Don’t Let Fear and Loathing Push You Over the Edge (Premium)

It wasn’t hard to predict that Microsoft hardliners would react negatively to reports that the software giant is killing Edge. Guys, relax. This won’t impact you in a negative way at all. What this change will do, however, is make Windows 10 better for everyone. Including the majority of its users that don’t use or even like Microsoft Edge.

Seriously, if this happens as reported, this will be a win-win for all of us. And I gotta tell you. That is a rare thing indeed.

To understand why this is so, let’s review why Microsoft even makes Microsoft Edge. It’s not really about the web browser application per se, which is great since usage stalled at less than 4 percent a year ago and has gone nowhere since then. No, Edge really exists because its rendering engine, called EdgeHTML, is a core component of Windows 10. It’s used to render web content in apps, and in the operating system, not just in the Edge web browser. Edge is also the basis for Windows 10’s native support of Progressive Web Apps (PWAs), a new type of Microsoft Store app.

The problem with Microsoft owning a web rendering engine is that it has to maintain and improve it constantly to keep up with new and evolving web technologies. And it has done a mixed job of doing that: Microsoft Edge lags behind major web browsers like Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, and Apple Safari on some web standards tests (like HTML5test), and better on others (Acid3).

But that’s the problem: These browsers are all inconsistent, so they can render web pages and apps differently. And the onus is on developers to figure out how to work around that. No one wants a return to the days of “This site best viewed on [web browser name]” buttons. Having a single standard—for the rendering engine—is a win for everyone. Developers, users, and Microsoft.

So replacing EdgeHTML with Google’s rendering engine, called Blink, will lead to more consistent web-based experiences. But what does this mean for the browser applications we all use?

Nothing.

Regardless of which browser you use, nothing will really change. Microsoft Edge will remain in Windows 10 but will render the web using a Blink-based rendering engine. If you prefer Edge for whatever reason, for whatever unique feature(s), it will all still be available, and will work as before.

But because the underlying web rendering engine has been updated to a superior choice, all Windows 10 users will see improvements in perhaps unexpected areas. We should see more and better PWAs, for example, in the Store.

Looked at from a higher level, this change could also lead to improved relations between Microsoft and Google, which created and maintains Blink. It could lead to Google’s PWAs—for popular services like search, Gmail, Calendar, and Maps—finally appearing in the Microsoft Store. That would turn the Store from a third world nightmare into at least a reasonable destination.

Once you understand what’s really happening, it’s hard not to be excited by this. But we’re so used to negative news, to Microsoft’s crumbling consumer fortunes leading to more and more defeats, that I think some people aren’t thinking clearly. There is no bad news here. None.

And yet, we will have to deal with the naysayers. They will cart out common complaints about Google Chrome, perhaps, like it’s supposed memory and performance issues. (Which is interesting given that Chromebooks often come with just 2 GB of RAM and little storage.) For example, I received this little tidbit on Twitter today.

I just hope the new browser isn’t as bad as Chrome when it comes to resource usage and spawning iterations of the exe.

I’m confused and suspicious whenever people seem to know too much about how much RAM or other resources a Windows application is using. This is just handled automatically, and it is not really a cause for concern for any normal person.

But inspired by this complaint, I checked Task Manager to see what Chrome, which I use heavily, was doing. I found, and replied with, “Right now, I have five separate Chrome windows open. One has 10 tabs, the others have just one. Chrome is using 1.4 GB of my 16 GB of RAM. And Skype [which is just one app window and was not being active used] uses more CPU(!)”

There’s also the “works fine for me” crowd, which I see a lot in the Windows community these days. These are the people who make some decision—like Choosing Edge—and then stop thinking. For example.

As someone who uses Microsoft Edge every day, I honestly don’t get why the rendering engine would make a difference in the Edge experience. I stopped installing Chrome and Firefox years ago because they didn’t seem to add anything I didn’t have already.

As it turns out, Chrome and Firefox have many features that are not present in Microsoft Edge; I’ve often pointed out how Chrome’s more sophisticated handling of PWAs (and basic website shortcuts) is so much more sophisticated than Edge’s, for example. But whatever. This isn’t about the applications. It’s about the rendering engines. And as noted above, Microsoft choosing Blink is a win for all Windows 10 users. Even those who prefer Edge.

And that’s the key here. As I wrote earlier today in Rest in Pieces, Microsoft Edge (Premium), this is a thrilling example of Microsoft finally doing the right thing after years of tunnel vision strategy.

Put another way, this is something to celebrate, not something to fear.