What It All Means (Premium)

Microsoft's announcement about its move away from Edge is surprisingly vague on details. I suspect this was by design: Joe Belfiore, who allegedly penned the announcement, has been rightfully criticized in the past for making explicit promises in public and then later pretending he said otherwise. So it's possible that he's become sensitive to this problem and is being vague on purpose.

But transparency isn't the issue: The problem wasn't that Joe made promises Microsoft couldn't keep. It's that he later disingenuously claimed he never made those promises. I would much rather see a more detailed disclosure about what Microsoft plans to do with Edge. And if things change later, so be it. Just be honest about it.

Anyway, the announcement is what it is. So let's dissect it and see what was really said. And what wasn't.
No mention of Google
First, and most intriguingly, the word "Google" doesn't appear even once in Microsoft's announcement about its move to Chromium.

That is notable. And it will surprise many.

But it shouldn't: As I pointed out in last Friday's Short Takes, recent reports about Microsoft and Google supposedly collaborating on bringing the Chrome web browser to Windows 10 on ARM are bunk. Google has nothing to do with that work at all. Which makes sense because Google has nothing to gain---literally---by undertaking work to make its browser work better on a challenging new platform that no one uses.

"We’ve begun making contributions to the Chromium project to help move browsing forward on new ARM-based Windows devices," Microsoft's Joe Belfiore confirms, with zero mention of any partnership or collaboration with Google.

Given this, we shouldn't expect any kind of partnership in Chromium either. Chromium is the open source project on which Google bases Chrome. So it is not owned or controlled by Google. Microsoft can do this without Google. And is apparently doing so.

I wish that weren't the case. And I hope the relationship does change, of course. But there's absolutely no reason to expect a thawing of any kind, and that has ramifications for anyone hoping to see Google PWAs like Search, Maps, and Gmail in the Microsoft Store. Let alone Chrome.
No mention of Blink
Since the first rumors emerged that Microsoft would dump EdgeHTML, the discussion has focused on Blink, the Chrome rendering engine. But Microsoft doesn't mention Blink even once in its announcement either.

What it does mention is Chromium, the open source project on which Chrome is based.

That's important. It means that Microsoft is taking more than just the web rendering engine. It's taking everything that forms the basis of Chrome, including its V8 JavaScript rendering engine and its ability to install website shortcuts on your desktop. So I'm curious to see what changes in Edge and what doesn't.
What about the user experience?
Those people who do prefer and use Microsoft Edge will have to deal with some uncertainty surrounding th...