
Microsoft Edge – The Browser for Doing - signaler
http://www.browserfordoing.com/
======
arihant
I don't know why comments here think it is Metro IE repackaged. It doesn't
look anything like it (it looks more like Chrome than Metro IE), doesn't have
the same rendering engine, supports crazy amount of new functionality:

1\. Google Now styled contextual cards appear as soon as you start typing in
address bar to search.

2\. It does have support for Hubs, probably the best feature of Windows 8.

3\. Annotations, so many ways of annotations. Not only it is natural, there is
actually no easy way to annotate the web in any browser today.

4\. Reading lists - not new, but new in MS realm.

5\. Lastly, the hidden weapon - Cortana. It is integrated every-freakin-where
in the browser. It is like Siri had sex with Google Now.

~~~
msdos_bro
Why does any of this matter? For all practical purposes, this is IE - nobody
would choose to use it, but because it will come bundled with Windows, a lot
of people who don't care to switch browsers will use it. That's all there is
to it.

~~~
giancarlostoro
A lot of people seem to not realize that the last reiterations of IE have
actually worked to keep up with web standards, not to redefine them. Microsoft
is actually trying their best to support web standards, when all other
browsers break your code you will appreciate their hard work. But no, "it's
just IE, it's just Microsoft" so let's not use the evil companies software?
Come on, don't be so quick to jump the gun, do a little more research. This is
precisely why they're dumping IE, and starting fresh, too many misconceptions
exist about IE, but also this allows them to do new things.

~~~
y0ghur7_xxx
> Microsoft is actually trying their best to support web standards

That's good. So does every other browser since forever.

> when all other browsers break your code you will appreciate their hard work.

I am a webdev, and I use Firefox as my main browser for work. When I am done
with a feature or a new page I usually test it in Chrome and it works without
problems. Then IE, and I still have to tweak the hell out of the code to make
it work there as well. So ms is not there yet.

~~~
arihant
What you fail to analyze is why MS got that way. They got there because they
dropped the ball on IE post XP.

When MS stretched violently with IE 6 back then, they changed the web
landscape forever, they were light years ahead of competition. The practically
invented AJAX. If MS can do with Edge what they did with IE 6, the future is
very bright.

Since IE 6, most changes in web technology has been incremental. The powerful
changes like WebGL are not enough mainstream. MS was, and still is, in power
of forwarding things fast. So when you look at it like that, this is all good
news.

------
tbrock
> Tell us what you think.

I think it should be standards compliant in every conceivable way.

~~~
megaman821
Looking at [https://status.modern.ie/](https://status.modern.ie/) it appears
Safari is the laggard of the group. Current versions of IE really haven't been
that bad, the biggest problem is going to be getting people off IE8.

~~~
codeulike
Yeah IE has been fairly respectable since 9+

~~~
streptomycin
Would be nice if it was more than "fairly respectable". Also, I wouldn't trust
[http://status.modern.ie](http://status.modern.ie) too much. For example, IE
is missing some IndexedDB features
[https://github.com/InternetExplorer/Status.IE/issues/104](https://github.com/InternetExplorer/Status.IE/issues/104)
but you'll see no mention of that on their status site. From there, it looks
like everything is perfect.

~~~
lucid00
IndexedDB support is horrible across all browsers. You'd be surprised at how
much of the spec Chrome doesn't support.

~~~
streptomycin
Actually I wouldn't, because I've built a non-trivial app using IndexedDB :)

But don't believe me, believe the results of the W3C test suite:
[http://w3c.github.io/test-
results/IndexedDB/all.html](http://w3c.github.io/test-
results/IndexedDB/all.html)

And don't just look at the headline numbers, look at the tests that actually
fail, because some are more important than others.

The only test that fails in Chrome [1] is only marginally meaningful. It would
be nice if they got it working, but all the tests that actually use IndexedDB
pass in Chrome. 100%.

Firefox is almost as good as Chrome, but it fails on tests of error handling
for a few edge cases that are very unlikely to occur in the real world.

IE and Safari have many failures for tests of core functionality (Safari is
even worse than IE if you look at the individual tests that fail, rather than
the overall %).

[1] [https://github.com/w3c/web-platform-
tests/blob/master/Indexe...](https://github.com/w3c/web-platform-
tests/blob/master/IndexedDB/interfaces.html)

------
fleeno
I love how advertising shows people drawing annotations. It always looks so
pointless.

Why did they circle that boat? Who is going to see it? What is the circled
date on the other example? Did it get added to a calendar, or did it just go
nowhere?

Can't they at least show cool young people working in a beach shop circling
pictures of surfboards for no reason, like actual stylus users?

Unrelated to making fun of advertising... What happens to these examples when
the site gets updated? Does it store a local copy? What if you want to update
it later, but your local copy is now out of date?

I did just download Windows 10 to try in a VM, so I guess I'll find out!

~~~
tropin
No, seriously, what's the point in annotating a web page? Even years ago with
pure static html webs made little sense.

~~~
robotresearcher
A small niche, but since you asked: web developers and content editors. I
often have to give critical feedback on web pages and I don't even do that for
a living.

------
Coding_Cat
Alternative
link:[http://www.browserfordong.com/](http://www.browserfordong.com/)

Oddly enough, running a whois on the above returns a different company/person
then microsoft. I suppose Microsoft paid them to forward this, or they're much
nicer people then I am... Missed opportunity for a prank.

------
zhte415
ICQ had a feature for writing on websites, and even chatting with others
visiting the same webpage. That was around 1998. It didn't work out, despite
the penetration of ICQ at the time.

~~~
agumonkey
I wouldn't underestimate the power of time. Maybe at the time the web wasn't
about information as much as today. Maybe MS implementation will be smoother
and more integrated. Maybe people minds have changed. So many things died in
the past only to be reincarnated slightly differently now they can but seen
under the right light.

~~~
davidgerard
Website annotating is a feature people keep reinventing every few years. (e.g.
rbutr as the most recent example, but there have been several before.) It
usually founders on (2) getting sued by people who don't like the annotations
on their website (1) no way to actually monetise this.

~~~
agumonkey
It's an in-browser tool, not a product. Maybe MS plan to analyse cloud stored
annotations but I don't think they want to make money out of it. And how legal
is it for a website author to say anything about what I do when I'm visiting
it ? I can store the URL and a little doodle in a file, can they sue me for
doing this ?

~~~
davidgerard
It isn't (slam-dunk under CDA section 230), but that never stopped a pissed-
off crank from bringing a harassing case. Yeah, that's unlikely to affect
Microsoft.

------
rottyguy
Anyone else get the feeling that .net is being groomed to be the "runtime" of
the internet (I'll stop short of calling it "OS" as that would seem
presumptuous :-)? To the extent where you could run any .net supported
language on any OS as well as your browser (C#/F#/VB/Managed C++/etc). Granted
the browser version would need to be well sand-boxed but penetrating the
Javascript market would be huge. I'm predicting Edge will eventually explore
this path.

~~~
rottyguy
btw- anyone know who the father of .net would be? wikipedia states that .net
was created in the late 90's under the next generation windows services
umbrella. 1999 is the date that is given when Anders started to assemble the
C# team (again wikipedia). Timing seems roughly right but guessing .net
preceeded his work on C#. tx

~~~
mkr-hn
Possibly informative, if not a complete answer:
[http://channel9.msdn.com/blogs/thechannel9team/anders-
hejlsb...](http://channel9.msdn.com/blogs/thechannel9team/anders-hejlsberg-
what-brought-about-the-birth-of-the-clr)

------
FreakyT
I'm still hoping that they'll release this for Mac OS (more competition for
cross platform browsers would be a good thing!)

But so far it doesn't seem like that's on the table...

~~~
elinchrome
After the recent activity with Code and Roslyn, I was hoping for MacOS and
Linux download links too. That would be sweet. I'd love to use IE on my
macbook and my Mint box.

~~~
Artemis2
They probably want to not spread themselves out too thin just for a beta.

------
emilsedgh
Will it feature automatic [and silent] updates like Chrome does?

Or we will have to maintain websites for each version for several years, like
IE?

~~~
arenaninja
This question needs answering for those of us not in the know. Otherwise,
somebody will be supporting this version of a browser 11 years from now

------
dmak
Well, I dont know what I expected, but this is incredibly underwhelming.

------
snarfy
If it has no legacy code base, is it still tied to the OS like IE was? Can I
uninstall Microsoft Edge like any other app?

~~~
larzang
You can already do this with IE on Win8

------
yulaow
Question, am I the only one that right now see an abnormal usage of ram by
spartan(edge) compared even to chrome? I mean for the same exact page spartan
requires about +120% more ram than chrome, and chrome is not really a memory-
light browser.

------
Fastidious
Anyone knows how this relates to "Spartan?" I have Windows 10 preview
installed, subscribed to "fast" (nighties) and Spartan looks like Edge.

~~~
MLR
Project Spartan was the codename for the project, Edge is the official name,
it will be changed over in an upcoming preview build I imagine.

------
Grue3
Does it support managing dozens (up to 100) tabs like Firefox does with its
Tab Groups feature? I'd find it very hard to use a browser that doesn't have a
way to deal with tab explosion. Both Chrome and IE are virtually unusable with
lots of tabs opened.

------
mtarnovan
Does this work on Windows <10 ?

~~~
PauloManrique
No, it's a Windows Universal app running on Win10 only.

------
klunger
I think the annotations feature is really interesting! But how can they
implement this without the permission of the original website providers?

~~~
icebraining
Why would they need it?

~~~
klunger
I don't understand why the original comment is getting downvoted.

How can they implement this without copying the website in some form? It would
constitute basic copyright infringement.

~~~
icebraining
What do you mean? They simply add a layer of annotations over the site's HTML.
You don't need to copy the website to do that.

------
Mahn
Anyone else noticed the favicon? Looks like the settled for an "e" for it's
icon.

~~~
maaaats
You made me realize why Edge may be a better name than Spartan, as they now
can partially reuse the logo.

~~~
quonn
Right. Actually it's pretty close to the IE 11 and even to the IE 4 logo:

[http://www.browserfordoing.com/en-
us/favicon.ico](http://www.browserfordoing.com/en-us/favicon.ico)

[https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/it/a/a1/Internet_Expl...](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/it/a/a1/Internet_Explorer_4_logo.png)

------
jbub
I dont understand, is this a new internet explorer or a successor to it ?

~~~
quonn
It's a fork of the underlying MSHTML engine, that adds some new standard
support and more importantly throws out the old compatibility modes and other
legacy.

It will run in parallel to IE, which is here to stay for enterprise customers.

~~~
Touche
> It's a fork of the underlying MSHTML engine, that adds some new standard
> support

There's always new standards, so of course there is new standard support, just
as IE is getting new standard support.

Effectively it is a redesign and rebranding of IE. Nothing wrong with that,
but let's call a spade a spade.

~~~
manigandham
It's not a redesign, it's a completely new browser built clean and based on
EdgeHTML.

IE will still be around as a separate browser that can be used in environments
it's needed but Spartan/Edge is completely new and the way forward for the
mainstream users.

[http://blogs.msdn.com/b/ie/archive/2015/03/24/updates-
from-t...](http://blogs.msdn.com/b/ie/archive/2015/03/24/updates-from-the-
project-spartan-developer-workshop.aspx)

~~~
icebraining
No, it's not completely new from scratch:

 _So we set about to create a new engine using IE11’s standards support as a
baseline. I watched Justin Rogers, one of our engineers, press “Enter” on the
commit that forked the engine—it took almost 45 minutes just to process it
(just committing the changes, not building!)._

[http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2015/01/26/inside-
microsofts...](http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2015/01/26/inside-microsofts-
new-rendering-engine-project-spartan/)

~~~
manigandham
At the risk of getting pedantic... they basically deleted the majority of it.

>> In the coming months, swathes of IE legacy were deleted from the new
engine. Gone were document modes. Removed was the subsystem responsible for
emulating IE8 layout quirks. VBScript eliminated. Remnants like attachEvent,
X-UA-Compatible, currentStyle were all purged from the new engine. The
codebase looks little like Trident anymore (far more diverged already than
even Blink is from WebKit). What remained was a clean slate.

At this point, they kept basic stuff any rendering engine would do but it's as
clean a start as you can get.

~~~
icebraining
A clean engine is Servo. This just sounds like cleaning up the codebase.

~~~
manigandham
Cleaning up implies they didn't add anything else. This is a major reworking
that changes the entire stack.

Do they have to write every single line from scratch again? That would be an
enormous waste of time. Even if they started with a completely new repo, they
would just copy/paste that stuff anyway. The important bits are all new and
that's what matters.

~~~
icebraining
They don't "have" to do anything, nor am I criticizing them. I'm just saying
that's it's not completely from scratch like people are saying. If they take
this an some sort of attack, it's their problem.

------
0x006A
does it support WebRTC?

~~~
davidlago
As per an article linked in one of the comments here
([http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2015/01/26/inside-
microsofts...](http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2015/01/26/inside-microsofts-
new-rendering-engine-project-spartan/)) it seems as if WebRTC 1.1 will be
supported.

------
valevk
Microsoft is becoming the new Golang of HN. As soon as a story appears
mentioning it, it's on the frontpage.

~~~
tszming
IMO, Microsoft is becoming the new Google; Google is becoming the old
Microsoft, how funny is it..

~~~
Rainymood
Why exactly? Mind elaborating some on that statement? Because I disagree.

~~~
nabaraz
1.flooding market

2\. stagnant platform

3\. not proper direction

4\. rushed release

5\. longer and less transparent updates

etc.

~~~
icebraining
That still sounds like Microsoft to me.

~~~
vladiliescu
Really? With all the new things coming out of Redmond and with them open
sourcing the full server side .NET stack[1], the description above still
sounds like MS to you?

[1]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8595905](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8595905)

~~~
icebraining
"All the new things" You mean, flooding the market without a proper direction?
:)

As for open sourcing, I don't see how that invalidates any of the points. None
of them had "keeping platforms proprietary".

~~~
vladiliescu
imo, it invalidates the following:

2 - the platform is not stagnant, be it Windows or .NET - new things are
coming out;

3 - there is a proper direction, less towards Windows/Office as desktop apps
and more towards services;

5 - the updates do happen more often, and at least for .NET they're done in a
transparent way (being open source and all)

------
streptomycin
Hm, nice hype. But what about standards support? For instance, IE since IE10
has been missing some parts of the IndexedDB API. Last I heard, they weren't
planning to fix it any time soon
[https://twitter.com/IEDevChat/status/533338659555008512](https://twitter.com/IEDevChat/status/533338659555008512)

This is stuff that a single engineer could easily implement in a couple weeks.
Firefox and Chrome have open source implementations and open source unit tests
(the W3C has open unit tests too), which makes things even easier. Guess it's
too much to ask of a company with the meager resources of MS, though...

~~~
manojlds
> This is stuff that a single engineer could easily implement in a couple
> weeks.

Just because it can be done by 1 person, doesn't mean there are resources to
do so. How many other one person for couple of weeks features are there, you
think?

~~~
streptomycin
I know. It's not realistic to expect tiny non-profits like Microsoft to have
the engineering resources of huge corporations like Mozilla. A man can dream,
though...

If resources are such an issue, maybe Microsoft should go the Netscape path
and consider making their browser open source? I'm sure many people would be
interested in donating their time to help them support some of these tricky
standards. I would love to help them get IndexedDB right! I know some other
similarly minded people too.

