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Microsoft Reportedly Building a Chromium-Based Web Browser to Replace Edge, and "Windows Lite" OS

posted by martyb on Tuesday December 04 2018, @07:00AM   Printer-friendly
from the new-shiny! dept.

takyon writes:

Microsoft is building a Chromium-powered web browser that will replace Edge on Windows 10

Microsoft's Edge web browser has seen little success since its debut on Windows 10 back in 2015. Built from the ground up with a new rendering engine known as EdgeHTML, Microsoft Edge was designed to be fast, lightweight, and secure, but launched with a plethora of issues which resulted in users rejecting it early on. Edge has since struggled to gain any traction, thanks to its continued instability and lack of mindshare, from users and web developers.

Because of this, I'm told that Microsoft is throwing in the towel with EdgeHTML and is instead building a new web browser powered by Chromium, a rendering engine first popularized by Google's Chrome browser. Codenamed Anaheim, this new web browser for Windows 10 will replace Edge as the default browser on the platform. 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.

Report: Windows Lite is Microsoft's long-awaited answer to Chrome OS

The success of Google's Chromebook hardware and Chrome OS software wasn't an inevitability, but the ease of use they afford ended up allowing Google to carve out a niche in a very crowded PC marketplace. Ever since Chrome OS entered the scene, we've been waiting for Microsoft to come out with its own pared down version of Windows, but its half-hearted attempts (Windows 10 S, Windows RT) have all fallen flat.

Those failures haven't stopped Microsoft though, as Petri on Monday reported that the company is working on "a new version of Windows that may not actually be Windows." Based on the documentation he has seen, Petri's Brad Sams believes that Windows Lite — the new OS — is Microsoft's answer to Chrome OS.

According to Sams, Windows Lite will only run Progressive Web Apps (PWAs) and Universal Windows Platform (UWP) apps, while removing all other functionality. He says that this is the first "truly lightweight version of Windows" – one which won't run in enterprise or small business environments, and may not even be available for purchase on its own. Just like Chrome OS, Windows Lite will have to be pre-installed by an OEM.

Microsoft ChromeOS: It's Linux-Free!

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 04 2018, @05:16PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 04 2018, @05:16PM (#769657)

    I've never has a stability problem with libreoffice, so I would like to know what you are doing to break it.

    I second that question.

    In normal daily use over the past eight years, over a number of versions, running on both Linux and Windows boxes, I've had no stability issues (and recently I've tested opening up some of the larger files I've generated on the copy installed on my test Haiku box and messing around with them there, it worked without issues as well).

    Largest document?, A WIP currently sitting at 500 pages replete with graphics and images, If I feel masochistic (screen size) I can even work on it 'on the go' using the Eee PC 1005 Netbook I've got kicking around to run Kali.