Microsoft Launches Beta Version of Microsoft Edge Browser for Windows and macOS

[chucker23n1]

Nothing exactly about it, it's a metaphor or simile.

OK. How's that, vaguely?
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Development: Much like IE, Edge is still behind. They may have migrated to webkit but I can list at least ten modern CSS features that are available across all modern browsers, but are not present, or do not work correctly, in the current version of Edge. Despite being announced and confirmed years ago...

This version of Edge is built on top of Chromium. Its layout engine is identical to that of Chrome, because it's the same code. Whatever ten "modern CSS features" you were going to list either aren't available in Chrome either, or you're simply ill-informed.
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I think you have a case of #C21E56-tinted spectacles there.

I think your post would have been better if you had left that remark out.

Soon after the web "took off" it was dancing to Netscape's (effectively proprietary) tune, then it was dancing to Microsoft's tune (in red-hot iron shoes) and the actual W3C standards were never ratified until long after they were irrelevant. The current situation is far from perfect,

Indeed.

but the fact that Google is not only bothering to push stuff through W3C and is maintaining an open-source implementation is worlds better than the old way.

A monoculture that has its source available and a spec sent off to a feckless institution is still a monoculture, though. It's better, yes, but it's hardly a vibrant diverse community.

One of the problems with the W3C of old is that they seemed to subscribe to the totally impractical notion that you can write "pure" standards without simultaneously developing and testing a reference implementation. The result... well, have you ever tried to use CSS (especially its earlier incarnations)?

Yes, that's also part of the truth. Standards like XHTML 1.1 and especially the drafts of 2.0 were wildly out of touch with what browsers and their users actually needed. HTML 5 was a breath of fresh air that actually delivered useful improvements.

But in the HTML 5 era, we had Apple, Google, Mozilla, and Opera all contributing. Now Apple has lost interest in many web-related areas, Mozilla has lost of a lot of mindshare, and Opera has essentially given up altogether. That leaves Google.

Thus, Opera, Brave, Microsoft and others moving their browsers to use Chromium is only a short-term win. In the long run, it's bad news.

 

[Lyoha]

This is only an educated guess, but: no, it probably doesn't mean that — it's probably simply an embedded IE web view, making it effectively Windows-only.

(edit)

Yup. It's marked as a Windows-specific feature.

Unless they want to build either Wine or some VM into the Mac version of Edge (which may not be worth it, as IE-only sites aren't even that common, with an obvious downwards trend), it will likely stay that way.

Wow! Thanks for digging into that and sharing! I guess I'll need to keep a VM around for testing in IE until it finally dies.

 

[C DM]

Nothing exactly about it, it's a metaphor or simile.

Not really sure how it applies though.

 

[theluggage]

Thus, Opera, Brave, Microsoft and others moving their browsers to use Chromium is only a short-term win. In the long run, it's bad news.

Sure, it would be great to have multiple, independent, full-featured browser implementations out there - and that was fine in 1992 when a decent hacker could throw one together in a few weeks. However, when the HTML/DOM/CSS/Javascript stack has grown in to, effectively, a near-complete operating system and applications platform* who is going to fund it? Especially when the experience of Netscape and Opera has shown that people expect to get their browser free-as-in-beer.

So, I still think the current situation is a significant step forward from the days when the de-facto standard web browser was first Netscape then Microsoft's - who were doing their level best to make the web not just IE only but Windows-only - and when w3c specs ranked amongst the great works of speculative fiction.

(* ...that just lacks a decent web browser, to recycle the old EMACS joke)

 

[chucker23n1]

So, I still think the current situation is a significant step forward from the days when the de-facto standard web browser was first Netscape then Microsoft's - who were doing their level best to make the web not just IE only but Windows-only - and when w3c specs ranked amongst the great works of speculative fiction.

Yes, but I don’t think people disagree with that.

 

[stephenschimpf]

I use Edge on my computer at work, and it's okay, but I see no reason to even try it on my iMac at home since Safari works great for me. I try to use stock apps unless I have a compelling reason no to.

 

[theluggage]

Yes, but I don’t think people disagree with that.

Sure, but most of the reason that we're not still in that world is that Google were big and ugly enough to beat Microsoft in the browser wars. "Fortunately" for us, while Microsoft's main aim at the time (maybe not so much in 2019) was to lock everybody into Windows and Office, Google is primarily interested in selling us to advertisers - so the more platforms that let us use its services, the merrier. Apple contributed too, but since iPhone they've always been a bit ambivalent about providing too good an independent web experience compared with iOS-specific Apps (case in point: failure to support some web technologies like pointer events).

I use Edge on my computer at work, and it's okay, but I see no reason to even try it on my iMac at home since Safari works great for me. I try to use stock apps unless I have a compelling reason no to.

In any case this "Edge" is a re-skinned Chromium, not the Edge you've probably used on Windows.

I think MS are only offering Edge for Mac because its a cheap and easy thing to do since Chromium already runs on everything. There's no compelling reason to use it unless you have something that won't work in Safari and think that Microsoft are less evil than Google (...in which case you should probably try Mozilla, Opera or even the open-source Chromium first). Maybe in the long run they'll try some wheeze like making the web versions of Office or Outlook work better on Edge (for Mac) than other browsers - but so far Chrome and Safari rule the roost in market share so that could be shooting themselves in the foot, and 2019 Microsoft seem a bit smarter than that.

 

[chucker23n1]

Sure, but most of the reason that we're not still in that world is that Google were big and ugly enough to beat Microsoft in the browser wars.

Yes, true enough.

But… I can lament that there are too few engines and still grant that we could be worse off.

Apple contributed too, but since iPhone they've always been a bit ambivalent about providing too good an independent web experience compared with iOS-specific Apps (case in point: failure to support some web technologies like pointer events).

Yeah, Apple's web role lately has been… mixed.

 

[redheeler]

What a sad day for the World of web development...

This version of Edge is just Google Chromium with a new wrapper on top. And because the Windows version is also transitioning to it, this will finally eliminate the need to develop for a Microsoft browser engine. It's a good day for the world of web development, something that has been wanted since the days of IE's dominance.

There is one major downside though, the growth of Google's massive influence over web standards and the web as a whole. Chromium is on its way to becoming the new Internet Explorer.

 

[Timemaster]

Why would you say that?
There is no proprietary features like the old IE days.
Its compliant with all current web standards.

Because it it running on the chromeime engine which removes yet another basic rendering engine from the market screwing both Firefox and safari even more.
Desktop Safari drop off being check for support a while ago due to such little market share but it was getting help because it cost next to nothing to check it some times.

The cost to support 3 vs 2 engines is pretty minor but the cost to support 2 vs 1 is huge. If it was only say Firefox and chrome as the only choices then honestly Firefox support would completely drop as it cost just way to much do both vs one. It is marginal gain in terms of things working for a massive increase in support and QA cost. As long as a company needs to support 2 different engines the 3rd and the 4th places get a lot of help as it cost very little to include them in testing and support.