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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: 1) by NateMich on Tuesday December 04 2018, @04:28PM (2 children)

    by NateMich (6662) on Tuesday December 04 2018, @04:28PM (#769633)

    MS Office has captured the corporate market

    I'm sure that's still largely true (especially outside of the tech industry itself), but honestly I haven't encountered anything but Google Docs in the past few years.

  • (Score: 2) by PiMuNu on Tuesday December 04 2018, @06:13PM (1 child)

    by PiMuNu (3823) on Tuesday December 04 2018, @06:13PM (#769682)

    I know of no-one who uses Google Docs. I work with scientists in the government sector. Maybe it's a US thing?

    • (Score: 2) by urza9814 on Wednesday December 05 2018, @04:21PM

      by urza9814 (3954) on Wednesday December 05 2018, @04:21PM (#770135) Journal

      Maybe US-centric, but it's also a matter of size. I don't think many Fortune 500 companies are using Google Docs (mine sure isn't...the site is banned entirely on our network). But I know a few small businesses and local organizations that use it for absolutely everything. If the people working there tend to be younger, and those younger people actually have some authority over the tech they use (usually because nobody else understands it) then they'll tend towards Google Docs. If they've got thousands of PCs and a fully-staffed IT department and fifty years of history, they'll be using MS Office.