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posted by on Thursday January 05 2017, @04:33PM   Printer-friendly
from the do-we-still-hate-microsoft dept.

Microsoft's Internet Explorer (IE) and Edge browsers may be near the bottom of their unprecedented crash in user share, measurements published Sunday show.

Analytics vendor Net Applications reported that the user share of IE and Edge -- an estimate of the proportion of the world's personal computer owners who ran those browsers -- dropped by seven-tenths of a percentage point in December, falling to a combined 26.2%.

That seven-tenths of a point decline was notable because it was less than half that of the browsers' average monthly reductions over the last 12, six and three months, which were 1.9, 1.8 and 1.5 points, respectively. The slowly-shrinking averages over the three different spans supported the idea that IE and Edge may be reaching rock bottom.

Microsoft's browser collapse has been unparalleled. In 2016, IE and Edge -- Net Applications pours their user share into the same "bucket" -- shed 20.1 points, representing 43% of its December 2015 share. No other browser has bled that much user share that quickly, with the possible exception of Netscape Navigator in the 1990s.

I know we love to hate Microsoft in general and IE in particular, but is Edge that bad?

-- submitted from IRC


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  • (Score: 5, Interesting) by nobu_the_bard on Thursday January 05 2017, @06:01PM

    by nobu_the_bard (6373) on Thursday January 05 2017, @06:01PM (#449836)

    Most of the other posters are saying it doesn't matter, it's Windows 10, but here's an actual opinion of Edge.

    Yes, it is bad.

    Featurewise, Edge is very similar to IE 11, but does less. There are sites I must use IE 11 for, because Edge does not work with them. IE 11 is still the default browser for many a business use as a result. However, because of the IE 11/Edge split, in practice both must be used. Some Windows 10 users also have had issues with the OS "helpfully" unpinning IE from the taskbar sometimes too (haven't reliably reproduced this but have seen it myself, not sure what causes it yet). For comparison, the moves to IE 11, IE 10, and IE 9 from their prior incarnations were relatively painless.

    For a long time, many of the problem sites were Microsoft-run, like the Update Catalog site. They didn't fix the Update Catalog site until after the free OS upgrade - it was an issue for a long time.

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 05 2017, @06:59PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 05 2017, @06:59PM (#449866)

    I haven't researched the details myself, but a friend told me Edge is a complete re-write and actually adheres to standards. With any luck MS will have a decent browser soon once they iron out those issues.

    However, after the Windows 10 fiasco I trust MS less than ever. Unless they fully open source their code I will never trust them.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 05 2017, @07:18PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 05 2017, @07:18PM (#449874)

      There was no rewrite, they "forked" their own IE code and named it Edge. It is is a PR stunt.

    • (Score: 4, Informative) by nobu_the_bard on Thursday January 05 2017, @08:30PM

      by nobu_the_bard (6373) on Thursday January 05 2017, @08:30PM (#449920)

      It's not a complete rewrite. It may be a partial rewrite. Mostly its on the frontend though.

      Edge is more standards-compliant I guess, but that doesn't mean anything when they have entire features not supported that are still in heavy use, even by themselves, with nothing to smooth the process over, except to just throw IE11 on there as a totally separate app. They couldn't think of some way to get Edge to emulate IE11 or run it as a child process or something "under the hood" on a per-tab basis to make this easier on the users (that would have been pretty neat). The lack of plugins for a solid year from its release date also completely crippled its utility.

  • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 05 2017, @08:14PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 05 2017, @08:14PM (#449904)

    Having had the unfortunate experience of being forced to use it fairly frequently, I concur that it's absolutely awful. The interface should be used in textbooks as a perfect paradigm of how not to do it, the options are few and usually require absurdly long click-paths to get to, and it appears to be more vulnerable to hijacking as well. On top of that, fewer webpages actually work in it. And on top of that, not only are you not allowed to remove it, like IE from XP on, and not only does it nag you to make it default if it's not every time you open it, like all the other popular browsers, but it actually nags you over that specifically when you do NOT run it!

    Edge is malware.

    • (Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Friday January 06 2017, @03:38AM

      by bzipitidoo (4388) on Friday January 06 2017, @03:38AM (#450079) Journal

      > and it appears to be more vulnerable to hijacking

      I can attest to that. Worked on a laptop that'd been upgraded from Windows 8 to 10, and spotted this Microfast PC virus. Its uninstaller hijacked the Edge start page to redirect the browser to one of those scam websites that won't let you close it while a voice repeats over and over that your computer is infected and you should call this 855 number for help right away. Had to use the Task Manager to kill Edge. This malware didn't touch Chrome, which was also installed on the system.

      I find it interesting that a mere web page can trick a browser into blocking fundamental OS GUI controls such as the X button for closing an app. In addition to the Edge browser giving a web page too much power over it, it shouldn't be possible for any app to override OS controls. But that is to be expected with MS. ActiveX, what an idiotically easy and huge security hole to work so hard to add to their browsers. Further, what the hell was MS thinking, allowing programs to manage their own uninstallation? No Linux distro does that. Their package managers never need nor ask for any help from the app to do an uninstallation.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 06 2017, @06:20AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 06 2017, @06:20AM (#450120)

      And after all that trouble, they won't allow you to run it from the administrator account or in safe mode.