
Microsoft Edge - rakibtg
https://github.com/MicrosoftEdge/MSEdge
======
dao-
duplicate from five days ago:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18621136](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18621136)

related MS blog post:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18619774](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18619774)

------
Santosh83
>Outside the Microsoft Edge browser, users of other browsers on Windows PCs
sometimes face inconsistent feature-sets and performance/battery-life across
device types. Some browsers have had slower-progress to embrace new Windows
capabilities like touch and ARM processors. As you know, we’ve recently
started making contributions that provide these types of hardware support to
Chromium-based browsers, and we believe that this approach can be generalized:
we think we can help to accelerate the web and users’ experience of it by
contributing new capabilities to Chromium open source for the benefit of all
these browsers and users.

Disappointing that all big players want to contribute to Chromium code base
but not Gecko, which is left solely in the hands of Mozilla and presumably is
going to find it tougher and tougher to simply keep up with
Chromium/Skia/Blink etc.

~~~
sureaboutthis
I believe Mozilla is not going to attempt to play catch up, as if they need to
catch up to others, but to become more resilient, unique and dependable. They
won't concern themselves with what others are doing and, instead, concentrate
on technical proficiency and usability (and privacy). Firefox will not be
going away.

While market share may be lower, they will always have millions and millions
of users who will continue to love it.

~~~
pointillistic
I tried using Mozilla year after year and always surprised how little
attention they pay to graphic design and how unpolished it looks visually, a
deal breaker for me.

~~~
Yoric
Have you tried since Firefox 57?

------
phkahler
>> our unique web-platform codebase still faces occasional compatibility
problems as web developers focus less on HTML standards and rationally focus
on widely used platforms like Chrome to develop and validate experiences for
their customers

IMHO this is not rational on the part of web developers. If they've forgotten
the lessons of IE-6 they need to have a refresher and stick to standards. If
that means sticking to a subset of the standards that are supported by all
browsers then so be it - stop thinking about yourself and your immediate
desire (it's not a need after all) and think about the future and your users.

~~~
dragonwriter
> IMHO this is not rational on the part of web developers

It's quite rational.

> If they've forgotten the lessons of IE-6 they need to have a refresher and
> stick to standards.

I think you have an unreasonable view of what “the lessons of IE-6” for web
developers are.

~~~
nirvdrum
> I think you have an unreasonable view of what “the lessons of IE-6” for web
> developers are.

I agree with the OP. Perhaps you can elaborate on why you think we both have
unreasonable views.

~~~
scrollaway
Some of the lessons of IE6:

\- Open source is important.

\- Web standards are important, especially living standards.

\- Continuous updates are extremely important.

\- Bundling browser updates with OS updates is an awful idea.

\- Plugins are a bad idea, let's not do those anymore.

Am I missing any? I know people are afraid of a "browser monopoly" developing
around Chrome and I think the fear is very legitimate, but I don't believe
this is one of IE6's lessons. There has always been either a monopoly or a
duopoly in browsers ever since… well, ever since web browsers were a thing.
The web got as far as it did because there was very little fragmentation. In
fact, the times where fragmentation was the highest (= when IE versions were
legitimate separate browsers and auto-updating wasn't the norm) were the times
with the least meaningful progress.

~~~
majewsky
The missing lesson: Once a particular rendering engine has beyond 90% market
share, it doesn't matter what the standard says. All that matters is what that
engine does. We had that with IE6, and again now. There are plenty of Chrome-
only sites already.

~~~
phkahler
>> Once a particular rendering engine has beyond 90% market share, it doesn't
matter what the standard says. All that matters is what that engine does.

That is exactly the wrong thinking that got people in trouble. The lesson is
_not_ to go that route. Every product that has ever existed had an end of
life. To tailor your site to the browser of the day at the expense of
standards compatibility is short sighted.

People like to go for fancy new things and are willing to ignore standards and
2nd place browsers when they don't really have to. Your job is to make a
usable site/app, not to show off how you managed to pull of some nifty thing
enabled by using fancy proprietary feature X. Stick you your job and check
your ego at the door please. You'll be better of down the road.

A web site is not a product, it's a way to help sell your product. Unless
you're a dot-com company and you're really trying to sell your web site to
investors, in which case I don't really care do what you want.

------
expertentipp
Long life Firefox, others passed away by now. Web with only Google backed
browsers is doomed.

~~~
dana321
I still use Firefox 99% of the time, i guess most people haven't heard about
the Quantum update and got burned by the slower, older version.

~~~
p49k
I recently switched to Firefox Quantum and am really, really trying to love it
because I want Mozilla to succeed, but it’s still infuriatingly slow on Mac.

~~~
WebDanube
Android user here. Firefox Quantum has been my main driver since dethroning
Chromium-based 'Brave' last November, although the interface looks super dated
and clunky. Aside from the fact that the main browser has entered into what
Mozilla calls 'Maintenance mode,' so there aren't any new features getting
integrated.

That said, I'm super excited for 'Fenix' browser which should be out sometime
next year. Hope Fenix gives Chrome and other Chromium-based browsers some
robust competition and loosens their stranglehold on the browser market. [0]

[0] [https://www.androidheadlines.com/2018/07/mozilla-
developing-...](https://www.androidheadlines.com/2018/07/mozilla-developing-
new-android-internet-browser-fenix.html)

~~~
sciurus
I don't think we refer to Firefox on Android as "Quantum" yet; for
miscellaneous technical reasons it doesn't have some of what made Quantum
great on desktop. Part of the goal of Fenix is to "bring quantum to android",
as I understand it.

(Disclosure: I work for Mozilla, but not on the browser)

~~~
WebDanube
>I don't think we refer to Firefox on Android as "Quantum" yet

My apologies. My understanding was that Firefox, regardless of platform, goes
by the name 'Quantum' from v57.0 and up. Thanks for clarifying.

------
tannhaeuser
I had hoped MS dumped Edge onto github.

~~~
userbinator
EdgeHTML, to be precise.

I couldn't care less for the Edge UI (IMHO it is a poor clone of Chrome) but
seeing MS's browser engine open-sourced would've been far more interesting ---
even if it's only IE6.

~~~
wluu
While it’s not EdgeHTML, they do have the code for ChakraCore out there.

[https://github.com/Microsoft/ChakraCore/issues/5865](https://github.com/Microsoft/ChakraCore/issues/5865)

I think EdgeHTML will continue to be used by Microsoft for various scenarios,
just not in their Edge browser. These scenarios include usage in WinForms and
WPF apps [https://blogs.windows.com/msedgedev/2018/05/09/modern-
webvie...](https://blogs.windows.com/msedgedev/2018/05/09/modern-webview-
winforms-wpf-apps/)

------
mscasts
Google has won the browser battle (for now) and it sucks for all of us.
Competition is a good thing.

~~~
criddell
> it sucks for all of us

Can you remember a time when we had better web browsers than today? For sure
there's some anxiety about the future, but isn't the browser situation today
better than it's ever been?

~~~
ric2b
> isn't the browser situation today better than it's ever been?

No? Opera is gone, all we have now is Firefox, Chromium and a bunch of Firefox
and Chromium skins. Some of them also bundle extensions for extra features.

~~~
auiya
Pretty sure opera.com still allows you to download recent versions of their
web browser for most major platforms. How is it "gone"?

~~~
beatgammit
Have you used Opera before and after they switched to being a chromium clone?
I used Opera back when it was good (10-12), and when they decided to sell out,
I returned to Firefox.

Opera was great because it had lots of conveniences built in to the browser as
well as bleeding edge features. They often beat other browser vendors to
implement features, and they had a pretty good developer tool stack.

Now it's a shell of what it once was.

------
nimbius
im old enough to remember the browser wars, and this just feels like another
crack at the same pinata...Microsoft ultimately refuses to give customers a
choice in the matter of browsers and is simply reskinning a copy of chrome out
of desperation to keep customers clicking through their product, not googles.

I expect microsoft to release their rebuild of Edge, which will override all
user preferences for chrome, advertise itself on the lock screen, and come
bolted on with a ton of features and extensions no one asked for because
Redmond couldnt help themselves.

~~~
WalterGR
_Microsoft ultimately refuses to give customers a choice_

2008\. “Fuck you, Microsoft, for not bundling Firefox or Chrome. Your browser
is destroying the web!”

2018\. “Fuck you, Microsoft, for bundling Firefox or Chrome. Stopping work on
your browser will destroy the web!”

Give it a rest.

If Microsoft implemented POSIX support, people would grab their torches and
pitchforks because MS was actively working to encourage monoculture because it
hates customers.

------
drinchev
My best case scenario would be for Chromium codebase to be donated and
governed by a board of non-profit organisation ( why not WHATWG ), which
includes the major players in the field.

Doing this would be far more safe in terms of having at least some method for
controlling what the engine will look like other than "hope Google don't, hope
Google do..."

The only way that I can feel a bit safe when a browser engine dominates ~90%
of browser base.

------
avar
Everyone saying this is a repeat of history with Chromium as the new IE6
aren't remembering their history very well.

When IE6 initially came out it was the best browser around, with excellent
standards support for its time.

It only became the horror it's remembered as today because then Microsoft just
didn't update it, so a once first-in-class browser became a backwards
compatibility nightmare everyone had to support.

I don't see how the same situation could repeat itself. If Google or Microsoft
ever decides to just drop Chromium for whatever reason the code this time
around is open, so someone else can just pick it up, and users can migrate to
that.

The main problem with IE6 was that users couldn't do that, there was a decade
of legacy apps that had grown to require IE6-specific features.

~~~
Yoric
> If Google or Microsoft ever decides to just drop Chromium for whatever
> reason the code this time around is open, so someone else can just pick it
> up, and users can migrate to that.

Not really. Let's imagine for one second that Google switches to Mozilla's
Servo or a secret in-house next-gen engine. Who could afford to suddenly hire
the 200+ engineers it takes to maintain Chromium?

But that's not the real problem. The real problem is that Google will have de
facto control on all web technologies. Chromium is open-source but has a
closed governance, so nobody can say "no" to a Google patch, while Google can
say "no" to any outside patch. This means that Google can, if they so decide,
leverage this monopoly against the competition.

In theory, Google would have the technological means to kill the web presence
of Facebook, Netflix or pretty much anyone with a single commit, which would
automatically be propagated to Edge, Opera, Brave, Dolphin, ...

Similarly, Google would have the technological means to decide which credit
card you could use to pay on the web (at least through WebPay).

I don't think that Google would do such a thing, but that's a lot of power in
the hands of a single entity, exactly the problem that we witnessed at the
time of IE6. Also, Google has, at times, be known to muscle in other browser's
territory by using Google Search/Google Docs/Google Hangouts/..., so the
temptation will certainly be there.

~~~
avar
> Who could afford to suddenly hire the 200+ engineers it takes to maintain
> Chromium?

In that scenario one of two things will happen.

Either Chromium will only be needed in some shape for compatibility with older
sites. At that point you don't need 200 people to maintain it, just a small
team to fix portability issues and security problems in the sandbox, while the
"real" browser is whatever the next Firefox or Safari is.

Or, Chromium is critical to the web somehow and needs to be actively devloped.
I find it hard to imagine a scenario where that'll be the case but you can't
come up with the salary for 200 engineers to work on it. What Google pays
Firefox for the search bar alone is way more than enough to cover that,
whatever the dominant browser "distribution" is could do something similar, or
move to a hybrid "open core" model with a license fee.

> The real problem is that Google will have de facto control on all web
> technologies[...]

Yeah that's a problem. But this is why I'm saying the comparison to IE6
doesn't make any sense beyond the trivial statement that in the 00s this one
browser was really popular, and now we have this other browser that's going to
be dominating in the late 10s and early 20s.

The problem with IE6 wasn't that Microsoft was aggressively pushing their own
alternate standards (although there was some of that, e.g ActiveX), rather it
was that what dominated the web was effectively abandonware.

This is not at all what's happening with Chromium, quite the opposite. The
fear is that Google will start moving too fast in some direction that's in
their interest but not in the interest of the rest of the web.

------
Abishek_Muthian
"our unique web-platform codebase still faces occasional compatibility
problems as web developers focus less on HTML standards and rationally focus
on widely used platforms like Chrome to develop and validate experiences for
their customers."

IMO, it was quite opposite in my experience. Website following HTML standards
worked as intended on other browsers.

------
OliverJones
It's more than just the browser's CSS, rendering, and js.

There's an ecosystem around browsers: web extensions (Google store), debugging
tools, canary versions, sandboxes/security etc etc.

MS is trying to build that ecosystem for Edge. But it is slow going. A big
advantage of changing to Chromium might be to fit into the existing ecosystem.

------
jbk
It is weird that they don't mention Chakra or v8. What JS engine will they
use?

------
tree_of_item
I really think the alarm about Edge adopting Chromium is silly. Microsoft is
more than capable of forking the project, so using it does not give Google
more control over the web.

What exactly do people think is going to happen? If Google starts doing
strange things thinking they can because "everyone uses Chromium", then
downstream just won't adopt those changes, and then there will be two
Chromiums. All the panic about a Google "monopoly" of the web is absurd.
Google lost the ability to do anything like that the moment they open sourced
the project.

~~~
codezero
I think the gist is that Mozilla and Firefox are in peril. This worsens that
peril at a time when MS could become a patron of Mozilla and Firefox and have
a chance at launching a shot across Google’s bow.

All that said, I’m surprised nobody is talking about Apple in all of this as
they have a huge portion of the mobile browser share.

~~~
tree_of_item
In peril how? Google is the one giving Mozilla money. What is perilous about
more people adopting an open source Google project?

I really do not get it, Edge moving to Chromium changes absolutely nothing wrt
Mozilla's "peril".

~~~
Ygg2
Right now Mozilla is in a deal with Google.

If Firefox numbers drop below a threshold, we can only pray, Google doesn't
alter the deal any further.

Not to mention Google gets carte blanche to basically control Web Standards as
they see fit, since they are the only implementer (that counts).

\- Don't want PNaCl? Too bad.

\- Dart on the Web? You can't remove it even if you want it. Oh and you better
support it, cause if your browser doesn't have feature parity with Chrome, you
are doomed.

\- Rust in browser? You can only dream.

\- Browsers that use more GPU and SIMD? Too much of a hassle.

~~~
dragonwriter
> Not to mention Google gets carte blanche to basically control Web Standards
> as they see fit, since they are the only implementer.

Even if Firefox disappeared, Apple is still around.

~~~
Ygg2
> Even if Firefox disappeared, Apple is still around.

Apple cares about web in the same way Windows cared about web. They want to
move you to their native silo apps (for windows it was Windows application).

I.e. Apple wants to rename your Web Browser to App Store. It's already in some
regards, the new IE.

~~~
codezero
Conflating the App Store to how Apple has developed WebKit is a huge
distraction. If I were better at arguing on the Internet I’d cite some logical
fallacy.

------
OliverJones
Hmm. ARM? Unmet need? apt install chromium-browser works great on my raspberry
pis.

------
dimillian
I don't understand the Firefox trend. It was good years ago. It's time to move
on. Having one rendering engine is much better than having a lot of disparate
features splitted across various engines.

~~~
hvs
Apparently you don't remember the Internet Explorer 6 years.

~~~
Operyl
I don’t remember it being Open Source, it’s not a direct one to one situation.

EDIT: I found the Downvoters, but can I get a comment so we can discuss? :)

~~~
vezycash
Android is open source. Yet Amazon's fork is the only thriving one.

Open source isn't a magic solution to Google's kind of monopoly. It's a
herculean task to match Google with its free + convenience + monopoly + open
source + strong brand recognition offering.

Chrome is already past IE's level of dominance without our realising it -
market share percentages just obscures reality.

Google's next card is obvious from their android play book.

They'll soon rip off vital parts of chromium - make em proprietary or google
cloud dependent.

~~~
Operyl
Short of using their services to render web pages, or run JavaScript server
side, what could they possibly rip out and make dependent now? There’s always
going to be vendor proprietary stuff (like the voice search binary blob), even
Firefox has Pocket who h is still entirely closed source iirc.

------
dbrgn
I think this might actually be something positive in the long term: Google
will control less of Chromium.

(Still, it would have been nice if Microsoft would have chosen Gecko
instead...)

~~~
simonh
Always the bridesmaid, never the bride.

------
phponpcp
Pls stop with the TLDR that's three paragraphs.

------
huyzz
What a terrible, clickbaity title for this submission.

~~~
PascLeRasc
I love uploading documents saying I’m the biggest company in open-source
instead of uploading the actual project.

------
paulcarroty
-

~~~
eganist
> Yet another dead open sourced project from Microsoft. Maybe if they opened
> it BEFORE happy end Edge now be real/not paper rival for Chrome/Firefox.

You may wish to click the link.

------
Beltiras
Microsoft waves the white flag. Finally!

~~~
Ygg2
I, for one, I welcome our new ad tech corporate overlords!

