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posted by mrpg on Monday March 25 2019, @03:22AM   Printer-friendly
from the still-MS dept.

Submitted via IRC for chromas

A first look at Microsoft’s new Chromium-powered Edge browser

Microsoft is rebuilding its Edge browser on Chromium. The software maker has been testing versions of this browser internally at Microsoft, and now The Verge has secured an exclusive first look at the early work thanks to a source who wishes to remain anonymous. While the previously leaked screenshots made Edge look very similar to Chrome, Microsoft is adding its own touches and animations to make it look and feel like a Windows browser.

When you first install the Chromium version of Edge, Microsoft will prompt you to import favorites, passwords, and browsing history from Chrome or Edge (depending on your default). The setup screen also prompts you to pick a style for the default tab page before you start browsing.

Most of the user interface of the browser is a mix of Chrome and Edge, and Microsoft has clearly tried to add its own little touches here and there. There’s a read aloud accessibility option, and it simply reads the page out loud like it does in existing versions of Edge. Some features that you’d expect from Edge are missing, though. Microsoft hasn’t implemented its set aside tabs feature just yet, and write on the web with a stylus isn’t available. A dark mode is only available via a testing flag right now.


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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 25 2019, @03:37AM (3 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 25 2019, @03:37AM (#819297)

    April Fool's day isn't for another week...

    • (Score: 2) by Arik on Monday March 25 2019, @04:42AM (1 child)

      by Arik (4543) on Monday March 25 2019, @04:42AM (#819329) Journal
      Nah, it's for real. Edge gave up, it's a chrome skin. Can't even tell the difference from chrome unless you start digging into menus most users of Edge have never seen.

      I am in mourning. The only browser worse than Internet Explorer, just gave up to the other only browser worse than Internut Exploder.

      Which for all the justified criticism, has some virtues. It IS relatively fast for most things (a rather obvious consequence of privileged access to MS-API) and it has a relatively straightforward UI (simply as a result of being frozen at the last point that MS thought they needed to budget money to pay those folks.)

      Edge is far worse, and Edge-Chrome hybrid is the thing that should not be. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bYJGt67Mwmo

      Goodnight, sleep tight, wish me cold and done and I'll wish you that as well.

      /M\

      --
      If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
      • (Score: 2) by arslan on Tuesday March 26 2019, @09:45PM

        by arslan (3462) on Tuesday March 26 2019, @09:45PM (#820346)

        Think positively. Chromed-Edge is still a step or several better than Edge.

    • (Score: 2) by driverless on Monday March 25 2019, @09:39AM

      by driverless (4770) on Monday March 25 2019, @09:39AM (#819411)

      Most of the user interface of the browser is a mix of Chrome and Edge, and Microsoft has clearly tried to add its own little touches here and there.

      Those buffer overflows and XSS aren't going to just pop up by themselves...

  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 25 2019, @03:50AM (18 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 25 2019, @03:50AM (#819302)

    Browser homogeniety decreases the need for standardization.

    Google will gain de facto authority to rewrite the standards unilaterally.

    They have an interest in doing so, see SPDY and HTTP2.

    Sooner or later they'll pull the SPDY thing with HTML/JS/CSS, and we'll be dragged kicking and screaming into an age where web apps are closer to native apps in terms of permissions.

    The web will become unusable with JS. This is slowly becoming the case already, with many websites already incapable of displaying text without running untrusted code from many sources on your machine, which isn't even checksummed and can be MitM'd by everyone with a root cert.

    We're fucked already, this is just the next thrust, and Google is getting close.

    • (Score: 2) by krishnoid on Monday March 25 2019, @03:55AM (15 children)

      by krishnoid (1156) on Monday March 25 2019, @03:55AM (#819304)

      Google will gain de facto authority to rewrite the standards unilaterally.

      So ... we'll finally have standardization?

      • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 25 2019, @04:01AM (4 children)

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 25 2019, @04:01AM (#819311)

        Google wants the web to be an app-streaming service. This goal isn't specific to them, many wish it, but they are one of the main actors.

        I have no problem with this vision, I do have a problem with perverting an existing standard to achieve it, since it robs us of an OKish hypertext markup language.

        It's already the case of course, but at present it's a pile of ugly hacks. Google will sort that out and rewrite the spec so HTTP is a properly designed app streaming protocol, and HTML/JS/CSS a properly defined programming language.

        Their goal is fine, their vision is fine, their methods are fucked.

        • (Score: 2) by MostCynical on Monday March 25 2019, @05:18AM (3 children)

          by MostCynical (2589) on Monday March 25 2019, @05:18AM (#819337) Journal

          Ftp/sftp? Nntp? Etc etc

          How about being able to host your own website?

          --
          "I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 25 2019, @05:39AM

            by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 25 2019, @05:39AM (#819344)

            Ftp/sftp? Nntp? Etc etc

            How about being able to host your own website?

            Yes, yes, all that and much more! Chromium will soon become the systemd of browsers. Thanks Google!

          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 25 2019, @08:44AM

            by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 25 2019, @08:44AM (#819401)

            I'm not sure what you're trying to say, I think you're asking if I think Google will rewrite those standards, if so then I don't.

            As for "How about being able to host your own website?": them rewriting the HTTP/HTML/JS/CSS specs will fuck with that yeah.

          • (Score: 2) by driverless on Monday March 25 2019, @09:43AM

            by driverless (4770) on Monday March 25 2019, @09:43AM (#819413)

            How about being able to host your own website?

            You're certainly permitted to do that, customer, as long as Google is between your server and the rest of the Google customers [ampproject.org] that connect to it.

      • (Score: 4, Insightful) by ikanreed on Monday March 25 2019, @04:03AM (1 child)

        by ikanreed (3164) Subscriber Badge on Monday March 25 2019, @04:03AM (#819312) Journal

        Unless you're a firefox user. Or don't want a browser standard defined by what helps advertisers track you best.

        • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 25 2019, @04:08AM

          by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 25 2019, @04:08AM (#819316)

          Chrome specific websites won't earn user's ire, their "shitty broken indie browser my friend recommended because he likes to feel better than people" will be blamed.

      • (Score: 2) by RS3 on Monday March 25 2019, @04:16AM (3 children)

        by RS3 (6367) on Monday March 25 2019, @04:16AM (#819317)
        • (Score: 2) by Hyper on Monday March 25 2019, @02:49PM (2 children)

          by Hyper (1525) on Monday March 25 2019, @02:49PM (#819536) Journal

          Remember IE6?

          • (Score: 2) by RS3 on Monday March 25 2019, @04:05PM (1 child)

            by RS3 (6367) on Monday March 25 2019, @04:05PM (#819597)

            Yes, barely ever used it- probably only for Windows Update.

            I don't quite understand what you're getting at.

            Are you a web developer?

            • (Score: 2) by Hyper on Tuesday March 26 2019, @11:43AM

              by Hyper (1525) on Tuesday March 26 2019, @11:43AM (#820050) Journal

              Part of what I do involves web dev. Another is fixing problems with vendor products where possible.

              We don't want another situation where a dominant browser screws the eco system so badly hacks are needed for years to dodge around problems. I've only just forgotten the crap with IE10/IE11. Edge has been mostly dodged because frankly it doesn't work.

              I can already see some of the effects. History repeating.

      • (Score: 4, Insightful) by Arik on Monday March 25 2019, @04:27AM (3 children)

        by Arik (4543) on Monday March 25 2019, @04:27AM (#819323) Journal
        "So ... we'll finally have standardization?"

        Umm, in a sense.

        In the same sense that universal death means we have standardization of opportunity.

        No, in any sane sense of words, it means the opposite of what you have said.

        The whole point to standardization is to allow interoperability without homogeneity. What we're seeing may bring interoperability, but it's locking down on homogeneity and it's not positive at all.
        --
        If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
        • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Freeman on Monday March 25 2019, @04:58PM

          by Freeman (732) on Monday March 25 2019, @04:58PM (#819615) Journal

          Standardization is good, but this isn't that. This, is Monopoly.

          --
          Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
        • (Score: 2) by darkfeline on Tuesday March 26 2019, @03:40AM

          by darkfeline (1030) on Tuesday March 26 2019, @03:40AM (#819901) Homepage

          Devil's advocate:

          But that's what Linux is (and FreeBSD to some extent a well). The Linux APIs are standard by virtue of being a monopoly. Most software written for Linux cannot interoperate with any other kernel (not counting compatibility libraries/compilers that abstract away the Linux specific syscalls and behavior).

          It turns out that having a (FOSS) monopoly is fine. Writing software against one API implementation turns out to be way easier than writing it against a standard and hoping all implementations faithfully implement that standard (which never happens: see web browsers, UNIX/POSIX, file formats like .doc, many RFC standards especially in the details, USB spec, religion, laws, table manners, the list seems infinite). Anyone who thinks any standard can actually be followed completely in practice is high on their own naivete.)

          Chromium, its rendering engine, and its JavaScript engine are all FOSS. You can build whatever browser you want by forking the code, keeping "standardization" but with the freedom to skin it how you want. Just like Linux, actually, which comes in exciting flavors such as Hannah Montana Linux.

          --
          Join the SDF Public Access UNIX System today!
        • (Score: 2) by Hyper on Tuesday March 26 2019, @11:46AM

          by Hyper (1525) on Tuesday March 26 2019, @11:46AM (#820051) Journal

          Heat death of the universe would also bring about standardization.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 25 2019, @04:52AM (1 child)

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 25 2019, @04:52AM (#819330)

      Just relax and let it happen.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 25 2019, @07:55AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 25 2019, @07:55AM (#819392)

        The web is already an effective app-streaming platform, albeit one constructed atop a skyscraper of ugly hacks.

        What we need is a p2p hypertext system, which actually restricts itself to hypertext, with nontextual data being communicated as URL/Is which are accessed via the appropriate protocol handlers, themselves preferably being at least federated but ideally p2p.

        Every censorship story and "website" which can't display text without running shitty code from a dozen sketchy sources pushes me closer to throwing up my hands and writing it myself.

  • (Score: 2) by mobydisk on Monday March 25 2019, @05:15PM

    by mobydisk (5472) on Monday March 25 2019, @05:15PM (#819629)

    Does this mean node on ChakraCore is dead?

  • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 25 2019, @09:33PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 25 2019, @09:33PM (#819750)

    WTF sort of "animations and touches" can Microsoft add that any sane person would want? Clippy? Windows 10 nagware? A monthly browser subscription fee?

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