Zac Bowden: Microsoft is throwing in the towel on Edge, replacing it with a new browser based on Chromium

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If true, this is amazing news. Zac Bowden, Windows Central: Microsoft is throwing in the towel with EdgeHTML and is instead building a new web browser
[See the full post at: Zac Bowden: Microsoft is throwing in the towel on Edge, replacing it with a new browser based on Chromium]

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Elly, CyGuy, JohnW, geekdom

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I’ll believe when I see it. MS has long had ‘the not invented here’ syndrome common to many large companies. Moving to a more common browser engine means they do not have to devote as much resources to browser development. And it will also mean the browser is likely to be more independent of the OS which is actually a good thing. But I am not sure they will pull the trigger and ditch Edge as it would appear to be a surrender to Google.

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Fred

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Hm, but to me then it sounds much more logical to install just Chromium. Why should I use a browser that is based on Chromium but collecting data for Microsoft (and probably Google too)…?

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Lori, lurks about, SueW, HiFlyer, plodr, Bill C., Fred, woody, Klaas Vaak, AlexEiffel

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There is a possibility that Microsoft could cut out all of the snooping and security crud from Chrome when they release their variant.  I mean, they won’t, but imagine if they offered a security-oriented browser with Chrome’s compatibility and run-time but allowed you to kill most tracking analytics?  Imagine if they offered that in 1908 along with the ability to turn off Microsoft analytics across the OS.  That’d make me stop and reconsider Win10.

A man can dream.

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So why not go back to Explorer? Or a re-vamped version of it, based on all the experience and ideas accumulated since IE11 came out? Explorer has many useful setup options that are accessible through convenient pull-down menus, so there is no need to remember a bunch of cryptic UNIX-like commands that users have to enter in the URL address field in order to get access to settings besides the plain vanilla ones available by clicking on some icon on the top right corner of the browser screen.

But, in spite of all of the above, for the most usual kinds of browsing, that rarely require changing those UNIX-like settings from their factory defaults, Chrome, FireFox and its forks (PaleMoon, Waterfox..) are already widely used and can be run in any Windows machine. So why bother to bring in yet another browser? I suspect that there might be good technical reasons for that. Perhaps someone here could explain what they are.

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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OscarCP wrote:

So why not go back to Explorer? Or a re-vamped version of it, based on all the experience and ideas accumulated since IE11 came out?

Maintaining a browser rendering engine costs money.  Chromium is there for the taking, for free, and it will be maintained by others, for free.

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Bill C., JohnW

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There valid reasons to develop a browser engine such as improved privacy and security. But those were not the goals ever of IE and reality Edge. So you have a couple of proprietary engines that cannot get any community attention unlike Firefox, Chromium, Brave, etc. The community can help build the ‘brand’ and make improvements.

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lurks about wrote:

There valid reasons to develop a browser engine such as improved privacy and security. But those were not the goals ever of IE and reality Edge.

Nonsense:

Internet Explorer and privacy

Microsoft Edge, browsing data, and privacy

Security. Users must feel secure running IE and businesses must feel secure deploying IE in their environments. We will continue to invest deeply in security features that provide broad mitigations to potential vulnerabilities. Internet Explorer platform priorities

Microsoft Edge: Building a safer browser

Microsoft Edge is designed with improved security in mind

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Rendering engine only?

“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.“

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Good question. According to WalkingCat (Twitter @h0x0d), the situation’s much more complex than it first appears:

EdgeHTML is not just used in Edge, as a development platform component its everywhere, it will cause much more fuss than the browser app itself

And @SwiftOnSecurity:

This isn’t about Chrome. This is about ElectronJS. Microsoft thinks EdgeHTML cannot get to drop-in feature-parity with Chromium to replace it in Electron apps, whose duplication is becoming a significant performance drain. They want to single-instance Electron with their own fork

Electron is a cancer murdering both macOS and Windows as it proliferates. Microsoft must offer a drop-in version with native optimizations to improve performance and resource utilization. This is the end of desktop applications. There’s nowhere but JavaScript.

It’s a brave new world….

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Loony, browsers are already Rube Goldberg contraptions with way to many moving parts and they want to expand the thing. Also, no wonder Microsoft bought GitHub as it gives them more footing in the regression to the Timesharing Era. This could be the Microsoft challenge to Chrome OS?

You can get ten gigabits a second technology in home routers right now, look like you’ll need it later… :[

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Interesting development could we be looking at a veritable separation of Browser and OS? not seen since the days of Win95, and which will bite the dust first IE11 or Edge?
Interesting times afoot as mentioned previously are we swopping an incomplete Browser for a consummate snoop for M$ and Google?
Sure would be nice if we got Win10 and a choice of Browser as an option albeit an aftermarket choice or a setup preference, ah well can dream I suppose.

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Neowin has also written an article about this:

https://www.neowin.net/news/microsoft-reportedly-killing-edgehtml-and-building-a-chromium-based-browser

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woody

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I’m not convinced that this will add security.  Just sayin’.

Susan Bradley Patch Lady/Prudent patcher

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AlexEiffel, flackcatcher, Fred, woody

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Isn’t EdgeHTML also used under the hood for UWP apps, though? Would they be moving all that to Blink as well? If so, I could see some application breakage.

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Another example of Microsoft embracing open source (Chromium is; it’s the bits added to that to make it Chrome that aren’t)?  It seems rather poetic, after all of the effort Microsoft took to destroy Netscape (whose code became the basis of the open-source browser, Firefox).  Now they’re possibly dropping their proprietary code for open-source code.

Perhaps this is a form of monetizing, in the “a penny saved is a penny earned” sense.  The Chromium engine is already being developed and maintained regardless of what MS does, and it’s free.  Why maintain their own rendering engine, at great expense, if there’s no benefit to it?

I guess the permissive BSD license of Chrome makes it an easy choice for the formerly “Linux [license] is a cancer” company.  While Ballmer did say “Linux is a cancer,” as he’s often breathlessly quoted in the tech media, the full quote was, “Linux is a cancer that attaches itself in an intellectual property sense to everything it touches” (emphasis added).   He was clearly referring to the GPL, the GNU Public License, under which Linux (and Firefox) are developed.  Any derivative works that contain GPL code must themselves be released under the GPL, and that gives the vapors to proprietary software vendors like Microsoft.  Or it used to, anyway, before Microsoft loved Linux!

With all of the recognition of failures going on in Redmond lately (Windows Mobile already, Cortana maybe, and Edge maybe), how about some recognition that WaaS hasn’t worked either?

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AlexEiffel, flackcatcher, Cybertooth, JohnW, Fred

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Hmm… I actually have mixed feelings about moving to Chromium. On the one hand, EdgeHTML is pretty solid (although development is slow). Edge itself is pretty fast and the sync capabilities work pretty well. And the JS interpreter has a pretty good potential for HTML5 games. On the other hand, Chrome has practically become the Web Renderer. I guess it makes perfect sense to simply use a well-maintained engine in the long run since they can focus on making features for the browser.

But if Microsoft sticks with Chakra (that’s the JS Interpreter of Edge) and replaces V8 (assuming that Blink and V8 are separate from the code base of Chromium) with that, it could potentially make it pretty unique. There is a version of NodeJS that uses MS’ interpreter and Chakra itself is open source, so it could be a good candidate. Add in NodeJS to UWP and it would only take a few minutes to convert a web app to UWP.

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woody

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So 20 years later, “Optimized for Chrome” is going to become a thing?

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Most browsers out there have forked the Chromium model. But not many are really successful. Everything is a bottom feeder other then Chrome. Not sure this will change anything?

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I’m seeing multiple analyses of this reported possibility that say people are avoiding Edge because of stability issues.

While it’s true that Edge has stability issues, I think the main reason why most people avoid Edge is because they don’t want to use another Microsoft product.

I believe that folks don’t care if Edge is faster or prettier. I think they want Anything But Microsoft.

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Kirsty, Elly, RamRod

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Perhaps the fact Microsoft shoved it so much in your face and really insisted that you keep it as your default browser got some people riled up against Edge.

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Ascaris, Cybertooth

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Woody, I’m primarily a Chrome user, planning to move back to Firefox.  I avoided Edge because I found it wouldn’t render webpages properly, ever.  This is across (initially) 4 systems but now down to 2.  My parents have a Windows 10 system and I showed them how to open up Internet Explorer because they refuse to use anything but Edge/IE (because they know that the ‘E’ is for Internet), however they could never get things like their webmail to open properly.

From the few times I’ve used it recently it’s a bit better but I still run into too many issues for it to be a daily driver.

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AlexEiffel

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Edge is only available in Windows 10, for one, and a lot of people still aren’t using 10.  Depending on whose statistics you consider, as many as half of Windows users are not on 10, and that means ~55% of desktop users are on platforms where Edge isn’t an option.  If/when they do move to 10, they’re likely to keep using whatever they were already using before, which we know isn’t Edge.  Without a compelling reason to consider moving, I think most users will just keep doing what they had been all along from inertia alone.

Beyond that, I agree with AlexEiffel’s message: MS pushes it so hard that there’s no way I would try it.  If it was legitimately better than the competition, people would migrate on their own.  That would be the compelling reason to switch that I mentioned above.  The same’s true of 10; if it were a good product in and of itself, MS would not have had to bring their full monopoly power to bear to force people to use it.  They didn’t force XP or 7, after all– they didn’t have to.  If a company like MS pushes too hard, people are going to go out of their way to resist.

Other reasons that I would never use Edge is that it’s UWP, and even if I used 10, UWP anything would be a non-starter.

In terms of nuts and bolts… even Firefox Quantum doesn’t cut it for me (not enough customizability).  No Chromium-based browser, including the power-user oriented Vivaldi, even gets into the neighborhood.  Edge doesn’t even measure up to the browsers I’ve rejected in terms of options and customizability (natively or with addons).  Firefox was created before the current obsession with minimalism took root, and as much as Mozilla desperately tries to amputate feature after feature in a futile bid to gain popularity by being as un-customizable as Chrome is, it (Firefox) is still a product of its time, and its derivatives even more so.  It’s what I like about them!

 

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AlexEiffel

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I avoid Edge because most of the web sites I visit don’t render correctly with Edge. There are one or two which work well with Edge; I use Edge only for those.

Of course, that’s only when I’m on a Windows 10 computer, which means when I’m at work, not at home.

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AlexEiffel

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The lack of commitment from Microsoft to some of their products, like Windows Phone and now Edge is insulting after all the fanfare trying to attract users. This is what they get for trusting on them.

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RamRod

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Just when I thought we might have to support Edge soon, a reprieve. So far, nothing we use requires it but I thought the day was inevitable. Seems not.

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Edge was prone to a pervasive pop-up invasion that led people to believe they were infected. A quick DuckDuckGo search just now yielded this Microsoft forum information:
https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/edge/forum/edge_other-edge_win10/microsoft-edge-popup/b5b09cb9-70a0-40cc-8836-f0febbcd6c06

Please note the recent date which implies the problem remains unresolved. This problem does not engender trust in Edge and if it were my computer, I would have abandoned Edge in favor of a browser that did not permit malicious pop-ups.

On permanent hiatus {with backup and coffee}
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That’s an adware infection, not a browser bug. As the first sentence of the answer at your link says, “It can happen in any browser.”

Here are examples in Google Chrome:

Your Microsoft Computer has been blocked and call Microsoft immediately

pop up saying that ‘microsoft system alert’, call to technician at this certain number

How to remove Tech Support Scam Popups in your Browser

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Edge bug. Read here:
https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_10-networking/microsoft-edge-browserror/ca3eb795-484d-4c2a-8331-7d2e35d7fd05?page=2&msgId=c8f450f7-2e66-4f1c-a8dc-02862482d4ab

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NOT Edge bug. Again you’re choosing to ignore multiple responses (e.g. on Page 1 of your latest three-year-old link) that say it’s not an Edge-specific issue, just like you’re choosing to ignore numerous examples of similar issues with Google Chrome.

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anonymous wrote:

So 20 years later, “Optimized for Chrome” is going to become a thing?

whahahaha!

* _ ... _ *

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Seems to me like they’re fixing a problem that isn’t the real problem.
People who don’t use Edge aren’t using Edge because it has a specific rendering engine… people aren’t using Edge because it’s lacking in functionality and ultimately has very little purpose.

Pardon me for being overly assuming, but people who have a Google account use Chrome, and people who are concerned about privacy/are anti-Google use Firefox. That’s the way it’s been for a long time and that’s the way it probably always will be.

Edge doesn’t have a rendering engine problem, it has a “use case” problem – because IMHO it has no real “use case”.

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OscarCP

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zero2dash wrote:

People who don’t use Edge aren’t using Edge because it has a specific rendering engine… people aren’t using Edge because it’s lacking in functionality and ultimately has very little purpose.

I think you meant “People who don’t use Edge aren’t NOT using Edge because it has a specific rendering engine…”, but what functionality does Edge lack?

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I’ve only used it occasionally, and TBT I think it’s an OK browser. It works better on my Ideapad 100S than Chrome, because it’s leaner. One thing I know it didn’t use to have was the ability to edit the URL of a bookmark, but it looks like that was added in either 1709 or 1803.

I don’t use Edge enough to give a full laundry list of what it doesn’t have, I just know it’s pretty basic (which, if that’s all you want, is fine). After all, it used to be called “Spartan”. It doesn’t have all the extensions that Chrome and Firefox do, but it’s newer, so that’s expected. I know more are being added pretty regularly.

I’m entrenched in Chrome because I have a Google account, and it syncs across all devices.

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b

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I figured Spartan was a Halo reference, like Cortana.  Your version makes sense though.

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Well the good news is that since Chromium is an open source version of the browser code, and allegedly free of the Google data collection machine, it will only be the bits that Microsoft adds on that we will need to be concerned with.  🙂

Windows 10 Pro 22H2

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Microfix

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The MS bits added will no doubt be telemetry in the name of ‘privacy and security’ for the slurp servers <snark> If Google can do it, so can MS.
GDPR may have a limit on what can be done in the EU, USA however, definitley needs a GDPR equivalent IMO.

If debian is good enough for NASA...

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johnf, woody, SueW, HiFlyer, wavy, JohnW

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Microfix wrote:

If Google can do it, so can MS.

Comparing Microsoft to Google is comparing apples to oranges. In fact, apples to oranges is a big exaggeration of what Microsoft does. Microsoft doesn’t do anywhere the amount of data collection that Google does. If you want to see how much data collection each one does, run Firefox with a script blocker. At every website, click the script button to see what is running in the background. You will find that just about every website you visit is running multiple Google scripts, whereas no websites except Microsoft-related ones are running Microsoft scripts.

Microsoft’s business model is based on the sale of actual products and services. Google’s business model is based on gathering as much information as they can on as many people as they can, and then packaging and selling that information in the form of ads and marketing information.

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I read recently that the main reason so many people are holding on to IE-11 is because of the way it handles Favorites. Instead of hiding them in an inaccessible database, it uses actual links and files that can be kept and organized in a folder. That makes using and controlling Favorites so much easier, especially if you use a lot of them on a regular basis.

Actually, that makes a lot of sense. There is no way to easily access and control your bookmarks in any of the Chromium-based browsers. I’m not commenting on the speed, graphics, or rendering of the browser itself, everyone has their preference. I’m just saying that the ability to control your Favorites was valuable to IE-11 and it’s predecessors. I wish one of the coders for a Chromium-based browser would include that in their release. IE-11 hold outs would jump in a minute.

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Cybertooth

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If anyone likes Explorer because of its facility with Favorites it is darn certain they have never tried Firefox or its forks! Palemoon fer instance….

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Just because you don't know where you are going doesn't mean any road will get you there.

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Elly

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Mr. Wavy, I use Firefox as my default browser.
Please tell me the folder where I can go in and create new folders, subfolders and new bookmarks outside of Firefox itself. Which folder can I rearrange the bookmarks manually without having to drag them up and down inside the browser window. That dedicated folder and that ability does not exist.

There isn’t even a Bookmarks folder with individual Bookmark links in it. For someone like me who does a lot of research, and maintains hundreds of bookmarks on many different topics, the IE-11 Favorites management system was as easy as moving individual files around your Windows Explorer. In fact, it WAS an individual folder in the Windows Explorer.

Firefox (and various Chromium versions) use an internal Extensible Storage Engine database to store favorites. It’s buried deep in the Users Folder in a .json format that prevents you from directly controlling your Bookmarks. This database is not designed to be “human readable”, so it takes specialized software to be able to do anything meaningful with it. This means that you can no longer use the File Explorer to manage your favorites. You are limited to make very simple modifications inside the browser’s Bookmarks dropdown while still inside the browser window.

The “native” way to access your Bookmarks in Firefox is, of course, to open Firefox, expose the vertical favorites “pane”, and use Firefox to rename, delete, or rearrange the folders and favorites. Added extensions do not change that. I am one of those who agrees with what I read, and I miss that ability from IE-11 in Firefox. I wish I still had control of my bookmarks like I could in IE-11.

Emmet Gray has developed an little app called, “EdgeManage” that creates a way to manage your bookmarks and regain full control in Edge like you did in IE-11. If one of you coders could make something like that available for Firefox and other Chromium forks, then that would close the gap in Bookmarks usability.

http://www.edgemanage.emmet-gray.com/index.html

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Elly, BobbyB, HiFlyer

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I have arranged my bookmarks similar to IE’s – folder inside folder as deep as you want.
Put a “Favorites” folder in the Bookmark toolbar, did the same hierarchy with the built-in bookmarks.
Open Bookmarksshow all bookmarks and you can alphabetize, copy, arrange however.
Although it’s not a folder on your computer like IE, it can be manipulated.

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woody

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Ok one can not use File explorer to organize bookmarks in Mozilla but the native Organize Bookmark tool does everything sooo much better. For instance how do you use FExlporer to order bookmarks? This can be done TMK only from the little Organize Favorites window. But each to their own, I am glad Explorer is still around for those who prefer it. I can only hope the Firefox forks will be here for a while as I can not stand the new FF gui and Edge-like lack of configurabilty.

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Just because you don't know where you are going doesn't mean any road will get you there.

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Declan wrote:

There isn’t even a Bookmarks folder with individual Bookmark links in it. For someone like me who does a lot of research, and maintains hundreds of bookmarks on many different topics, the IE-11 Favorites management system was as easy as moving individual files around your Windows Explorer. In fact, it WAS an individual folder in the Windows Explorer.

Heh, I remember when that was a negative for MSIE.  Back when hard drive space was more limited, there was concern that each bookmark would use up to 32KB of drive space (most of it slack space) on a FAT32-formatted drive, and that this would add up to significant waste of space.

Of course, that’s not a concern with modern gear.

The native format of the bookmarks in Firefox used to be a bookmarks.html file, which could easily be edited with notepad or whatever you wanted to use.  You can still export the bookmarks to an HTML file, edit that file, then import once again.

My bookmarks have swelled to some 25,000 over the years, with most of them by far never having been used (or even seen) in ages.  I have some as far back as 2003.  As you might expect, the older links are mostly dead.  I have taken a shot at culling it a few times, but I get tired of it after a while, and so it continues.

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Declan wrote:
the main reason so many people are holding on to IE-11 is because of the way it handles Favorites

Yes, this is likely true, but not for the reason you suggest…

Years ago, back when Microsoft first noticed that the Internet might actually be a big thing (circa 1995… real visionaries, those folks), they promptly set out to (monopolistically) crush the competition by building a web browser _into_ their widely-used Windows OS (rather than developing a separate/standalone browser application and relying on superior design and features and performance to capture market share).

This unfortunate business decision had technological consequences, resulting in a confused muddling of the OS(system)-vs-user(apps/data) boundary when Internet Explorer was added to Windows… and to this very day Microsoft stores an Internet Explorer user’s preferred bookmark order (i.e., the order the user prefers & chooses to arrange & display their IE bookmarks) in the Windows registry!

This IE “feature”, a rather obvious attempt to discourage users from switching to other browsers, has been both undeniably outed and perpetuated by Microsoft’s longstanding refusal to implement a feature within Internet Explorer to export IE bookmarks in _user-arranged order_ (i.e., NOT default alphabetical order). And by not allowing users with large lists of non-alphabetically-organized IE bookmarks to export these in their preferred bookmark order, Microsoft raises the pain threshold for casual users who might consider switching to other browsers…

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wavy

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Microfix wrote:

The MS bits added will no doubt be telemetry in the name of ‘privacy and security’ for the slurp servers <snark> If Google can do it, so can MS. GDPR may have a limit on what can be done in the EU, USA however, definitley needs a GDPR equivalent IMO.

+1 for US-GDPR 🙂

Windows 10 Pro 22H2

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johnf

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If not a rumor, I wonder what they will name their new browser. Surely they will retire the name ‘Edge’. It is not a bad name for a browser, but it has too much baggage associated with it. The gurus that decided on ‘Bing’ for the search engine should not be called upon to name the new browser, for obvious reasons.

I offer this new name for consideration: Odyssey. I think it fits with their corporate culture. Whatever they choose it will have to be clever and not mundane. Initial appeal is in the name and it really matters when trying to influence people to try something new.

From a tech point of view, I think they can go with a chromium based browser and make it work for the user and their bottom line. Considering it will be the default browser there should be fewer reasons to change to something else if they get it right.

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Maybe they will call it ‘Cliff’ for the abyss we are heading for??

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Just because you don't know where you are going doesn't mean any road will get you there.

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Why would MS even bother creating a new browser for W10? If Edge does get discontinued, I can see no good business reason for MS to create a new chromium based browser of their own. If they do, they should just name it ‘Metoo’. I can not see Nadella throwing more money at this as he is ruthless when it comes to reining in costs. They lost the browser war and it is time for them to leave the battle field. They have a lot more to get right.

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If at first you don’t succeed…..

Old habits die hard. Think back. Windows Phone, for example.

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You cut the cost, but add the slurp for monetization. What’s not to love?

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Actually I could see them do something like integrate the new advertising system that’s built into Windows 10 into the next “Edge,” that way if you use their version of Chrome you’re giving them advertising revenue and usage data instead of Google.

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Firefox has the best bookmark management, IMHO!!!  🙂

Windows 10 Pro 22H2

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wavy, Microfix

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Hopefully they’ll keep it minimal, and all the snooping **** out. Ahh who am I kidding.

The thing is, I actually LIKE IE. If only it wasn’t so c*** and slow. I do have Firefox and Brave installed for websites that just don’t work in it.

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People who are not happy with Edge and do more demanding things with a browser than download videos and read a few blogs, are already not using it, and most of those same people, if the are still using primarily an MS browser, are very likely Windows 7 and 8.1 hold overs (like me) using IE11 (I prefer Waterfox). And why anyone no longer using an MS browser, but something else instead, would start using a new, improved MS browser that is, at best, not too different from what they already have?

I asked this question here further up, and the best answer, so far, seems to be that, as someone already mentioned here, MS new, improved browser will be the result of a case of simple corporate “me tooism.”

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

MacBook Pro circa mid-2015, 15" display, with 16GB 1600 GHz DDR3 RAM, 1 TB SSD, a Haswell architecture Intel CPU with 4 Cores and 8 Threads model i7-4870HQ @ 2.50GHz.
Intel Iris Pro GPU with Built-in Bus, VRAM 1.5 GB, Display 2880 x 1800 Retina, 24-Bit color.
macOS Monterey; browsers: Waterfox "Current", Vivaldi and (now and then) Chrome; security apps. Intego AV

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Embrace, Extend, Extinguish is definitely a concern.  MS could get on board with the chrome engine and then “tweak” it in ways that make it compatible with all sites designed for Chrome, but sites for Edge no longer display properly in Chrome.  Chrome is the defacto standard for any new web-based software that isn’t 10+ years legacy.  IE is still required for fossilized software, but more recent stuff supports Chrome first.  If MS can jump in front, provide native legacy support for IE-oriented sites, native chrome rendering, AND give new projects the chance to use new proprietary technology in Edge, then they become the smart choice for corporations again.  Not lying, if they did that we’d be forced to use Win10 on our networks if we can’t get off the Windows desktop before the end of Win7.

As for general users, the non-tech savvy will use whatever is installed on their system, and quite a few of the tech savvy will tell them to keep it that way so they get less calls for help.  That’s, what, like 70% of the population?  Of course the actual number will be lower since Windows is hemorrhaging users to iPad and Android.

1 user thanked author for this post.

AlexEiffel

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more reaction from Ed Bott & Mary Jo Foley of ZDNet:

https://www.zdnet.com/article/microsoft-edge-what-went-wrong-whats-next/

https://www.zdnet.com/article/microsofts-edge-to-morph-into-a-chromium-based-cross-platform-browser/

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Switching to Chromium also opens up the possibility of a Microsoft Equivalent of the ChromeBook, which may be their way of re-claiming the Educational and lower end markets.
A stripped down W10 would work nicely with the browser being the main interface, and likely eliminate most of the security and upgrade issues.

If I were them, I’d seriously look at purchasing Vivaldi, which could easily be modified to work in both desktops, mobile and chromebook equivalents across platforms.

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Well… https://www.thurrott.com/google/194556/microsoft-confirms-it-will-adopt-chromium-for-microsoft-edge

It will be available on all supported Windows versions and MacOS.

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wavy, BobbyB

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Early next year gonna give Palemoon and Wikipedia a little contribution, gotta keep the good stuff going..

🍻

Just because you don't know where you are going doesn't mean any road will get you there.

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Elly

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