
Windows 10's new Edge with Chromium browser preview builds drop today - MikusR
https://www.windowscentral.com/microsoft-releases-first-chromium-edge-previews-windows-10
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MikusR
A Powerpoint presentation outlining technical details including the 60 or so
Google features removed/or changed.
[https://onedrive.live.com/view.aspx?resid=40AD2A59FD334E8C!4...](https://onedrive.live.com/view.aspx?resid=40AD2A59FD334E8C!400130&ithint=file%2cpptx&authkey=!ADAerq8JH6E4yRA)
(enable speaker notes for aditional details)

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valleyjo
I don't get why this wasn't done for the Edge V1 rather than making a whole
new browser. I felt like this was the clear choice back then.

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cosmic_quanta
I'm writing this on the Dev version right now, and it feels great so far!

The reading list is not implemented in this build, but I hope they add it
back...

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ocdtrekkie
I have a lot of doubts on... any Edge features actually surviving into this
Chrome reskin. They've decided not to implement eBook support, which yes,
meant they couldn't sell eBooks anymore, but also effectively removed native
EPUB support from Windows entirely, which was a pretty nice feature to have.

~~~
WorldMaker
Edge's EPUB and PDF tools were available as a separate app call "Reader" in
Windows 8 (mostly just for choice of workflow it seemed, but also maybe
because it wasn't certain that Edge was going to "own" them), which was
discontinued in Windows 10 when Edge took full ownership. I very much hope
that if the Edge team can't/doesn't re-embed the PDF and EPUB views into
Chromium-based Edge, at the very least they could give us a new version of
"Reader", because it is so handy to have an inbox EPUB and PDF application in
Windows.

~~~
ocdtrekkie
Did Reader do EPUBs? I thought it was just for PDFs, which I presume the new
Edge will support (as Chrome does).

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WorldMaker
I remember it supporting EPUBs, but memory may be faulty here. In my defense,
Reader survived longer than I think most people realized because it stopped
being a default installed app pretty quickly (I think 8.1 did that, IIRC), and
it still ran in Windows 10 for quite some time (if you had previously
installed it) before it was shutdown for good. It may have been during that
weird period on Windows 10 before it was entirely shutdown.

That said, the core point still remains that hopefully even if Edge doesn't
continue to support EPUBs they might spin it out into an app.

~~~
ocdtrekkie
If they had any intention of doing that, they wouldn't have decided to refund
everyone's eBooks they ever purchased since they started selling them. That's
a move that only makes sense if they are completely removing the
functionality.

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WorldMaker
Not necessarily? Groove shutdown all of its online services in March but
Microsoft is planning to leave it as the inbox offline player for the time
being (even if it is just a sad shell of what it once was and dedicates a
bunch of real estate to remind you that everybody else moved on to Spotify).
The Ebook Store used an online service for DRM, plus all the various Store
services themselves. It's certainly plausible they might shutdown all the
online services and still provide an "offline only" non-DRM reading app.

Rebuilding Edge's Reading View _is_ on the Focus Areas list for Edge-Chromium,
so depending on how the EPUB system was built maybe that's just included in
the Reading View rebuild. Certainly, if people provide it as feedback that it
is something that people want, I expect they will consider what they can do.
It even sounds like it may be the sort of thing that _this_ Microsoft could
also make an open source Chromium extension and let Chrome users have access
to it as well.

~~~
ocdtrekkie
The reason Microsoft's online music service shut down, was because it had
recurring licensing costs that weren't sustainable based on the amount of
business it did. The eBook model is much closer to how apps are sold, it cost
them near nothing, and as it is integrated with the Windows Store platform
which remains for selling apps. They have no need to shut down their eBook
service, if not for the fact that they are eliminating the only way to read
their eBooks.

Bear in mind, even when they shut down music, they didn't buy back everyone's
music, because people could play their MP3s still with the desktop player or
even alternative music players, whereas Microsoft's EPUBs use at the least
their own licensing system, since they changed the file format to MSEPUB and
have a separate license file for each. The only player is Edge, and Edge as it
has been is going away.

While we don't know the extent of Microsoft's eBook sales to begin with, a
full refund since the launch of service is generally the sort of thing you
don't do unless there's no other option. If they had intention to continue
eBook support, they'd surely have chosen to fast track EPUB support in Edgium
instead.

~~~
WorldMaker
(For what it matters, in March Groove also shutdown their OneDrive support
because something about the OneDrive API was changing. Presumably no recurring
license costs involved there, just old fashioned tech debt when using cloud
services.)

DRM is literally all about licensing costs. Even if they were licensing the
DRM tech from themselves, that was a licensing cost on the books, and it is
entirely possible that that overhead was enough to close the licensing
servers. That's before you get into whatever details of whatever contracts
they were using to license the books from the various publishers.

Continuing to support DRM-free EPUB in someway or another is entirely
orthogonal to continuing to run DRM license servers. It's very clear they no
longer intend to run the license servers. It remains to be seen if they have
interest in DRM-free EPUB viewing.

Also, Edge isn't going away soon and Edge doesn't seem to be related to the
store shutdown, it seems to be license/cost-related. The previews for
Chromium-based Edge are out now, but the switchover isn't expected for months
or years from now. I'd be hugely surprised if the switchover deadline is any
closer than Windows 20H1. There's no need to fast track EPUB support in
Chromium-based Edge because Chromium-based Edge doesn't itself appear to be on
a fast track for Windows.

