full OS would require with one potentially being a viable commercial product.

A MS sanctioned WINE as a commercial product would be of interest to many Linux and Apple users as they could now run many (hopefully nearly all) Windows programs without needing to use a VM. VMs, while effective, are a more complex solution that require more skill to set up correctly, skills the average user does not have.

So the question is, what is MS’ long term plans for OS development? It is not what are they doing now but 3 to 5 years from now. My conjecture is about would switching kernels to BSD or Linux may make long term sense for MS. They are going to have to do something.

In any business a product that produces 10% of the profit but requires 25% of the resources is one that automatically gets C-suite scrutiny if the numbers supplied by others are reasonably accurate. The profit/cost balance is out of whack and a very serious decision will be made about the product. Thus the future of Windows is getting some serious C-suite scrutiny right now at MS. My conjecture is based on the assumption MS wants to still have an OS as a viable product with a cost structure closer to the profits it generates.

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flackcatcher

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Also, Windows is on a dead end road about to hit a concrete wall at the end. It’s not scalable, way too buggy because of essential flaws deep at its base and carries a heavy legacy of the past. Think only about this monstreous register for example. They simply don’t have a choice to change. Either by starting something completely new or using reliable existing code. Many ways to do so and still being able to run the old code.

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We’re not alone in pondering the possibilies!  Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols has just written a piece for ZDNet on the topic, entitled “MS-Linux? Lindows? Could Microsoft release a desktop Linux?”

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warrenrumak wrote:

The WINE project has been trying to get this stuff right for 25 full years now, and while they’ve been successful in building a compatibility layer between Win32 and POSIX, it has never been successful at getting more than about 70% of Windows apps to work. And most of the effort goes into stuff like games, since that the thing that many Mac and Linux people miss the most when switching away from Windows.

WINE has few resources and is limited by Microsoft’s unwillingness to fully document their APIs.  Imagine how quickly WINE could progress if Microsoft themselves were willing to contribute to it!  They have the resources and the intimate knowledge of how the APIs work that WINE can only dream about.  If they were able to get a Windows translation layer to enable x86 Windows programs to run on ARM commercially ready as they supposedly have, doing the same within the same architecture but with different OSes ought to be simple for them.

Also…. let’s be real here, there is no way that Microsoft is going to cede control over one of their multi-multi-multi-billion dollar Windows industry to the whims of the famously emotionally unstable Linus Torvalds.

It’s open source.  If he were to go off in some bizarre direction, forks would appear even without Microsoft involvement, and of course, MS could fork it themselves if they wish.  Anyone can!  The kernel project that Torvalds leads is one of the few bits of GNU/Linux that hasn’t been forked, which kind of tells you he’s been doing quite well.

So he yells (or he used to, anyway) at people who generally have earned it… every time I’ve read about one of his outbursts, I’ve ended up agreeing with him on the facts at hand, if not his interpersonal style.  Steve Jobs was considerably worse, often being petty and vindictive well beyond anything Torvalds has ever done, and the company almost went down the drain without him.  When he returned, Apple grew to the giant it is today, and Apple fans the world over consider his death to be the end of the best period of Apple’s history in product quality and innovation.

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flackcatcher, OscarCP

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Unless you simply use virtualization for legacy software, nowadays that almost doesn’t add extra cpu load anymore. That way, they could finally break with a bloated past and focus on a slim future.

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It will be entertaining reading the press release where MS pat themselves on the back for embracing open standards, which won’t stop them from tweaking the Chromium source code to the point where it’s a) unrecognizable and b) broken.

GaryK

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If the devs in charge of Chromium allow this, then the blame is theirs, but they’re more concerned about Google’s welfare than Microsoft’s.  They’ve made this clear in the post I linked about how Chromium (not Chrome) compiled and distributed by Debian contained code to download a closed binary blob to activate the PC’s microphone to listen for “OK Google” commands.  Google’s response is that Chromium is developed as it suits Google to develop it, but it’s open source, so you can modify it as you wish.

If Microsoft wishes more changes to the code base than the Chromium devs will allow, they can still have them, but they will have effectively forked Chromium.

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Elly

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Because that gives them a reason to obsessivele push out even more updates of course! ;o)

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Please, let’s get back on topic.
Microsoft adopting Chromium for Edge rendering is a big deal — let me count the ways

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satrow, ch100

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Nobody knows for sure, but the new Edge could be very well run on Electron (already using Chrome and V8) like Skype, Visual Studio Code, and many more apps already do.

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With it going to be a Win32 application, I am wondering if Microsoft is considering backporting it to Windows 7.  Yes I know they want to kill of Windows 7 ASAP but if they want to capture browser market then it could make sense considering its still the largest installed based of Windows.

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“As part of this work, Microsoft plans to make the new Edge browser available on Windows 7, 8.1, 10 and macOS, officials said.”

Microsoft’s Edge to morph into a Chromium-based, cross-platform browser

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flackcatcher

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The Help file for the US Savings Bonds Calculator,
https://www.treasurydirect.gov/indiv/help/bc/bc_savings_help.htm , has:
= = = = = = = = = =
Microsoft Edge (Not Compatible)

Microsoft’s new Edge browser cannot save web pages in HTML format. It can only store images of the pages as they’re shown on your screen. Because of this, it has no ability to save your work in a way that can be updated in the future. For users using Microsoft Edge on Windows 10, we recommend switching to another browser for entering your bond values so you can save your work. Windows 10 ships with Internet Explorer 11 in addition to Edge. You also have the option to download and use Firefox, Opera, or Safari.

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Lars220

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Forgot to Log In. Drat. Sorry.

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ch100, Elly

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Actually, Edge as we know it is dying and will be replaced with something supposedly better.
I don’t really know anyone who is a fan of Microsoft only products to be a fan of Edge.
They simply use IE which is a highly competitive browser with Chrome and Firefox, although a bit more difficult to master to have it working properly.
Edge as it is now is not in the same class with IE, Firefox and Chrome and probably not in the same class with Opera, although I take other people’s word for this last one as I don’t have any experience with it.

Edit: I use Chrome for the only reason that it seems to be the mainstream browser preferred by a majority of people. I still believe that IE11 is the best browser overall, followed at a close distance by Firefox, but each of them have pluses and minuses, depending on the use case scenario.
I have absolutely no idea why most people prefer Chrome, but selling is sometimes the most important thing while quality comes next.

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Cybertooth, BobbyB

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ch100 wrote:

Edge as it is now is not in the same class with IE, Firefox and Chrome and probably not in the same class with Opera, although I take other people’s word for this last one as I don’t have any experience with it.

How is Edge not in the same class as the others?

Curmudgeonly grumbles aside, actually using Edge is a perfectly pleasant experience. It’s super-quick, hammers through benchmarks, its integrated reading mode makes complex sites more palatable, and by sandboxing it away from the rest of the operating system Microsoft has ensured that Edge won’t suffer the security breaches of its older brother.
When did you last try a new browser?

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Does one presume their following paragraph was a “curmudgeonly grumble”?!

It’s just a shame that Microsoft is quite so insistent on forcing Edge upon Windows 10 users, making it the default browser for links opened in the Mail app, adding shortcuts to your desktop after major OS updates, and presenting it as a potential result if you start typing ‘Firefox’ in the Cortana search box.

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Kirsty wrote:

It’s just a shame that Microsoft is quite so insistent on forcing Edge upon Windows 10 users, making it the default browser for links opened in the Mail app,

Just for the record, that was only a test in a Skip Ahead Insider Preview, and as it got many negative votes in the Feedback Hub nine months ago we can probably rest assured that it won’t reappear as a released feature.

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That above link for the Savings Bonds also says:

Google Chrome’s saving process currently is not compatible with the Savings Bond Calculator. If you use Chrome as your default web browser, you’ll need to use an alternative browser to save an inventory for future use in the calculator.

I guess I will just stick with Firefox my favorite Red Panda browser, also have Opera and IE as backups, but use Firefox 99% of the time. Kind of interesting that US Gov’t does not like MS Edge and Google Chrome, hummm, I feel same way. Thanks PaulK for interesting insight.

Amazing Truths Revealed: Link to Simply Magnificent AskWoody Knowledge Bases

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DOI uses Chrome and Gmail (Bison Connect) as their sole email provider and primary internet browser.

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How interesting this gets when Microsoft places Chrome on the same level with Edge in one of the recent documentation web pages.

The Windows Admin Center gateway, when published to DNS and given access through corresponding corporate firewalls, lets you securely connect to, and manage, your servers from anywhere with Microsoft Edge or Google Chrome.

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-au/windows-server/manage/windows-admin-center/understand/what-is

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woody, PKCano

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Microsoft + Google = Bigger Data?

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b wrote:

by sandboxing it away from the rest of the operating system Microsoft has ensured that Edge won’t suffer the security breaches of its older brother.

Perhaps in theory. Demonstrably not so in practice. Over the past year, we’ve seen dozens of security problems in both IE and Edge. Nearly every month there have been security fixes for both IE and Edge, covering the same CVEs.

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ch100

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woody wrote:

Perhaps in theory. Demonstrably not so in practice.

I think you have that backwards. The CVEs are theoretical vulnerabilities; in practice, not so much.

woody wrote:

Over the past year, we’ve seen dozens of security problems in both IE and Edge. Nearly every month there have been security fixes for both IE and Edge, covering the same CVEs.

… and during that same year we’ve seen 228 CVE patches for Google Chrome (average 19 per month) and 136 CVE patches for Mozilla Firefox (average 11 per month).

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ch100

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I need to point out again the circular nature of these comparisons. Being subject to a flaw that has been systematically categorized in a CVE alert is a bad thing. It is also, as the name suggests, a fairly common bad thing. Once identified, it seems to me, that a large number of patches would suggest a robust and efficient investigation and response performed by an experienced QA testing team.

A gauge that also would not be definitive, but at least more informative, would be how many outstanding, not repaired, CVE’s apply to a given product; and how long they have been known.

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