Thursday, December 6th 2018
Microsoft's Edge Browser Confirmed Dead; Long Live Microsoft Edge
So, it goes like this: Microsoft has confirmed they will be killing of their own-developed Edge browser in favor of a Chromium-based alternative. However... The new browser will retain Microsoft's Edge nomenclature, instead of parting ways with the (likely damaged) branding. Microsoft is committing to the open-based Chromium backbone, and will be building upon its database to contribute towards a more open Internet.
The idea is to deliver more frequent updates - and of course, reducing the engineering and coding efforts to keep an in-house browser up to date and secure from all manner of Internet threats. And this will likely be achieved; whether Microsoft's efforts will bring it a higher market share than the current 4%, though, is anyone's guess. It seems to be a usual Microsoft dilemma in that the first search on its browsers is for another web browser... And it might remain especially so without a branding change. Living in Chrome just sounds better than living on Edge.
Sources:
Microsoft Blogs, Image via TechCrunch
The idea is to deliver more frequent updates - and of course, reducing the engineering and coding efforts to keep an in-house browser up to date and secure from all manner of Internet threats. And this will likely be achieved; whether Microsoft's efforts will bring it a higher market share than the current 4%, though, is anyone's guess. It seems to be a usual Microsoft dilemma in that the first search on its browsers is for another web browser... And it might remain especially so without a branding change. Living in Chrome just sounds better than living on Edge.
102 Comments on Microsoft's Edge Browser Confirmed Dead; Long Live Microsoft Edge
"The king is dead: Long live the king!"
Typically this rite was performed when crowning a new king.
P.S.
Oh, as there was some discussion about Application Guard (and yes, it is a step further than sandbox, but, details), I wonder how much work MS will have to do after this change to make it work... Knowing Windows there probably is some stupid integration deep in OS tied to the current rendering engine (actually, there was one, IIRC UWP apps will die without Edge and some stuff wont render correctly, dont quote me on that). I expect issues xD
(corrected, thanks) Exactly what I was thinking on the last sentence :p Well, the rendering engine is changing, but Edge is living on in branding and interface - which, I agree, are the most important parts of any web browser. Hence the second part of the headline. It's a turn of phrase meant to convey that while things change, they remain the same - edge is dead, but it isn't. The intention isn't to be deceptive.
As for the other stuff you said, you voiced what I was trying to say, but in a less agitated way. Thanks :D
The problem I had with Avant, and what finally made me stop using it, was the developer(which I think was only one or two people) could not keep a regular enough update schedule. And Google, for security, made it so that the Chromium rendering engine would "expire" after 6 months. This meant that Avant would start to not work properly if you used the Chromium engine, things like printing would stop working when using the Chromium rendering engine. Plus, it was annoying knowing that the version of Chromium you were using in Avant was sometimes 6 months old with now security updates. I'm sure this won't be an issue with Edge, since Microsoft has a much better development team(because they have the money for it), that can push out Chromium updates to users automatically with Windows updares, and regularly to keep it up to date.
There are some things I still miss from Avant, but I've transitioned to using actual Chrome as my main browser now.
blog.mozilla.org/blog/2018/12/06/goodbye-edge/
I'm extremely disappointed in Microsoft. Edge has only been around for four years and it managed to get and hold 4%+ market share while up against the 66%+ dominance of Chrome, is pretty damn good.
I have an install of Ninite.com programs on a flash drive and I never even use Edge.
There's also a lot of problems with determining browser market share. Namely, not every browser hits a single webpage on the internet and even if it does, it can be different users and many hits a day. I'm not really sure market share has anything to do with the decision any way: Microsoft is likely looking at cost/revenue and sees Edge as a pointless business venture.
The numbers for Bing seem off, is that worldwide or just in the US?
It doesn't even do this for Firefox. Not sure about Safari.
Though, that 33% market share is probably US only. Worldwide is much lower, ranging from 2 to 5%.
edit: Yeah, Bing.com is separate. And worldwide, it ranks 47. In the US, it's 26.
Strangely, I was perusing a BSD Unix forum not long ago, and a poster there was referencing Bing in his searches that he was posting. It stuck with me.. since it was the most unlikely place (I thought) to see a bing fan. But then again, a lot of Open Source people know that Google is the actual enemy. There's nothing more depressing than seeing the Internet get owned and "standardized" by a damn Ad company.
Microsoft's Edge Browser Confirmed Dead; Long Live Microsoft Chrome
Would make more sense. Simple answer, because you don't/can't trust the base OS/Browser. It is broken. They keep having problems with vulnerabilities and no one wants to trust it because it's not open source and doesn't have anywhere near the plugin/extension support Chrome does.
Dropping the mobile phone hardware segment was the catalyst for the end of IE/Edge. You stated an app is only successful because it’s exclusive to an OS and defaulted as a browser. The same was true for Google maps for a period of time. Too much green, yellow, and red in your vision.
Plus, diversity is a good thing.