Microsoft dumping EdgeHTML for Chromium?

Saw this on twitter and an article on WindowCentral. If true, I’m not real sure how I feel about it. Edge had some nice aspects if they could fix most of the bugs. I also think that the battle was lost when Edge was released in an almost unusable state. The people that I know that tried it, still think of it being like it was when first released and have no reason to give it another try. I don’t think that will change now even if they switch to Chromium. I guess what they were doing was not working so they might as well give this a try.

Conversation 14 comments

  • dcdevito

    03 December, 2018 - 10:22 pm

    <p>I for one couldn't be happier. All I want is a Chromium based browser sans Google. It's Peanut Butter AND Chocolate together. I've tried to use Edge but it always feels like a bad 3rd party indie Dev built browser to me. </p><p><br></p><p>This HAS to be because of Electron right? Has to be related, one strange coincidence otherwise. Or maybe TypeScript…??</p><p><br></p><p>Next up…a Google-less Android phone and my head will explode with excitement. </p>

    • Sprtfan

      03 December, 2018 - 11:20 pm

      <blockquote><em><a href="#377547">In reply to dcdevito:</a></em></blockquote><p>I use Edge and then Opera if I ran into issues. I think this makes some sense from Microsoft stand point and would save them from trying to catch up. The hard part is that I can see a lot of potential in Edge but it was just taking way to long to get there. At this point, I think even if MS made Edge perfect, they have created to many bad memories for some users to consider coming back. Switching to Chromium will not change that but will at least save them some development time I'd think. </p>

  • lethalleigh

    03 December, 2018 - 11:54 pm

    <p>"<span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">I also think that the battle was lost when Edge was released in an almost unusable state"</span></p><p><br></p><p>Absolutely! To this day I still have no idea what MS was thinking. MS themselves doomed Edge to failure.</p>

  • curtisspendlove

    04 December, 2018 - 12:26 am

    <p>Hmmmm. Interesting. I so want to love Edge. And for many reasons I do. But I still just get a bunch of random speed or render issues. When I paste the uri to Chrome, it just works. </p><p><br></p><p>It it reminded me of the early- to mid-days of Safari. </p>

  • FalseAgent

    04 December, 2018 - 3:25 am

    <p>I think what happened was this: Microsoft initially saw areas where they believe they could accomplish their goals better with EdgeHTML than with Webkit. But with the advent of PWAs and Google basically making up the rules for devs to follow for in making PWAs (they can because they own how PWAs work on mobile), I think Microsoft no longer sees how they can accomplish their goals.</p>

  • matsan

    04 December, 2018 - 4:30 am

    <p>Will be interesting to see how this will affect the developers that went UWP + JavaScript. If Microsoft now pulls the rug from underneath their feet they will be screaming. If they are screaming loud enough we will get another IE6 situation where Microsoft has to keep the EdgeHTML layer for compatibility with UWP and then a webkit/chromium internet browser.</p><p>I still encounter customers running IE6 with ActiveX virtualized in all kind of crazy environments.</p>

    • christian.hvid

      04 December, 2018 - 7:06 am

      <blockquote><em><a href="#377624">In reply to matsan:</a></em></blockquote><p>Good point, but fortunately there seems to be very few UWP+JS apps out there (unless you count any apps that rely on the WebView control, but those should work equally well with Blink/V8). Also, there aren't really any Edge-specific features for developers to target, as was the case with IE6. </p>

  • harmjr

    Premium Member
    04 December, 2018 - 8:46 am

    <p>So will they make Edge <span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">Chromium Version </span>that can run on Windows 10 S?</p><p>Would that not bring back the platform?</p>

  • MutualCore

    04 December, 2018 - 1:53 pm

    <p>Whatever the new browser is will be DOA unless it's 100x better than chrome on day 1.</p>

  • illuminated

    04 December, 2018 - 3:01 pm

    <p>This is the right move if Microsoft wants to kill Chrome. No competition = Chrome becomes just like IE6 was in the days before Firefox and Chrome. Single browser without competition and without any need for improvements. Except maybe for improved ad delivery and user tracking.</p><p><br></p><p>Unfortunately or fortunately this may also mean the faster death of UWP platform. Edge was the single biggest app and with it gone and with no Windows Phone/Mobile the whole UWP development and maintenance makes no financial sense. Now even WPF became open source. This is just another blow for UWP. RIP.</p>

  • martinusv2

    Premium Member
    04 December, 2018 - 3:13 pm

    <p>I hope they keep the clarity of text and scrolling ease of Edge.</p>

    • rkpatrick

      05 December, 2018 - 12:15 am

      <blockquote><em><a href="#378041">In reply to MartinusV2:</a></em></blockquote><p>Scrolling is terrible in Edge. Dynamic content and lack of scroll anchoring makes a lot of sites unreadable while scrolling (not to mention the general state of the web, where banner ads like to change height, leading to entire pages jumping up and down)…even Bing's image &amp; video searches do this to Edge!</p>

  • longhorn

    04 December, 2018 - 5:50 pm

    <p>Blink/Chromium/Chrome is the reference PWA platform so Microsoft kind of had to do this if it wants to fill MS Store with PWAs.</p><p><br></p>

  • nfeed2000t

    04 December, 2018 - 6:38 pm

    <p>Can we get cross platform support as well? Can we get a Microsoft Chromebook now?</p><p>I don't want MS to muck up the browser with 'features'. Please keep it lean and clean.</p><p>Battleship right full rudder!</p><p><br></p>

Windows Intelligence In Your Inbox

Sign up for our new free newsletter to get three time-saving tips each Friday

"*" indicates required fields

This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

Thurrott © 2024 Thurrott LLC