from the [t|ch]e[e|a]rs-of-joy-across-linux-land dept.
Now for some amazing fantastical news that we've all been anxiously waiting for . . .
PSA: Microsoft Edge comes to Linux next month
Microsoft has increasingly embraced Linux over the past few years, going so far as to make it easy to run a proper Linux terminal and applications in Windows 10. Now Microsoft is extending another olive branch to the Linux community by offering its new Chromium-powered version of the Edge browser on the OS.
Starting next month, Microsoft will make Edge available on Linux as a developer preview build. Users will be able to download it right from the Edge Insider's site or pick it up from Linux's package manager.
Given Chromium's existing popularity, Edge should, for the most part, work just the same on Linux as on other platforms.
Yes, for the most part, it works the same. Linux users can now rejoice that they will have a Chromium based browser that has the stability, security, robustness, and quality that we've all come to expect from the Microsoft name! Way to go Microsoft!
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Thursday September 24 2020, @11:26PM (7 children)
I am not.
(Score: 0, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 25 2020, @01:01AM (1 child)
Hey fascist, here is your fascist leader finally stating plainly and clearly how fascist he is. Don't stick your dick in a tater!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 25 2020, @01:13AM
You maroon, you're supposed to keep your trolls in the troll threads! Bad troll!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 25 2020, @01:04AM
And just when you think 2020 can't get any worse... thanks Microsoft.
(Score: 3, Funny) by DannyB on Friday September 25 2020, @03:27AM (2 children)
You should be thrilled.
Microsoft's Edge browser for Linux will not phone home to Google.
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Friday September 25 2020, @04:18AM (1 child)
How is phoning home to Microsoft any better than phoning home to Google? I'll continue using the browsers that don't phone home at all, thank you very much.
(Score: 4, Informative) by Marand on Friday September 25 2020, @07:30AM
If the browser phones home to Google, they can use it to advertise at me across the internet. If the browser phones home to Microsoft, they can use it to advertise at me across Windows 10...
...which I don't use, so good luck with that I guess.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 25 2020, @04:25AM
Thrilled, the other user is.
(Score: 2) by SomeGuy on Thursday September 24 2020, @11:30PM (6 children)
You know, Microsoft Internet Explorer was once available for Solaris and HP-UX. Something that people wanted, it was not.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Thursday September 24 2020, @11:34PM (2 children)
Well, it's not like everything MS has available is wanted by people. Actually, it seems the more likely to not be wanted (e.g. Windows phones were not).
It doesn't make all MS offer as unwanted, e.g. XBox consoles and gaming PC-es seem to be quite a hit.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by coolgopher on Friday September 25 2020, @05:20AM (1 child)
Hey now, my windows phone sucks less than Android and iOS things in my book.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Friday September 25 2020, @06:12AM
Probably because you need to keep it mostly shutdown (grin)
My Android doesn't suck at all: I'm using it only for phone calls and for 2FA when I VPN into company's network.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by epitaxial on Friday September 25 2020, @11:37AM (1 child)
I used it and it run better than Netscape.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 25 2020, @01:35PM
How does it compare with Lynx?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 27 2020, @04:05AM
I had a Sparc2 brought to it's knees by a contractor running Explorer under SunOS.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 24 2020, @11:32PM (16 children)
What's the point here? So, it's MS-flavored chromium-based browser. What's the target market?
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Thursday September 24 2020, @11:35PM (3 children)
Avid Windows phone users. (grin)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Friday September 25 2020, @03:01AM (1 child)
Well, you know it's kind of embarrassing that the Linux subsystem doesn't have an MS branded browser available.
(Score: 2) by fido_dogstoyevsky on Friday September 25 2020, @11:46PM
Embarrassing to whom?
It's NOT a conspiracy... it's a plot.
(Score: 2) by coolgopher on Friday September 25 2020, @07:37AM
If EdgeOnLinux actually works with joining a Teams call it'll be a step up over Chromium. Had to install the native Teams app on Linux today :(
(Score: 2) by MostCynical on Thursday September 24 2020, @11:58PM (1 child)
people who want 'familiar' browser on a linux machine - possibly gets some additional users onto linux machines, if they do 99% of their computing on a browser anyway.
otherwise: idiots?
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Friday September 25 2020, @03:43PM
Firefox is a 'familiar' browser on Linux.
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by ikanreed on Friday September 25 2020, @12:36AM (2 children)
Selenium automated web app test boxes?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 25 2020, @02:16AM
That is exactly what I was thinking. Most people run Windows computers in Enterprise. Windows comes with Edge and Chrome may or may not be installed. If the various companies that make software with web interfaces can run the test suite against the same browser on all platforms and potentially reduce testing costs, then that will become the preferred and supported browser. This is the perfect way to get more market share long term organically.
(Score: 3, Touché) by DannyB on Friday September 25 2020, @03:29AM
Because Edge on Linux works mostly the same as on other platforms.
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 2) by richtopia on Friday September 25 2020, @12:50AM (1 child)
Maybe if you use Microsoft's devices and want them sync'd. Like how Windows 10 can sync text messages with Android devices.
But for the most part, I'm not sure what the motivation for another Blink browser is. I don't want to use Chrome for privacy reasons, but that means I'm very skeptical of Microsoft products too.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 25 2020, @12:24PM
So you can sync your telemetry ahead of their takeover of systemd, perhaps?
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Friday September 25 2020, @03:30AM (4 children)
Target market: people concerned about their privacy who realize Microsoft's Edge browser won't send information to Google.
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 25 2020, @04:31AM (3 children)
> Target market: people concerned about their privacy who realize Microsoft's Edge browser won't send information to Google.
And are foolish enough to believe that Microsoft's Edge browser will not send data to Microsoft.
Nobody serious about their privacy uses MS products. MS admitted that they even slurp up documents you write in their non cloud versions of MS Office as part of their "telemetry" collection. Google is terrible. Microsoft is worse.
(Score: 2) by coolgopher on Friday September 25 2020, @07:38AM
But Google is bigger, and everywhere.
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Friday September 25 2020, @10:59AM (1 child)
In terms of privacy, I disagree. Not that Microsoft is a saint in that regard, far from it, but Google is a pioneer of exploiting your data on a massive scale, and Microsoft definitely hasn't caught up yet.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 25 2020, @12:27PM
While I lack a URL for this, I remember hearing telemetry for Microsoft's new browser was even worse than Chrome.
Plus, while Win10 has fewer installed devices than Android, they're probably more telemetrized, and certainly moving towards similar levels of control, usually under the guise of "security" (Windows 10 S).
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 24 2020, @11:34PM (3 children)
Which package manager? Surely not gentoo's, or I'd be able to build it from source on my PPC machine, or a MIPS one ... (though even chromium isn't available on them: https://packages.gentoo.org/packages/www-client/chromium) [gentoo.org]
Oh, did they mean x86_64 linux distributions only? That's not interesting.
(Score: 3, Funny) by everdred on Friday September 25 2020, @02:45AM
I can't wait to not install this using Linux's package manager.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 25 2020, @02:45AM
Sounds like you might be interested in a couple of old 16-bit desktop boxes I still have... call me.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Friday September 25 2020, @03:44PM
They meant 'package mangler'.
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 3, Informative) by requerdanos on Thursday September 24 2020, @11:37PM (2 children)
Emphasis added:
That's not a thing.
There are some organizations that bundle Linux with other components and programs as a complete operating system, and they often provide package managers alongside Linux, sure. But they can't be said to be "Linux's" package manager(s).
(Score: 3, Interesting) by EvilSS on Friday September 25 2020, @01:10AM
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 25 2020, @11:59AM
Isn't that what make menuconfig is?
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Grishnakh on Thursday September 24 2020, @11:52PM (27 children)
Why would anyone want this? Why did MS waste resources making it? Only newbs use Edge at all; everyone with a clue installs Firefox and/or Chrome on their Windows PC as fast as they can, so they can install Ublock Origin. This is the last thing any Linux users would want; what can it possibly offer that they can't already get with Chrome/Chromium/Firefox?
If MS wants to embrace Linux more, why don't they port some of their more popular products to it, like Office?
And finally, as a die-hard Linux user myself, even I have to admit that (bare-metal) desktop Linux is dying out these days, and has been for quite a while unfortunately. People who use it for development generally seem to run it within a VM (as I do for work), so the browser isn't even very important because, with a VM setup, you generally run the browser in Windows, along with Office, Outlook, and other corporate crap, while doing the dev work inside the Linux VM. So Visual Studio Code, for instance, is actually somewhat popular on Linux.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Marand on Friday September 25 2020, @12:28AM (17 children)
I'm interested in giving it a fair shot for one reason: vertical tabs. Monitors have more horizontal space than vertical, so vertical tabs should be a no-brainer: free up some extra vertical space while also being able to have more than five tabs open and still having readable tab titles.
The problem is it should be obvious, but it's apparently not. Google is hostile to usability and customisation so you get horizontal tabs and fuck you if you want to do something different. There are addons for it, but they're barely-working kludges. Firefox used to have a great extension for vertical tabs (Tree Style Tab), but the death of XUL turned it into a second-class citizen that's a shadow of its former self, closer to Chrome's kludgy addons than its former legacy as something that felt like a natural part of the browser.
So right now, if I want vertical tabs (which I do!) I can choose a half-assed Chrome solution, a half-assed Firefox solution, a pre-XUL Firefox fork with an unmaintained version of Tree Style Tab, or Vivaldi. The options all suck.
I've been using the pre-XULpocalypse Waterfox branch, but somehow a minor update to it broke TST completely, so I had to swap to a different tree tab addon and it's trash. Entire reason I was sticking to Waterfox classic was TST and Ubiquity, and TST broke so I'm about ready to abandon the sinking ship, and when I do it's not going to be for anything Mozilla makes, because they've burned me over and over.
I've been putting off making a switch because the other tab option just barely works well enough and I don't really have any other good options. Right now Vivaldi's the only possibly viable alternative but everything I see about it indicates it's slow and crash-prone, which will be trading one frustration for another.
So yeah, bring on this dumb Blink-powered Microsoft browser. It has uBlock Origin and vertical tabs, so I'll give it a fair shot because the alternatives right now all fucking suck. It's a sad day when you have to look to Microsoft to get a product with useful configuration options.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 25 2020, @01:00AM (1 child)
Note: Tree Style Tab works fine on modern firefox.
(Score: 4, Informative) by Marand on Friday September 25 2020, @01:27AM
Yeah as long as you're fine with either having two tab bars at once or doing some hacky manual userstyle editing, and okay with it being a little weird (compared to before) due to webextension limitations.
It's not that it doesn't work, it's that it's still objectively worse than before.
(Score: 2, Disagree) by vux984 on Friday September 25 2020, @01:22AM (3 children)
"So yeah, bring on this dumb Blink-powered Microsoft browser. "
Blink is dead, Edge is based on Chromium now. Even the Windows version.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Marand on Friday September 25 2020, @01:32AM (2 children)
Blink (a fork of Webkit) is the rendering engine used by Chromium (and everything based on it) so your comment makes no sense. Edge, being Chromium-based, is yet another Blink-powered browser. Perhaps you're thinking of the previous engine they replaced it with more recently? I think it was called EdgeHTML.
(Score: 2) by vux984 on Friday September 25 2020, @01:36AM (1 child)
Quite right; I spaced badly on the name there. Thanks for the correction.
(Score: 2) by Marand on Friday September 25 2020, @03:07AM
The lineage of various browsers and their engines has gotten really strange over the years so it's easy to get things mixed up. I had to look up the EdgeHTML name; I knew there was something post-Trident and pre-Blink but had no idea what it was called.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by PiMuNu on Friday September 25 2020, @03:33AM (1 child)
I am required by my workplace to use Edge to access certain (Oracle-developed) HR functions. I could purge windows from my work set up.
(Score: 2) by Marand on Friday September 25 2020, @05:25AM
Well, that's a hell of a nice incentive to use it. On a similar note, I wonder if it'll have that IE11 compatibility mode, which could make it useful for viewing obnoxious work-related sites that still only support IE and similarly keep people tied to Windows.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 25 2020, @06:25AM (5 children)
I've been using Vivaldi for years on Windows, exactly for the vertical tab bar, and it's been stable and awesome.
(Score: 2) by Marand on Friday September 25 2020, @07:51AM (4 children)
Thanks for that anecdote, nice to see someone out there saying it's not a crashy mess. My plan is to give both it and Edge a try when Edge4Linux appears, spend time with each, and see which (if any) suits me better as a potential replacement. I've been putting this off for a long time because of TST and Ubiquity but I knew it had to happen eventually.
I'll miss Ubiquity though, it's a super useful addon and a shame that Firefox abandoned the experiment. On a similar note, I'll also miss the tab groups addon that used to be a Firefox feature until they ditched it. Luckily someone else picked it up, at least until the XULpocalypse when he said "okay fuck this" and abandoned it completely because Mozilla seems determined to piss off users and addon developers alike. (It looks like someone else ported it into the post-XUL world of Firefox, no idea how usable it is.)
Vivaldi and Edge both seem to have some kind of tab grouping mechanism (yay) but neither one seems to be remotely like that extension. :(
(Score: 2) by Common Joe on Friday September 25 2020, @11:21AM (3 children)
My anecdote: I'm a big fan of the vertical tabs too. I gave up in both Windows and Linux because of instability reasons (which would crash part of or the whole browser) or the extensions themselves sucked. I'm 100% with everything you've said about this.
(Score: 2) by Marand on Friday September 25 2020, @10:26PM (2 children)
I just don't get it, why does every browser force horizontal tabs still? It only works if you never have more than a handful of tabs open at a time, because after a point you just end up with a bunch of icons and no way to tell which is which. It's fucking awful if you're using documentation on a site and have a dozen tabs open to for reference. And to make matters worse, every site can use more vertical space because pages scroll vertically, but more horizontal space is almost always wasted.
It's like the people developing the browsers don't actually use them.
(Score: 2) by Common Joe on Saturday September 26 2020, @04:33AM (1 child)
The whole of IT has gone mad. There are thousands of things I can comment on that qualify under WTF. You touched upon wasted horizontal space. SoylentNews is one of the very few websites that lets me decide how wide I want my text. Usually, that is forced upon me by the website. It's claimed that some nameless specialist has identified the optimum width for reading for reading a single line and therefore all websites should use those number of pixels. Nevermind that I enlarge the text and the number of pixels used stays the same so the text squishes together and my horizontal space is really wasted. I guess no one has eye problems.
The history of the bright text on dark background falls into a similar category. In the past year or two, websites and apps have given users the option to use "dark mode". They treat it like they're rolling out something completely new and special and that no one had ever thought of before. "Dark Mode. Wow! How awesome is that!?" I just watched in awe as they turned something brainless into the greatest thing since sliced bread. It gets really interesting when you go further back in time. All the ergonomic people were telling user interface specialists that brighter background and dark text is easier on the eyes, so therefore no one should have the flipped colors and if you thought it was easier on your eyes, you didn't know what you were talking about. Well, last I checked, I wasn't like you and the things that hurt my eyes are not the same as the stuff that hurts your eyes. I actually prefer dark mode in the early morning and late evening, and the brighter stuff during the day, but I'm not going to toggle the settings of a hundred web apps.
Hey, you know, I have a novel idea that truly is the greatest thing since sliced bread: How about programmers allow users to make choices? How about users set their own colors and set their own horizontal preferences? How about we let the users decide if the browser tabs are grouped or not? How about allowing us to determine if we want our tabs docked on the top, bottom, left, or right of the screen -- or even (gasp!) floating so we can dock it on another screen? How about we go really wild? How about if we're allowed to have Firefox on screen 1 on the left, Chrome on screen 1 on the right, Edge on screen 2 on the left, and the tabs from all three programs docked on the right side of screen 2? In other words -- the tabs from all three programs would be contained in a pane that specializes in accepting floating windows from other programs and can organize them. Lets take that a step further. Allow me to set up a button or a menu item that automatically opens up everything this way because this is how I like one of my workspaces.
Those are just a few of the very simple ideas out of thousands. But they aren't done because control would be given back to the user and "it would be complicated". Here's another: if programmers are worried about users screwing up their own settings, have a reset button that can put everything back to a sane default. I'm really sick of being treated like a child when I'm on the computer. It makes for a horrible user experience -- in Linux and Windows. (I can't comment too much about Apple, but I'm sure it's similar.)
Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to get back to working on security stuff between computers. (Now there's a place we've truly have lost our minds with endlessly layered complication.)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 26 2020, @02:22PM
tabbed + any single instance browser is exactly what you describe.
(Score: 1, Flamebait) by gtomorrow on Saturday September 26 2020, @06:12AM (2 children)
So basically you're willing to accept all the other (euphemistically titled) "issues" just for vertical tabs. Privacy/security nightmare on equal footing as Google Chrome from the original "evil empire" vs. an aesthetically pleasing view. You are just confirming my suspicions. [soylentnews.org]
Hey, knock yourself out.
(Score: 2) by Marand on Saturday September 26 2020, @11:26AM (1 child)
It's not ideal, but it's (slightly) better than Google. Got any better ideas that don't involve dealing with Firefox while Mozilla fucks me over yet again with another brain-dead executive decision? Because I'm kind of sick of that.
Your suspicions of what, that I'm some newbie Linux user that doesn't remember the old Microsoft? I've been using Linux since '95 and I remember all the bullshit, I just don't care because it's 20+ year old history that, despite having the same company name on it, is not at all relevant to my potential use of its browser. They aren't going to magically EEE my 20 year old Debian install (been updating it since potato, migrating it across hardware) somehow just because I give a browser with the word "Microsoft" in its about page a trial run.
I also remember once upon a time, Netscape lost the plot similarly to Mozilla now. Its browser became an unusable trash fire while Microsoft's IE4 was more stable, faster, and more standards-compliant. So guess what I used? Sure wasn't Netscape. Then they fucked it all up with IE5 and I moved on.
Like Netscape in its heyday, Mozilla and Firefox used to be great, but nothing lasts forever, and they've been hard at work for years eroding any goodwill they had from me. So, what the fuck is left, considering Vivaldi's closed source, Chrome feeds the ever-hungry Google, and Firefox forks are doomed to slowly rot away.
But hey, you keep being a condescending little prick just because I want something that works and I'm sick of dealing with Mozilla shoving garbage my way and expecting me to like it. They're such a great benefactor of the web, what with pushing Mr Robot advertisement extensions on people, forcing Pocket integration into the browser, showing splash on updates with some trash about how "It's okay to like Facebook" to advertise some other addon they foisted on people, etc.
(Score: 1, Troll) by gtomorrow on Saturday September 26 2020, @03:14PM
Truthfully, I assumed nothing. But what you've just admitted, again, confirms my suspicions...nothing personal. You're still willing to invite that, being well aware of the past. As I already said, knock yourself out with your vertical tabs. By your own admission in your second paragraph, you're merely a repeat Microsoft customer.
I was going to reply to your other accusations and uncalled-for insults, but I see your wrath is making you hallucinate and your spittle is getting everywhere. Did I by chance interrupt your regular medication? Should I call the nurse?
And to whom it may concern: thanks for the Flamebait mod...?
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 25 2020, @12:46AM
Millenials.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 25 2020, @01:26AM
Ad revenue.
To get a piece of the above, instead of leaving it all to Google.
(Score: 2) by vux984 on Friday September 25 2020, @01:34AM
I'm not really sure anyone really wants this. There's some edge cases (haha pun intended) where its nice to have, but nowhere where it's important.
Well, Teams (preview) is available for Linux; and that is useful.
And this is where I see Edge for linux being part of a bigger linux strategy. Dropping Edge and Teams on Linux gives linux users enough of a Microsoft platform to buy into the office 365 ecosystem in a supported way. In particular, Microsoft providing a browser means that they aren't relying on Google and Mozilla for Office Web Apps to work - and that's got to be worth something. (plus a Chromium browser can't be very hard to port to Linux so its not a huge investment for them.
Having Edge on Linux and Mac etc also potentially gives Microsoft a bigger foothold to get people using their "Microsoft Account" for microsoft services regardless of platform - but particularly who are already using Windows 10.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 25 2020, @02:44AM (2 children)
You can run uBlock Origin on this Chromium version.
(Score: 2) by toddestan on Friday September 25 2020, @09:23PM (1 child)
Yes, I was about to say this.
Personally, I'd use Edge over Chrome if I was to pick between the two. I don't trust Google, so Chrome is right out. I don't really trust Microsoft either, but I'll trust them more than Google. Of course, I instead use neither, but I really don't see any advantage of Chrome over Edge if I had to pick an Blink-based browser to use.
(Score: 2) by coolgopher on Saturday September 26 2020, @05:29AM
Whichever browser stops the nonsense of having F6 alternate between the url bar and the tabs gets a vote from me. And if they had an actual url bar and not some weirdo unpredictable url-or-search-or-spy-on-me bar, I might actually consider using it.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by PinkyGigglebrain on Friday September 25 2020, @03:15AM (1 child)
part of their trade marked
Embrace (we are here),
Extend (coming soon),
Extinguish (not going to happen but they can dream)
"Beware those who would deny you Knowledge, For in their hearts they dream themselves your Master."
(Score: 3, Interesting) by gtomorrow on Friday September 25 2020, @07:06AM
Who's to say? Nobody, included BDFL Linus, lives forever (Steve Jobs-era Apple vs Tim Cook-era Apple). "Vision" blurs. Licenses change (that's an attorney's game...just add money). There's always an eventual shift in attitude among the new generation of devs (systemd vs "The UNIX Philosophy", "The NEW Microsoft LOVES Linux!", etc.). Microsoft is just planning for the (semi-)long tail and so far it seems everything is going according to plan. After all, this isn't just "DOS ain't done til Lotus won't run" or crushing some web browser. This is an entire open-source OS/ecosystem.
We'll see how this plays out.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by progo on Friday September 25 2020, @03:34AM
At the moment, some people trust Microsoft to package clean software more than they trust Google. And, well, the rest of the browser landscape is a trash fire surrounded by some well-built products no one uses.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 25 2020, @12:14AM (3 children)
(Score: 2) by PinkyGigglebrain on Friday September 25 2020, @03:07AM
You have my deepest condolences.
"Beware those who would deny you Knowledge, For in their hearts they dream themselves your Master."
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 25 2020, @04:45AM (1 child)
I only ever knew one person who used a windows phone. He hated it (he had always used an iPhone), but, now he worked for Microsoft. He made it sound like there was pretty serious pressure to be seen using MS products, but his position was pretty visible.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 25 2020, @07:50PM
I had one of the early windows phones (WP7) - it was great. Broke the screen, got a new WP8 windows phone, it /looked/ exactly the same, but every feature was crippled and useless in comparison to WP7.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 25 2020, @12:24AM
another day, another chromium fork
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 25 2020, @01:17AM
MS was the david that slayed the goliath IBM.
Now MS is the has-been washout.
Google, your days are numbered.
Fuckbook - you make me think anti-semitic thoughts. I know it's wrong, and illogical, but you do.
It don't help what the Israel is doing now.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Friday September 25 2020, @03:02AM (1 child)
Wasn't Microsoft an operating system that was popular back in the late 90's, in the long-ago before time when geezers totally didn't get smart phones or social media?
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by PinkyGigglebrain on Friday September 25 2020, @03:11AM
FTFY, and yes, yes it was.
"Beware those who would deny you Knowledge, For in their hearts they dream themselves your Master."
(Score: 2) by srobert on Friday September 25 2020, @03:16AM
It's not a ROFLMAO line, but it was good chuckle.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by srobert on Friday September 25 2020, @03:32AM (3 children)
Nobody wants Microsoft Edge for their Linux system. It's an internal programming exercise to prepare for a future Microsoft OS that will be built around a Linux kernel. Since they compiled it, they may as well make it available. Maybe someone in the Linux community will troubleshoot it for them. No really, This isn't some bullshit I just made up. ;-D
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 25 2020, @12:06PM
Microsoft does. It means they can can now make their Azure portal Edge-only to force their stink onto other-smelling systems.
(Score: 2) by Common Joe on Saturday September 26 2020, @04:43AM (1 child)
I fixed that for you. Chrome and Firefox have become so dumb that when Edge rolls out a new feature or two (like the "amazing" vertical tabs), people are going to be all over it. (Marand and I were having a conversation above about that.)
And when that happens, you can blame Alphabet and Firefox for letting it happen. Features, looking nice, and/or having a nice user experience is how every browser disruption begins. Netscape Navigator took over from IE; IE then took over from Netscape Navigator; then Firefox took over; then Chrome took over. (Yes, I oversimplified a little.) We may very well be looking at the next major web browser. Time will tell.
One thing I won't be surprised by is seeing how awful Edge will be in a few years. This seems to be the only constant.
(Score: 2) by srobert on Saturday September 26 2020, @04:00PM
Interesting. Apparently at least some Linux users will want Edge. So my "nobody" has now become Few. Perhaps I'm wrong. Vivaldi supports a lot of customization in appearance of tabs. Not sure if it meets the standards of the "amazing vertical tabs" you mentioned. But if I wanted a closed source chrome based browser with lots of features, I'd trust Vivaldi over stuff from Microsoft. For now, despite many problems, Firefox remains my default.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by dltaylor on Friday September 25 2020, @09:11AM (1 child)
IE 11 is increasingly untenable.
If M$ (yeah, I know, but I'm old) provides Edge on multiple platforms,, then businesses can standardize on THAT engine/presentation internally and quit hearing "xxx doesn't run on my browser".
Probably, soon, with Edge on Windows, Linux, MacOS (or whatever they call it now), iOS (same), and Android, we'll be back to having all of the crappy websites on the planet (which is nearly all of them) only test against Edge, and if it doesn't work with your privacy-enhanced browser, well, that's just too bad.
(Score: 2) by dltaylor on Friday September 25 2020, @09:15AM
I hurried the parent; apologies.
All of the Edge telemetry will, of course, go to Microsoft, not Google.
(Score: 2) by JustNiz on Friday September 25 2020, @03:25PM
I can see it now.
No Linux users will want to install this, and Microsoft knows it.
Edge for Linux can only be aimed at all corporate IT departments who almost always only understand Windows, yet who have to allow a few Linux PCs (developers etc) on 'their' network.
IT can now demand Linux users only use Edge, without having any understanding for doing so.
(Score: 2) by turgid on Friday September 25 2020, @07:46PM
Why don't they bypass Linux entirely and make it run on systemd?
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].