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 the application itself. That is, will Microsoft keep the Edge application and its unique features?

It’s not clear. But this line suggests that’s the plan.

“Over the next year or so, we’ll be making a technology change that happens ‘under the hood’ for Microsoft Edge,” Belfiore writes. In other words, it’s like Microsoft is swapping out the engine while retaining the rest of the vehicle.

Also, Microsoft’s contributions back to the Chromium open source project will be limited to “web platform enhancements.” This suggests, if vaguely, that it could go its own way on the user experience.

“The Microsoft Edge you use today isn’t changing,” Belfiore says, which sounds comforting until you realize that the key word there is “today.”

We won’t know more until the first preview builds appear early next year. And maybe not even then. But I suspect that Microsoft will hear very clearly from Edge users that they do not want the browser look and feel to change.

This is mostly about developers

As I had surmised, this move was made primarily to make life simpler and better for developers.

“Web developers will have a less-fragmented web platform to test their sites against, ensuring that there are fewer problems and increased satisfaction for users of their sites,” Belfiore writes, echoing my assertion that this won’t create a “monoculture” on the web but will instead lead to standardization, which is a desirable goal. Microsoft can continue to innovate on the user experience, as do other browser makers.

But it’s about businesses too

Microsoft’s most important customers—businesses—are not ignored because the firm needs to assure them that everything they currently use and expect will continue with no disruptions.

“Corporate IT will have improved compatibility for both old and new web apps in the browser that comes with Windows,” Belfiore claims. “[And] we’ll continue to provide the Microsoft Edge service-driven understanding of legacy IE-only sites.”

What about users?

Microsoft mentions “users” a lot in its announcement but provides no detail at all about whether the Edge user experience will continue forward to this new browser or whether it will even retain its name.

Instead, the primary takeaway for users of Microsoft Edge is that there will be “better web compatibility,” leading to “fewer problems and increased satisfaction for users.”

Of equal importance, however, is that the fact that Edge will move from a glacial update schedule (twice per year) to a far speedier model based on Chromium’s monthly updates.

“Microsoft Edge will now be delivered and updated … on a more frequent cadence,” Belfiore confirms.

No one is going to complain about that.

Edge is coming to Windows 7 and 8.1

This one is only briefly mentioned—again, this post is weirdly vague—but “Microsoft Edge will now be delivered and updated for all supported versions of Windows.” Yes, that means that this new version of Microsoft Edge will be made available on Windows 7 and Windows 8.1 too, and not just Windows 10.

This answers one of many key complaints about Microsoft Edge. And more generally speaks to how different Windows is becoming now that Terry Myerson is gone. Before, the effort was always to push as many customers as possible to Windows 10. Now, it seems that Microsoft has woken up to the fact that many customers are quite happy with the Windows version they’re already using.

And while I don’t want to get too far ahead of myself here, that could have dramatic consequences for the Windows 10 support lifecycle. Perhaps that twice-yearly thing and forced upgrades will finally go by the wayside.

Edge is coming to other platforms too

And it’s not just Windows. Microsoft intends to bring this new Edge browser to “other platforms like macOS.” Not “to macOS.” But “other platforms like macOS.” Chromium does run on Linux, after all. So we may finally see the impossible: A Microsoft web browser on Linux!

The new Edge will have better battery life

I pointed this out on Twitter a while back, but you may recall that with each new Windows 10 release Microsoft would routinely point out how much better Edge’s battery life was than that of Chrome and other browsers. But it never did this for Windows 10 version 1809.

I think I know why. As I explained back in January, Edge’s battery life advantages had never helped the browser gain any usage share. And even worse, that advantage got smaller with each new release. It went from being 47 percent better than Chrome in June 2016 to 35 percent in April 2017 and then just 14 percent in May 2018.

“The gap is closing,” I noted at the time. When would Chrome battery life exceed that of Microsoft Edge?

I think it just happened. So Microsoft can now claim that its Chromium-based browser will “get the best possible battery life.”

It really is about Google

I wanted to wrap this up with another discussion about Google because the search giant is omnipresent over this announcement despite not being explicitly mentioned.

Earlier, I noted that Microsoft not mentioning Google at all was bad news. But let me throw out a bone for those, like me, who would like to retain a bit of hope for the future. Microsoft also didn’t mention Google in a negative way. And that’s relevant.

Think about it. Given the current political and antitrust climate, and a growing sense of unrest surrounding Google’s privacy invasions, Microsoft could have very understandably have framed this new browser as a version of Chrome that comes without any of Google’s tracking and spying functionality.

That is how many Chromium-based browsers frame their existence. Brave, for example, is based on Chromium and it heavily promotes its core ad-blocking and anti-tracking features. It’s also how Apple promotes Safari, its macOS browser. (Safari is not based on Chromium.)

Given Microsoft’s position today as the trusted partner and technology provider for businesses, especially, it seems like this would have been a great time for the software giant to point out that its browser will be safer and more secure than Google’s while being 100 percent compatible. That it didn’t do that is notable, I think. And it suggests, perhaps, that there is still some hope left that these two firms will finally start collaborating.

Or it could simply mean that the new Edge will be nothing like Brave or Safari and will let ads and trackers through. It’s impossible to know yet.