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

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: 3, Insightful) by DannyB on Tuesday December 04 2018, @03:36PM (1 child)

    by DannyB (5839) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday December 04 2018, @03:36PM (#769598) Journal

    I don't care so much about the size or wealth of Google, mostly only about their power and control over choice.

    Open source is a good inoculation against the abuse of Microsoft in the 90's. But it is not an absolute guarantee.

    (some) People are starting to recognize the dangers of trading all their information for massive convenience.

    cynical me sez: the solution is to create true competitors who all, also want our personal information.

    --
    People today are educated enough to repeat what they are taught but not to question what they are taught.
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  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by bobthecimmerian on Tuesday December 04 2018, @07:39PM

    by bobthecimmerian (6834) on Tuesday December 04 2018, @07:39PM (#769718)

    "I don't care so much about the size or wealth of Google, mostly only about their power and control over choice."

    Good point. You expressed that with more nuance than I did.

    I think open source is weaker now than it was then. You can find a bazillion tools of all sorts to operate at middle levels in your code. But bare hardware drivers and devices you can install free software on are getting less common as a percent of the market. It does no good to me to run nginx or Kubernetes on top of a device when Google/Microsoft/Amazon/Apple controls the layer beneath and I can't.