
Microsoft Edge and open source collaboration - xPaw
https://blogs.windows.com/windowsexperience/2018/12/06/microsoft-edge-making-the-web-better-through-more-open-source-collaboration/
======
no_wizard
I'm still shocked that they went the Chromium route here. This would have been
their chance to really, well, for lack of a better way of putting it:

 _stick it to Google [0]_

I think it would have been far, far more impressive to use Quantum
([https://wiki.mozilla.org/Quantum](https://wiki.mozilla.org/Quantum)) or
WebKit ([https://webkit.org](https://webkit.org)), with the added benefit that
nw.js is already up and going for the Webkit engine (and likely would have
sufficed as an Electron replacement that they could drive forward, but I
suppose they own Electron now with Github acquired)

For its not Apple anymore and certainly not Mozilla that is the prime
competitor nowadays to Microsoft, its Google (With Chromebooks in the schools,
and their small business and cloud offerings) and Amazon's Web Services
division that are their main competitors now.

While I don't know how all the business logic went into this and ultimately
came up with this being the best calculation at hand, I think this would have
played better in the media too (especially if they leaned on Mozilla)

[0] I know Chromium != Google, but its pretty hard not to see that most of
Chromium's development is downstream from Google and Google employs and/or
otherwise has had some direct influence over the core team

~~~
mirkules
One thing that’s worse than Microsoft not adopting a technology is Microsoft
adopting a technology.

Historically, they’ve used the “Embrace, Extend, Extinguish” strategy quite
often, and maybe that’s what’s happening here. But maybe I’m being overly
skeptical/borderline cynical...

~~~
ziftface
The opposite is happening. They have such a small market share that developers
didn't have enough incentive to actually support/test on their browser so all
their work was just trying to get edge to be chrome-compatible. Turns out
making your browser a chrome clone is an easier way to do that.

------
tombert
I'm assuming I'm not the only one who's afraid of Blink becoming the new
Internet Explorer; instead of people following a web standard, they'll follow
what's Chrome-compatible.

It's still better because Chromium is open-source, but I do worry that we're
going to have a problem in the future with a lot of broken sites (YTMND-
style).

~~~
simonsarris
> instead of people following a web standard, they'll follow what's Chrome-
> compatible

The browser vendors taking the lead over standards committees is how we got
this far into HTML5, especially including Apple's/Safari's decision to ditch
flash, and the WHATWG actually moving us forward vs the W3C.

Unless Blink has a history or an expectation of deprecating serious
functionality in the future, is it really so bad if websites follow what's
Chrome-compatible instead of 'a web standard'?

~~~
Yoric
This is a good question. Let me give you an example.

Let's imagine for instance that Google develops something called "Google Pay".
Let's now imagine that WHATWG works on something called "WebPay".

In a multiple-engines world, there would be pressure for Blink to support (and
keep supporting) most major credit cards & payment mechanisms to let users pay
using WebPay.

In a single-engine world, one single manager at Google will have sufficient
power to decide that WebPay supports only Google Pay.

Feel free replace Google Pay and WebPay by any other technology strategic to
Google.

~~~
sureaboutthis
Let's not get confused. Blink is a rendering engine and not an API server.

~~~
Yoric
This kind of thing has stopped being true a long time ago.

For all intents and purposes, web browsers are operating systems running web
applications, taking care of security, etc.

And all these Chromium-derived browsers are skins and utilities on top of
Google's browser/OS.

~~~
sureaboutthis
It's still true and always will be. Blink is not a browser any more than the
Linux kernel is a standalone operating system by itself with no attached
software or applications.

------
egeozcan
If Microsoft knew that Edge in its current state is inferior, why did they try
so hard to make every windows user switch to it? I mean there was this
"startup growth hacking" kind of craziness from a corporation and sudden
admittance of defeat... It's very confusing.

Edit: We all know why they want everyone to switch don't we, but think about
all the now admittedly false marketing! It's not like they stopped the
aggressive marketing for a few years and now saying that they can no longer
keep up. They probably are doing it now still and implying that Edge is
better. Is the marketing really so uninformed about such big decisions?

~~~
wvenable
Microsoft is trying to drive traffic to Bing (and their other services). The
rendering engine doesn't actually matter. Microsoft could just bundle Chrome
with Windows but instead they are specifically taking the Chromium engine and
putting it in an Edge shell. The only reason for that is to maintain control
over the user to drive them to Microsoft properties.

~~~
dlojudice
> The rendering engine doesn't actually matter.

It does matter. From the comment above "browser vendors taking the lead over
standards committees" means influence on where the technology is heading,
specially for rendering engines. Remember how long it took IE to implement
canvas? This was a way to avoid a new "OS" over a OS (Windows)

~~~
wvenable
This decision is perfectly in line with Microsoft's shift in focus -- Windows
is no longer the hill they want to die on. Microsoft is all about services.

Also I suspect Microsoft will have far more actual influence by driving
development of Chromium than with their own rendering engine. It's pretty hard
to drive new standards when you are barely achieving the current ones.
Microsoft's focus on Electron for cross-platform development kind of informs
this move as well.

------
Sir_Cmpwn
Man, this sucks. I really wish they had open sourced their new engine and
stuck with it. I would have volunteered time porting it to Linux/POSIX as
well.

~~~
Klathmon
This is probably going to get a bit "rant-ey", it's not directed at you, but
at the ecosystem at large (and kind of at myself).

Everyone keeps saying this, but nobody is actually doing anything about it.
People (myself included) talk about how a monoculture is bad, but we still
don't use Edge. We talk about how more competition in the browser space is a
good thing, but we still complain when the latest features or security
benefits are missing from a browser. And then when the feature lands, nobody
cares.

We complain about how bloated and slow browsers are getting, but completely
ignore those which are/were slimming that down. And we talk about how Chrome
and V8 are taking over the world, but we won't use tech like node-
chakracore[1] despite it being a very positive experience when I last used it.

I'm assuming that Microsoft is spending a shitload of time and money on their
browser engine, and it was still getting very little usage. They have great
performance, some really cool security features, lots of great user-oriented
features, and it very rarely gave me issues as a developer, but still nobody
(again, myself included) used it. Can you blame them for not wanting to
continue?

I feel the same as you, this sucks. But I can't blame anyone but myself,
because I don't use Edge (despite using Windows as my daily-driver), and I
most likely won't switch to it, and it has very little to do with its
capabilities as a browser, and more to do with network effects (i'm used to
chrome, my information is in chrome, I'm used to the dev tools in chrome, and
I personally and selfishly have no reason to switch to Edge, even if it's
technically better)

You can't blame the company for not wanting to continue pouring money into
something which is getting very little usage or return on investment at all.
At least by working with Chromium more people are going to get the benefits of
their work.

[1] [https://github.com/nodejs/node-
chakracore](https://github.com/nodejs/node-chakracore)

~~~
techsupporter
> (i'm used to chrome, my information is in chrome, I'm used to the dev tools
> in chrome, and I personally and selfishly have no reason to switch to Edge,
> even if it's technically better)

Yep, the same can be said for Firefox. There are hundreds of threads with
hundreds of comments on places like Hacker News and Reddit and Ars Technica,
all grousing about how Google is the behemoth that is taking over, Chrome is
bloated and slowing down and e-mails all of your personal bits to Google, oh
woe shouldn't there be a equal competitor in the market, blah, blah...

But too few people actually put their clicking where their talking is and
switch to any other browser. People seem hardwired to say "yeah I know it
sucks but I want to use Google and thus I want to use Chrome."

Far fewer people with software development skills--that I sorely lack--bother
to contribute to Firefox (or, heaven forbid, Thunderbird) development to _fix_
those problems.

Meanwhile, I hug Firefox just a little bit closer every year, wondering if
this year is the year that the project fails or simply stops moving forward or
whatever. I'm thrilled that companies like Privacy, Krypt.co, and even Capital
One still make Firefox extensions and I use them daily. But for how long, when
every technology-oriented person on the planet seems hell-bent on using
Chrome, outcomes be damned?

~~~
nemothekid
It's also hard. Despite the complaints of Google dominance, Chrome is just a
really good browser.

I tried to switch to Firefox Quantum earlier this year as my daily driver. I
had some minor annoyances, but I ended up switching back to Chrome for the
devtools.

~~~
techsupporter
Web dev tools are something I have to take people's word for (and, to be
clear, have no reason to doubt) since I don't do that kind of work so I have
no clue what makes for good tools versus bad ones. But, my overall point still
stands: If this is such a major failing in Firefox, is there nobody passionate
enough to help keep a browser--that lots of people claim to want to use but
for those tools--up to par with the competition?

~~~
rebelwebmaster
Firefox' devtools live in GitHub these days and can be patched without needing
to build Firefox. I'm sure they'd welcome contributions from passionate
developers.

[https://github.com/devtools-html](https://github.com/devtools-html)

------
hexmiles
I'm a bit sad by the announcement. I quite like edge, and now the browser
ecosystem is getting narrower.

What should Mozilla do now? Should they just give up? Now that everywhere
except ios/macos is blink (and v8 i think, i'm not sure after reading the
announcement) why should anyone care for firefox?

Should also Mozilla start using chromium as a base? Mozilla will still be able
to add quite the value in term of functionality, and with a bigger focus on
privacy than google. I'm honestly not sure anymore.

Maintaining a browser is a hard work and it's getting harder, so it's (i
think) unlikely a new player will ever enter the game, and having one engine
where to test thing will make the job of creating websites and webapps
simpler, on the other hand a monopoly can be a very bad thing for the web.

I like firefox a lot, and it's my daily driver, but if tomorrow they change
the engine, i probably won't even notice, and not having to maintain the
entire stack may allow them to better focus on other area, like
decentralization, privacy, addons and services (firefox send is amazing), and
may even allow a easier experimentation with new webapi.

I'm really not sure how to feel about this...

On a side note: I really do hope they make chromium and especialy CEF more
modular. it's amazing to embed a web browser inside a app, but it's very hard
to override some of his behavior, for example: while it's easy to have a
custom cookie management system, there are no api to override localstorage or
the chronology, only some workaround.

In a past work project we needed to build a thin client for a intranet and one
of the requirement was, basically, an encrypted browser profile, custom CA
management, client certificate and some other things, doing that using cef was
very hard and it used a lot of hacks.

edit: correct some grammar

------
ridiculous_fish
Honest question: what is the population of committers (not contributors) on
Chromium? Is there any significant number outside of Google?

Is Chromium de-facto controlled by Google, or more community driven?

~~~
VoxPelli
Considering that Samsung Internet, Brave, Opera, Electron etc is based on
Chromium and at least Samsung Internet adding new features of their own to it,
there are at least many other people working on the code base.

I would guess that Microsoft would keep using Chorus rather than adopting V8,
but if they aren’t, then V8 has contributions from eg. Node.js

And as states in the article: Edge on Android and on ARM seems to already be
Chromium based

~~~
ridiculous_fish
There's a crucial difference between "working on the code base" and having
commit access. The committers are the gatekeepers and the steamrollers.

What I'm effectively asking is this:

1\. If Google opts to steer Chromium in a way that the community finds
objectionable, could the community stop it?

2\. If the community opts to steer Chromium in a way that Google finds
objectionable, could Google stop it?

~~~
bad_user
> " _1\. If Google opts to steer Chromium in a way that the community finds
> objectionable, could the community stop it?_ "

The answer to that is obvious. Of course not.

Google owns Chromium's repository. Even if the "community" decides to fork
Chromium, Google owns Chrome, so any fork of Chromium is completely
irrelevant. That's because people download and install Chrome and not obscure
Chromium forks.

And that is why web standards are important ;-)

~~~
VoxPelli
“Obscure Chromium forks” – like Samsung Internet and Edge?

Remember: Chromium itself is an “obscure fork” of WebKit...

~~~
ash_gti
Don't forget Opera is a re-skinned Chrome.

~~~
gsnedders
I mean it's re-skinned in the same way as Samsung Internet and I believe Edge
will be: a totally different browser UI implementation around the same browser
engine.

~~~
VoxPelli
Samsung Internet has their own implementations of quite a few web standards -
calling it a reskin isn’t very accurate

------
burtonator
A lot of you guys are lamenting this decision.

I'm insanely excited about it!

I've been working on a new reader and documentation manager for PDF and cached
web content:

[https://getpolarized.io/](https://getpolarized.io/)

It's based on Electron and targets Chromium.

What I'm hoping happens here is that this means more focus on Chromium and
potentially more work on Electron + Carlo.

Electron is amazing but it's pretty bloated per app. If it's made lighter
weight and something like Carlo can just use the OS installed browser in an
isolated process you'll have the best of both worlds.

You can use web standards to build your apps and at the same time dock into
native OS features without the massive bloat.

Right now Polar is about 100MB to download and uses about 200MB of RAM. Not
the end of the world but also not super fun.

There's the issue of one central monoculture but there's still the opportunity
to fork if chrome/edge gain too much market share.

~~~
Rudism
The fact that projects choose to target a specific rendering engine as opposed
to just writing web standards compliant code and having it work in any browser
that follows those standards is precisely the reason why people (me, at least)
are lamenting this decision.

With Edge, Blink, and Webkit competing for marketshare, app developers are
forced to at least think about sticking to web standards or risk losing a
chunk of potential users. In a world where only Blink exists and all
developers care about is that things work in Blink, any new browser entering
the market now not only has to worry about compliance with official web
standards, they also need to worry about emulating the idiosyncratic behavior
of Blink that developers have discovered and started abusing or taking
advantage of. The actual standards essentially become moot and Blink becomes
the real standard. And while, sure, Blink/Chromium is open source, with both
Google and Microsoft heavily invested in its development and direction, who do
you think is going to have all the power in making the important decisions?

------
jpangs88
I feel like I should be happy as a web dev to hear that I no longer have to
support a browser engine made by Microsoft (which has been a huge pain and
despite this will be a huge pain for a while due to people still using old
browsers) but this feels bittersweet. It feels like we're taking the
engineering out of everything because companies can make more money by not
innovating.

~~~
VoxPelli
They want short term wins and gives away long term ones.

I guess the Chrome team itself aren’t happy about this. Will make standards
work harder for them. Better to have the Edge team build alternative
implementations of standards in their own engines than to implement even more
stuff in Chromium.

Chrome already has a hard time not running ahead of the rest of the web, they
don’t need more people to speed it up even further.

------
vatueil
There's a new GitHub repository for Microsoft Edge:

[https://github.com/MicrosoftEdge/MSEdge](https://github.com/MicrosoftEdge/MSEdge)

The readme goes into more detail than the blog post announcement, including
emphasis on Windows on ARM, information about WebRTC for UWP, and explicit
confirmation that they plan to bring Edge to Windows 7 and 8 as well as macOS.

Also, looks like they're using the MIT license.

------
VoxPelli
Will Microsoft use V8 as the javascript engine then as well or continue to use
Chakra?

If they won’t continue to use Chakra, what happens to that project then? It is
open sourced and there’s work to make Node.js use it:
[https://github.com/nodejs/node-chakracore](https://github.com/nodejs/node-
chakracore)

All the more important to support Servo and Gecko – we can’t have all browsers
be of WebKit origin – we rather need more initiatives like Servo, that
reinvents the engine from scratch, optimized for modern environments.

~~~
VoxPelli
I opened an issue to ask: [https://github.com/nodejs/node-
chakracore/issues/611](https://github.com/nodejs/node-chakracore/issues/611)

~~~
meandmycode
They will be using Chromium (blink+V8) but intend to continue the open source
development of chakra, but I suppose edgehtml is dead.

Source:
[https://twitter.com/bterlson/status/1070754781822574592](https://twitter.com/bterlson/status/1070754781822574592)

------
vezycash
When Microsoft released Edge, they claimed bugs plagued IE because they
couldn't update IE without OS updates. Edge as a "store app" would receive
frequent updates, independent of Windows OS updates. They ended up tying Edge
to Windows. And kept promising but never delivered. Instead of small frequent
browser updates, we got large frequent OS updates. Maybe now that Edge's dead,
they'll slow down the frequency of Windows update a bit.

In the beginning, IE was speedier than Edge. Had more features too. Edge was
fragile and froze often. Updates fixed some of the speed issues. I froze my
windows update so, I don't know how it stacks up right now.

To increase Windows store usage, MS also decided to tie Edge extension to the
Windows store. This wouldn't have been a problem. In fact, I like the idea of
getting all my stuff in one place. However, MS decided to create the annoying
store app. I'm on a desktop, a real computer. Why on earth can't I open the
store on a browser and have the installer do its work in the background? This
is where I drew the line with Edge.

I'm not surprised that Edge's marketshare declined with increased Windows 10
marketshare. Edge is Microsoft's second Windows 8. They are both PC software
designed to please mobile users and infuriate PC or touch-less users. And both
hide settings - make it a chore to change minor settings.

I believe throwing Windows Phone under the bus has come back to bite Microsoft
in the ass and Edge is just a trailer.

Microsoft is still gutting Windows 10 - turning it into a phone OS for desktop
users, replacing working software with incomplete toys.

As far as I'm concerned, Google didn't beat MS in the browser game. MS simply
frustrated IE users over to Chrome by forcing Edge on them.

Windows is the next software MS will abandon for Google's alternative. All
Google has to do is not mess up android.

If you remember Nokia/MS's failed fork of Android you'll feel the chill.
Microsoft now sells android smartphones in both its online and retail stores.

I predict MS is not done with Edge. At the end, they'll abandon that too for
Chrome. And all they'll do is change the default search engine to Bing.

~~~
fbelzile
> MS also decided to tie Edge extension to the Windows store.

I think this was a big mistake. I hope they mirror what Google is doing with
the Chrome store. As a developer, I had to: 1) Port my Chrome extension into a
UWP app 2) Embed another win32 exe to read/write SQLite databases because UWP
don't do that. 3) Pay $100 to open a developer account 4) After compiling the
extension, reading blogs to figure out how to even upload the correct files 5)
Have Microsoft deny my extension because it required special permissions (the
win32 exe) 6) Still no extension uploaded.

~~~
WorldMaker
Microsoft.Data.SQLite [1] is baked into the UWP for reading/writing SQLite
databases, and has been since the Fall Creators Update last year (and that
library exists in a backwards compatible way all the way back to the 2015
November Update if you have LTS support needs).

[1] [https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/uwp/data-
access/sql...](https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/uwp/data-
access/sqlite-databases)

------
sprash
Funny that minor side project of KDE is now responsible for the vast majority
of today's Internet traffic. Did the original authors of KHTML ever receive a
single dime for their work?

~~~
mevile
> Did the original authors of KHTML ever receive a single dime for their work?

Why would they? That's not how open source works. If the KDE devs that made
Konqueror wanted to capture value or do it for monetary gain they would have
made a closed source browser and I doubt Apple would have then picked it to
build WebKit.

Apple is what made WebKit predominant, the KDE devs simply did a great job and
should be very proud of what they've done, but it doesn't make sense for there
to be policy change around open source for recompensating devs when their
projects take off.

~~~
AsyncAwait
> Why would they? That's not how open source works. If the KDE devs that made
> Konqueror wanted to capture value or do it for monetary gain they would have
> made a closed source browser

Making something open-source does not mean you don't want to make money off
it.

------
sebazzz
EdgeHTML is also used for embedding HTML into UWP, and controls have been
released for WPF and Win32. I wonder what will be the story of that. Will that
be transparently changed to Chrome, can it be changed to Chrome or will
EdgeHTML be used only for that?

~~~
wvenable
I suspect the rise of Electron apps, including Microsoft's own applications
like Visual Studio Code, are actually driving this decision. Effectively
within Microsoft, Chromium has already won over EdgeHTML for desktop
applications.

~~~
robbick
This is so important to consider, chromium is more than a browser these days

------
Retroity
On one hand, this creates a platform that is more or less the standard of the
web. On the other hand, this only gives Google more control of the web.

I really wish that instead of doing this Microsoft would just stick with
EdgeHTML and maybe open-source it.

~~~
VoxPelli
The monoculture is the main issue here.

Google should not be happy about this.

Makes it harder for them and everyone else to push web standards forward.

------
alanfranzoni
What I find a bit curious is that's a fully Chromium based browser, it's not
simply based on the Blink rendering engine. So, it will be much closer
(probably) to Chromium/Chrome than other blink-based browsers like Brave or
Opera.

I'd really like to understand the rationale behind this choice. What they'd
like to leverage from Chromium that Blink alone wouldn't have?

~~~
notatoad
Opera and Brave are both chromium-based, rather than just using the blink
engine. The official webdriver plugin for opera [1], published by opera,
refers to their browser as "chromium based". The brave browser [2] is open
source and you can see it syncs from Chromium

[1]
[https://github.com/operasoftware/operachromiumdriver](https://github.com/operasoftware/operachromiumdriver)

[2] [https://github.com/brave/brave-browser](https://github.com/brave/brave-
browser)

~~~
gsnedders
Opera's built on top of the Chromium content API (approximately Blink plus
things like networking, some OS integration stuff, etc.), rather than a fork
of all the UI code; the UI is a completely separate implementation and shares
nothing (and this is very obvious if you look at early releases of Chopera,
with it having much fewer features than Chromium of the same period).

~~~
jjgod
> UI is a completely separate implementation and shares nothing

Not completely true, many "model" part is shared with Chromium code (given the
liberal license) while "view" part can be different.

------
garysahota93
It's crazy! This is not the Microsoft from ~5 years ago. They have really
changed! Opening up to linux, cross-platform apps, open sourcing tech, open
sourcing their patents(!), and now using open source chromium for MS Edge?
Dam. I never thought I'd see the day...

~~~
krylon
It is an interesting time to be alive, that is for sure.

~~~
garysahota93
Agreed!

------
_nickwhite
Could this be a bad thing for Firefox? Seems like Microsoft + Google is quite
a rival to go against?

~~~
zbraniecki
Firefox (by that I hope you mean Mozilla Project) cares about diversity and
choice. Our Mozilla Manifesto [0] describes our vision of the balance between
corporate and civic value of the Internet.

I speak for myself - I believe that decrease in diversity of implementations
of the Web standard and drift toward a monopoly is harmful to our vision of
the Internet and ultimately will hurt the Open Web.

[0] [https://www.mozilla.org/en-
US/about/manifesto/](https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/about/manifesto/)

~~~
tcd
I mean, in all honesty, EdgeHTML wasn't ever really an engine that had much
hope. IE has always been loathed, Edge just continued that trend. Their
marketshare wasn't great, and tying browser updates to the OS as they did with
IE was irresponsible for how browsers are shipped these days.

If Edge had 35% marketshare I'd be more concerned, but nobody was using it,
and web developers _hated_ trying to make their sites compatible.

Good riddance to IE/Edge of old :)

------
Kjeldahl
Excellent news. Google mostly does not have their own desktop OS to "protect",
so they are probably incentivised to make the browser and the apps running in
it feel as "native" as possible, with proper access to important local
resources when relevant. Considering how Apple is dragging their feet with
service worker and offline support on Safari (where they have a monopoly on
iOS), this is probably a good thing overall. Fingers crossed!

~~~
bad_user
> " _Google mostly does not have their own desktop OS to "protect"_"

But they do and they are actually Microsoft's biggest competitor on the
desktop:

[https://www.google.com/chromebook/](https://www.google.com/chromebook/)

------
MikusR
In short. Edge engine is dead. Based on Chromium. Not an UWP. Will be on
Windows 7 and Mac.

~~~
negativegate
I didn't see any mention of Windows 7 or that it won't be a UWP on Windows,
are there more details somewhere?

~~~
mrpippy
Agreed. I see zero chance that Edge will suddenly be ported back to Windows 7.
And it would be almost as big of a shock if the Chromium-based Edge is not
UWP.

~~~
mrpippy
I stand corrected--this is exactly what they're going to do. Take Win32
Chromium, rename it Edge, and build it for Win7, 8, and 10. What a huge blow
to everyone at MS who believes in UWP.

[https://www.theverge.com/2018/12/6/18128648/microsoft-
edge-c...](https://www.theverge.com/2018/12/6/18128648/microsoft-edge-chrome-
chromium-browser-changes)

~~~
moogly
> What a huge blow to everyone at MS who believes in UWP.

That may be so, but is there anyone outside of MS who believes in UWP? Not
even stalwart MS exclusive devs seem to do so.

~~~
pjmlp
Adobe XD is a UWP app.

------
Vinnl
Aww man... I can't help but reminisce about how it would've been if they'd
decided to become significant contributors to Gecko.

------
TheWiseOne
So the web is now going to be even more Chrome-centric than it is...

I wonder if they thought about picking Gecko instead.

------
ausjke
Another "if you can't beat them just join them"? In fact Edge is 99.9999%
irrelevant at least to me, all my time with Edge added up to be less than 5
minutes over the years, I only need it to download chrome(or firefox).

------
ucaetano
This is actually great for the web. Having two competitors like Google and MS
contributing to a single rendering engine, and competing on the actual
browsers means less fragmentation without the single-entity-control problem.

------
oaiey
I think Microsoft made already a deal with Google about the control of
chromium. It would be endless naive otherwise.

Do not forget that this is a full development stack within Windows. UWP has a
JavaScript/HTML runtime and Microsoft's recent pwa visions both need to earn
money.

My bet is that Google will announce in the next weeks or at the next io a
foundation for dealing with chromium. The only thing which itches me with that
a bit is ChromeOS. But maybe that is more a plugin thingy.

------
scotchio
Some people are saying this is not good for competition.

I see it as a positive for keeping Google in check.

Chrome's marketshare is insane. Google could autoupdate Chrome overnight push
out some wild update like requiring you to sign in to use their browser or
something else like default rendering everything to AMP wrappers for
example... who knows / tinfoil hat time.

Now there's a solid and non-disruptive quick switch default that is already
installed (sorry FF, Brave) on Windows machines similar to what Apple has with
Safari.

------
croddin
Wasn't an original idea of Edge that it would have several different quirks
modes where it would use the old IE renderer to work with old corporate
websites and such to be extremely backwards compatible? Could this break
things for some companies with old IE-only internal websites etc? (Not that I
don't think these should have all been made to work with chrome long ago.) If
they are going to try to maintain some kind of quirks mode, would that be open
sourced?

~~~
sebazzz
IE only websites are added to the Enterprise Site List[0] by the sysadmin and
will be opened in IE11, just like now. Edge has never dynamically switched
engines, it just opened IE.

[0]: [https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-
edge/deploy/emie-...](https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-
edge/deploy/emie-to-improve-compatibility)

------
partiallypro
I'm wondering why they decided to keep the Edge brand. It seems dropping it
and the "e" logo all together would be ideal. The logo beit IE or Edge has
negative emotions for many users. I am excited for this though, because I will
probably make the Microsoft browser my default once it launches since it will
finally have access to the vast Chrome extension library. But, I still think
they will struggle with adoption just from a branding standpoint.

~~~
abrowne
There was a blog post I can't find now when they announced Edge that they had
to pick a E- name and an E logo otherwise literally millions of people would
no longer know how to access "the internet".

------
lwansbrough
Really wish Microsoft would open source the Edge renderer.

------
shmerl
Good development. Now we need more open source collaboration in MS gaming
branch. Let MS back Vulkan instead of continuing DX12 lock-in.

------
zabil
I am super excited about this. I work on an open source tool to automate
chromium browser
[https://github.com/getgauge/taiko](https://github.com/getgauge/taiko) and the
Chrome Devtools protocol makes it really easy to do so. With edge using
chromium Cross browser testing will suck less.

------
projectramo
Recipe for success: Take chromium and make it super private. Put a moat up for
identity, add a VPN (if that makes some people feel better), encrypt traffic
etc.

You could even charge people for the heavy duty version that might use some
Azure services. The only issue with this is charging people requires tying
their browser to the payment method.

------
dazhbog
I hope this move changes the hostile amount of google services that are baked
into Chrome and Chromium. Not saying MS is any better, but at least there will
be more choices for users and where before everything was hardcoded, now there
will be an option to select and potentially expose more customization for us
morals.

~~~
ridiculous_fish
Which Google services are baked into Chromium?

~~~
dazhbog
There are several services and binaries. Some examples are Google host
detector, Google URL tracker, Google cloud messaging, Google hotwording, Safe
browsing, password saving feature naggs you to sign-in, translation etc. There
are also a lot of binaries that are bundled, but im not really an expert on
those.

------
slartibardfast0
WebKit Scrollbars by attrition rather than specification is an odd way to go
about things, but I for one will take it!

------
dzonga
They could've chosen to go with Safari webkit. Since on the desktop it's
pretty standards compliant. & it's pretty fast & power efficient too. But they
chose Chromium, because they now own Electron. Also fuxk apple for having
Safari on iOS being shitty, but good at protecting privacy

------
fetbaffe
My problem with Edge is not the rendering engine, it is the application it
self, it is clunky & buggy, after a while with multiple application windows
with multiple tabs, shortcut keys just stop working in some windows & some
windows just freezes for a while.

------
antaviana
Any chances that with this move, Windows adopts Chromium instead of Internet
Explorer as embedded browser for Windows applications?

That will remove plenty of IE rendering issues and also the need to link a
whole CEF to get Chromium rendering in your application.

------
smoser
Wow a new Microsoft web browser for the Mac! Haven't seen one of those in 15
years.

------
godelmachine
No offense meant to anyone, but don't engineers at Microsoft feel humiliated
over the fact that their employer chose an open source project that was
started by their rival viz. Google?

I am just curious how competitiveness works in FAANG.

------
fbelzile
Does anyone know what the extension ecosystem of this new Edge will look like?

------
explodingcamera
It's funny that when you go to select your country, depending on the privacy
laws in said country you have to agree to their terms of service using a
checkmark/no checkmark.

------
halis
This announcement is about 6 years late, but yeah, it makes sense!

Now, there may be some point in the future where I open a Microsoft browser
and do more than barf on myself and download Chrome.

------
sctb
Recent discussion:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18595069](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18595069).

------
MrZipf
Hey Joe, can't you just stop nagging users to use your browser and stop
overriding the users choice of browser? No need to repackage anything, just
move on.

------
bovermyer
This bit is probably the most interesting to me:

> We also expect this work to enable us to bring Microsoft Edge to other
> platforms like macOS.

------
outside1234
The most exciting thing here is that, hopefully, we will get a version of
Chromium on Mac without spyware.

~~~
krylon
Can't you just run vanilla Chromium without the Google stuff on macOS?

Honest question, I don't think I ever looked, and now I am back on GNU/Linux.

On Windows, there is no build of vanilla Chromium, as far as I could find out.
Then again, I did not try very hard, because I started using Firefox back when
it was still called Firebird; the only incentive I had to check out Chromium
on Linux were some web sites that did not work very well with Firefox (VPS
console on Vultr, Netflix).

------
boshomi
Will Mircosoft use V8 or Charka Core?

------
niputi
it seems like a lot of people don't know this but the current Edge engine is
Open Source. look here
[https://github.com/Microsoft/ChakraCore](https://github.com/Microsoft/ChakraCore)

~~~
krylon
Chakra is "just" the Javascript engine, the HTML render engine used by Edge is
not open source.

------
kopite
I would rather not install Chrome at all on my windows machine. I use Brave (a
chromium based browser) and with right extensions, I can see myself using the
new Chromium based Edge. I bet that will be the thought process for a lot of
general people using browsers. Chrome will loose its market share to Edge for
sure.

------
wnevets
If the UI is going to be just as terrible as it is now, I will still refuse to
use it.

------
mythz
Whilst this basically declares the Browser wars over and crystalizes Chromium
as the Web's browser engine it's reassuring it's in the hands of the company
with infinite resources, talent and a vested interest in seeing the web
platform succeed with Google benefiting when more people spend more time on
the Web (essentially the business case in starting Chrome to push the web
forward, quicker). The only rendering engine that stands a chance at competing
against Chrome is Safari/WebKit (thanks to iOS) and Apple would rather see
native iOS Apps succeed to re-enforce their walled garden they have complete
control over.

So whilst it's a dark day for browser engine diversity, I don't see it as a
blow against the Web overall (i.e. as a popular platform to develop for) as
Google/Chrome is the driving force behind making Chromium more powerful to
close the experience vs native Apps with initiatives like PWAs of which a
side-effect is we'll be able to use new APIs sooner and increase web developer
velocity by having 1 less browser engine we need to test against.

A lot of people see browser wars as a gauge for the health of the Web but I
consider the biggest threat to the "open web" is native mobile Apps which
needs to become more capable in order to be able to deliver the same
integrated experiences. In that light I don't see the competition of more
browser engines making the Web better. Chrome wasn't created in reaction to
competition, it was created because there was none left with MS leaving IE6
(and the main interface into the Web) to wither and die. IMO competing browser
engines are holding the Web back with not being able to use new APIs as
they're available, needing to cater for the lowest common denominator and
having to test and support against a matrix of different browser engines and
versions.

It would be a different story if I thought Google would pull back investment
in Chrome after they achieve total dominance, but I don't see that, their
current strategy is winning where they benefit in a faster, stronger more
popular Web and have been lifting the state of the art browser development
since Chrome/V8's inception. Of course we now have to worry about Google
thwarting the direction of Chromium to their benefit to the detriment of their
users, the best way to minimize that is to have multiple collaborators
committing to the Chromium project like MS Announces suggests they're doing.
IMO it would be in Firefox's best interest to also switch to and collaborate
on Chromium as well. Their market share is fading into irrelevance and after
Edge/Chromium I see less developers investing their time to test on FF. I
believe their efforts would be best spent on innovating on the browser's UI
and function as I don't see how maintaining an alternative browser engine is a
competitive advantage, IMO it's one of the reasons for their decline in market
share. They should still be able to achieve their objectives the same way
Vivaldi and Brave are doing with their added privacy protections in their
Blink forks.

------
breatheoften
Are they gonna put chakra into chromium or use v8?

~~~
laughingpine
yeah - I am also curious about this considering there are projects like
ChakraCore and node-ChakraCore out there.

Would seem like a shame to lose the work done on that project.

------
Adutude
The name.... reminds me of <blink>Annoying Text</blink>

------
ezoe
So, Microsoft finally realized that they can't develop the web browser inside
the single company.

I wonder what they realize the next. A Compiler?

------
Scarbutt
I always though Mozilla should be the one doing this, let google do all the
hard work and focus their resources in increasing market share and having
better privacy, if they have the resources to maintain firefox then they have
the resources to maintain a chromium fork.

------
volandovengo
This is HUGE!

Microsoft throwing away the IE engine in favor of one more or less standard
rendering engine is a huge win for web developers everywhere!

It's also something that would have been unimaginable in the Steve Ballmer
era.

Thank you!

~~~
fabricexpert
> A huge win for web developers everywhere!

And a huge loss for users everywhere. Now that Chrome is becoming the main web
target, Google (an adtech company) basically controls the internet.

~~~
bluejekyll
I don’t really get this. Edge was only available to Windows users. This is
only a loss to those users. On the other hand Chrome and Firefox are available
on all major (for some subset of all) platforms. (Yes, I’m aware iPhone
Firefox is hobbled bc of Apple policies).

If you want to push competition and choice, encourage everyone to use Firefox
(or Safari if they only use macOS).

~~~
pritambaral
> Edge was only available to Windows users.

And still, it was some competition to Chrome and Firefox.

> encourage everyone to use Firefox.

Which can be done while also lamenting the loss of a Firefox competitor,
especially when said loss gains Firefox nothing.

~~~
bluejekyll
MS could have chosen to base their platform on Firefox, but they chose to go
with Chromium.

We can lament the passing of Edge, but I wonder how people would have felt if
instead of Edge they just had this announcement as the replacement for IE.
Would we have cared? No one seems to miss IE.

~~~
O1111OOO
> MS could have chosen to base their platform on Firefox...

There actually might have been an outcry over this. I'm not aware of any
Firefox forks, for example, that aren't focused on privacy. MS would have been
the first to fork FF and undo lots of the privacy features in the browser
(engine).

With Chrome/Chromium, there's a reluctant acceptance of data-harvesting and
(unethical) tracking.

I wonder if MS gave the above scenario some thought...

------
rinchik
> As part of this, we intend to become a significant contributor to the
> Chromium project, in a way that can make not just Microsoft Edge — but other
> browsers as well — better on both PCs and other devices.

"Embrace, extend, and extinguish"? At this point, with google, I'm not even
sure if it's a bad thing, if true.

