From this incredible momentum, today I’m pleased to announce the new Microsoft Edge is now available to download on all supported versions of Windows and macOS in more than 90 languages. Microsoft Edge is also available on iOS and Android, providing a true cross-platform experience. The new Microsoft Edge provides world class performance with more privacy, more productivity and more value while you browse. Our new browser also comes with our Privacy Promise and we can’t wait for you to try new features like tracking prevention, which is on by default, and provides three levels of control while you browse.
The new Edge will also come to Linux, so this gives us yet another Chromium-based browser available on all platforms. Why, exactly, you’d choose Edge over Chrome, Vivaldi, or any others is still not entirely clear to me, however.
One browser to rule them all.
I’m sure I’ve heard that somewhere before!
“Why, exactly, you’d choose Edge over Chrome, etc.”
Lots of Windows users will probably just fall into Edge by default.
Some people may just like it better (better privacy, probably better integration/performance on Windows, people have different tastes, etc.).
To sync browser data especially for business users.
First thing I did was to look for the source code, so I found this project on github, but it’s void of any source files?
https://github.com/MicrosoftEdge/MSEdge
Naturally I want to see what they changed from google chromium.
The source code should be here: https://thirdpartysource.microsoft.com/
It’s a good thing KHTML/WebKit/Blink is LGPL!!
Z_God,
Thank you!
I just took a look and did a diff. The source download is a humongous until you realize that 14GB are precompiled object binaries in the “out” directory. Maybe I’m missing something and I just need to spend more time looking at it, but once I lined up the source directories it looks like huge swaths of the edge source files are completely missing. The source files and sizes provided for MS Edge are a tiny fraction of chromium’s. It’s like they only distributed files from google that changed or something…? I was under the impression that edge would be fully open source, but there seems to be a lot missing. I can’t find a makefile. I am skeptical anyone will be able to build the edge browser independently in it’s current state.
I guess it’s similar to what you get when you obtain the sources for Chrome (not Chromium). The LGPL parts are dynamically linked in and the rest is not free software.
When Microsoft had a questionnaire for GNU/Linux users about Edge, I wrote them I would likely only use it if it would be part of my distribution’s repositories. I also suggested they provide the features that make their version special as packages on top of the existing Chromium package and they would either join or lead the efforts to make Chromium a more privacy respecting browser.
Given what you found, I suspect Edge won’t go in any of this direction.
Edge for Linux; maybe for support contracts when you use Office online. I dunno.
When I first read that they would be releasing Edge for Linux it made me think back to when Internet Explorer was available for UNIX. I never got to try it though since I wasn’t running Solaris or HP-UX, which were the only versions I could find and, as far as I know, the only versions that were produced.
darknexus,
I used IE for unix! IE4 if I recall. It was pretty much what you’d expect, just running on unix instead of windows. Microsoft probably could have compiled it for linux without much effort if it had wanted to. I don’t remember the specifics though, like did they impliment vbscript with activex as was the case with windows? In any case, the vast majority of us just used netscape.
At one point, they announced support for ActiveX and Java, but I don’t think either ever materialized.
MS Teams for GNU/Linux already exists, which I guess is based on Chromium and it provides access to the Office 365.
Regarding stability, recently something changed and now MS Teams crashes on GNU/Linux at least as often as it did on Windows. For a while it ran multiple days without crashing, but now it happens multiple times a day.
It probably has to do with supporting enterprise clients. This will allow you to use Microsoft’s cloud services via a Microsoft maintained browser on all platforms. It will be interesting to see what changes Microsoft makes to the base Chromium platform.
Guess it all depends on who you trust more for privacy why you would chose one browser over another. Like I would always choose Chromium over Chrome, but Firefox over either.
Do you trust Microsoft to not be terrible with your privacy over Google? At this point… I wouldn’t even try to guess which is more trustworthy…
I have used it at work since the preview releases were available. It is pretty good, feels pretty much like Google Chrome.
It’s Chrome without the Google part, so it’s better than Chrome in my book. I tend to use native OS browsers where possible for performance reasons. Much of my time is spent on macOS so I’m in Safari a lot, but for my Windows machine I’ll definitely be using the new Edge.
On Linux I still use Firefox though.
Why, exactly, you’d choose Edge over Chrome, Vivaldi, or any others is still not entirely clear to me, however.
1. GPOs
2. Standardization within a company
3. Privacy if you have Google/Chrome concerns, which many – including me – do
4. Webdev testing
5. You use Microsoft products like Azure and want max portal compatibility
6. Are we absolutely sure that we trust Vivaldi, Brave, etc?
Just off the top of my head.
7. updating the browser with windows updates
8. syncing browser settings with AD account
9. running IE in an Edge tab
Every company can now standardize on Edge and forget about fighting with Chrome.
Yes, I appreciate this is where it makes the most sense, for the people managing thousands or tens of thousands of workstations.
Also in my IIoT field if the built in browser works it’s a huge plus, keeping the web interface of my gadgets functioning and compatible with the myriad of preferred browsers can be a nightmare. The devil is always in the detail.
All this is really wonderful and just absolutely thrilling, the world really “needs” another Chrome based browser with tons of telemetry from another party (as there are are only a few hundred now), albeit a party that’s obviously much more concerned about you, and your privacy — because we all know Microsoft cares about you… So much! But I’m more interested in what becomes of Edge, the original browser based on the EdgeHTML and Chakra engines. You may digress to petty hate for this product for what ever reason (or lack there of); it’s still technically an excellent browser that benchmarks superbly, beating all others on many important benchmarks, uses vastly less RAM while accomplishing that feat, remains arguably more secure than most due to it’s sandbox implemetation, and runs on every hardware platform…
Microsoft has a great opportunity to make hay with the roll-out of their new spy-ware telemetry shovelware google tool, I mean browser: they could open source the EdgeHTML and Chakra engines and even the browser code. This could create a lot of good will and enthusiasm, allow for the maintenance of one of very few low resource capable browsers for embedded systems and IOT projects (that still runs on all platforms), and if Edge/EC were gutted of all its furry integration and telemetry features along the lines of the SWare Iron (another Chrome browser, there are so few you know) you’d have a browser that was superbly performant, resource sipping and could set the high water mark for security.
Chances of this happening: almost zero…