Microsoft is No Longer Living on the Edge (Premium)

Microsoft’s decision to embrace Chromium is correct, but our first public preview of the next version of Edge hints at how this transition will unfold.

Perhaps not surprisingly, this release—actually, releases, since users can confusingly choose between two “channels” for the Chromium-based Edge, Canary (nightly) and Developer (weekly)—was accompanied by yet another information-light blog post from the corporate overlords at Microsoft.

“In these first builds we are very much focused on the fundamentals and have not yet included a wide range of feature and language support that will come later,” a post credited to Microsoft corporate vice president Joe Belfiore (or “JoeB” as he annoyingly identifies himself) reads. “You’ll start to see differences from the current Microsoft Edge including subtle design finishes, support for a broader selection of extensions and the ability to manage your sign-in profile. We look forward to people starting to kick the tires and will be refining the feature set over time based on the feedback we receive.”

Let me explain what that means.

As my recent experiences with a leaked version of the Chromium-based Edge have revealed, this new web browser is currently more Chrome than Edge. That is, it looks and works much more like Google Chrome than it does like Microsoft Edge. Which is great … unless you’re an Edge fan who enjoys unique Edge features like its tab management functionality, Favorites Center, Reading list, Read mode, ebooks support, smart pen-compatible annotation capabilities, and much, much more.

What the Chromium-based Edge does deliver, as “JoeB” writes, is the “fundamentals.” But these are the fundamentals of Chrome, not Edge. The look and feel of the product, with its Material Design-based curved corners, is from Chrome. The browser rendering engines, of course, are from Chrome. The F12-based developer tools are from Chrome. Extensions are from Chrome, and you can even access the Chrome Web Store to find new extensions. The ability to install web apps and pin any web page… straight from Chrome.

These are all positives, people.

And, to be fair, there are a few Edge concessions for the fan base even at this early stage. Account sync and management is Microsoft account (MSA)-based, not Google account-based. The Settings and more menu is arranged much like that of the same menu in Edge, as are right-click menus, and both provide Edge-like iconography and textual layouts. And some UIs in this new app—like the Extensions and Settings interfaces—are, if not straight from Edge, are, at least, Edge-like. They are familiar enough that those coming from Edge will feel that they’re not completely in enemy territory.

And yet. You are in enemy territory.

That’s the trick that Microsoft must perform here: Fool its small buy loyal Edge user base into using this new Google-centric web browser while convincing the rank and file, accustomed as it is to using Edge for one reason only—navigate to chrome.google.com to install the browser they really want—that this step is no longer necessary.

But here’s the thing. That talk of “fundamentals” and “refining the feature set over time based on the feedback” hints at the central truth of what is happening here. Microsoft most likely already knows exactly which Edge-specific features it can add to the Chromium-based Edge and which it can’t. So I’ll use the tab management features—“Set these tabs aside,” “See all your tabs,” “Add tabs to favorites,” “Share tabs,” and so on—as an example of how this will all go down.

Let’s pretend for a moment that adding these features—or, certainly, some of them—to the Chromium-based version of Edge is untenable. This can be for technical reasons. Or it can simply be because Microsoft’s closely-guarded telemetry data shows it that very few people actually use these features, making the investment of recreating them a pointless waste of resources.

For now, Microsoft will politely collect feedback from its most eager Insiders and pretend to weigh the need for these features, despite it knowing all along that it will never actually add them. Some Edge-unique features will, of course, be added. But these will not. Forum threads will appear and be up-voted. There will be cries of feedback suppression. A Microsoft support rep will weakly explain that adding tab management to the Chromium-based version of Edge is a “hard computer science problem” or, more honestly, that so few people use this functionality that it simply doesn’t make sense.

And Edge fans, now as ever, will feel the crushing weight of reality: The browser that they have, for whatever reason, embraced, is disappearing. And the web browser that will replace it is really just Chrome with an Edge-like spit shine and some number of classic Edge features. I suspect that list of classic Edge features will be pretty short and that Microsoft’s ability to make Chromium look and feel like Edge will be its greatest accomplishment, especially for version one. (Well. That and its ability to run on both Windows 7 and 8.1, something Microsoft should have done with classic Edge four years ago.)

Is this bad?

Honestly, I don’t think so. But for those hardy 3-ish percent of the PC-based web browsing world who have, beyond all common sense, adopted yet another soon-to-be-killed Microsoft product aimed at individuals, it will feel like a betrayal. I understand that, but I also must wonder why this would be surprising to anyone in this camp given the events of the past several years. Did anyone really think that Microsoft would benefit the few at the potential expense of the many who—sorry—would view a web browser that looks and works a bit too much like classic Edge as a complete non-starter? The very things that make Edge look and feel like a uniquely Microsoft product today could very well be the things that turn off the mainstream.

And my God, the lack of clarity here is rather breathtaking given the several months that Microsoft has had to figure out what to say. Versions for Mac and other versions of Windows will “come over time,” vaguely; these first versions are for Windows 10 only. The work that Microsoft is doing to improve Chromium broadly, and thus all Chromium-based web browsers, including Google Chrome, is “not yet fully represented in the browser you can install today.” What is that work?

“Stay tuned” we’re told. Microsoft is working with the Chromium community to “progress Chromium.” Somehow.

Sure. And some of that work will surely be of interest to Edge fans, since some of it related directly to functionality that Edge fans enjoy today, like its smooth scrolling and accessibility. But some of it will simply be new and different, similar to the way the Microsoft Launcher on Android doesn’t replicate the live tiles interface from Windows phone but rather presents a more modern take on Microsoft’s UX ideas.

The point of all this is that those who are stuck in the past are likely going to be disappointed. I don’t believe that the goal of the Chromium-based version of Edge is to duplicate the user experiences and functionality of the classic browser and apply it like lipstick on a pig over Chromium. Instead, like Microsoft Launcher, I feel that the Chromium-based Edge is a mulligan, a do-over. Yes, some ideas from the past will come forward. But I bet many will not.

And we need to be clear-eyed and honest—to each other and to ourselves—about this. Otherwise, this transition will simply seem like another Microsoft retreat, another defeat. But I don’t view the move to Chromium that way: As I noted previously, Microsoft’s adoption of Chromium over its failed proprietary internal technology is both historic and the right decision, and it standardizes the technical bits that should be standardized to ease web development while placing innovation where it needs to be, in the user-facing interfaces and functionality.

So don’t expect the new Microsoft Edge to be the old Microsoft Edge. Expect a few nods to the past and an embrace of the new normal, the new reality. That’s the new Microsoft. And it’s how this transition will unfold.