28 comments

[ 2.8 ms ] story [ 66.4 ms ] thread
It's incredibly doubtful, but I still wonder if they are also going to have some kind of Internet Explorer compatibility mode. If so, this could be beneficial for web devs that use Linux, but still have to support a userbase that is stuck with IE.
Edge isn't IE. At all. It's a fully modern browser that does everything Chrome does, and them some.

I need to use a Chrome-based browser for work (too many web app devs write crap code that only runs on Chrome), and I'm working on the prep right now to switch to Edge because it's just better. Not as good as Firefox, mind you, but Edge is now quite usable after years of being a joke. (Although I still think the never-really finished IE11 on Win8.1 offered a glimpse of the best touch/pen browser experience ever, one I'm still waiting for again.)

Credit to MS where it's due, though - they finally built a really good browser. Pity it took them decades. Glad they're making it available on Linux, too, just like they did VSCode. The more the merrier...

>Edge isn't IE. At all. It's a fully modern browser that does everything Chrome does, and them some.

I understand that. I never said anything that implied otherwise. I was curious because Edge has had an IE compatibility mode: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/deployedge/edge-ie-mode

I seriously doubt this will make its way to the Linux version. AFAIK the IE compatibility mode is literally running a full IE browser engine in a separate tab. Running this on Linux would require rewriting this old engine to support Linux. Can't see this happening.
I just can't imagine what the appeal of this would be to the average Linux user.
It provides options. I will probably try it and if it feels better than Firefox, use it regularily. I do the same on my Android phone.
It just seems that given the state of the market, it takes relatively a lay of effort not to use Windows. So it seems like the number of Linux users clamoring to use MS products is probably small
Well, for one, you’ll be able to run Office in the browser on Linux. Which means one big hurdle for getting off of Windows or Mac if you prefer Linux.

Yes, you still are tied Office (cloud), but one step at a time.

Do any people use Edge voluntarily?

I know it’s better than IE6, but still...if you’re on Windows, what does Edge have that is better than Firefox or Chrome?

The question is why would people download/install chrome?

Edge is built in, it can't be removed, it's updated automatically and is integrated. It has all the functionality of chrome, so why would I download/install another chrome browser when it's already built in?

Downloading and installing chrome at this point provides 0 benefits compared with edgeium which is why I think Microsoft's move was pretty smart. It turned Google's main advantages with chrome and throws it straight back at them.

It also has specific pen/touch/battery optimizations that aren't present on chrome.

That and I would rather more market share goes to Microsoft on the web over Google. Google has more to gain from turning the web into a closed monopoly, and Microsoft is the only realistic competitor (other than really Amazon) who has the resources and investment to maintain a hostile fork that can compete with Google. If Google decides to implement something nefarious like blocking adblockers, Microsoft has the resources to maintain a fork of chromium that is feasible and usable.

Firefox the only benefits it has is better quality addons, container support, better customization and better privacy. On my systems I main Firefox, but I am not averse to having edge as my secondary.

This exactly. I'm primarily a Mac user, so I've always used and preferred Safari. On Windows I would normally install either Firefox or Chrome. With Firefox kinda going downhill and still having issues with certain sites, one almost needs to have a Chromium-based browser, at least as a backup if not a daily driver. Why would I bother to download Chrome if I already have a good Chromium-based browser preinstalled?
I know it aggressively tries to become your default browser on Windows almost to the point of bullying you as a user.
No, it doesn't. I'm running a fairly new Windows install and I didn't see Edge since I unpinned it from the task bar. I'm using Firefox as my default browser.
If you type Firefox into the Start menu on Windows 10, it shows you Edge first (and twice).

https://i.imgur.com/H550NCa.png

Because you don't have it installed. If you did, typing Firefox and pressing intro would bring up... Firefox.
It's still pretty aggressive. You have a user searching for Firefox explicitly, and the UX is clearly pushing you towards Edge instead.
Yes it does, it even takes top position for opening PDFs when I go right click > open with.
Thats because you don't have a default pdf reader and Windows knows Edge can open a pdf.
IMO, the new Edge is a better Chrome than Chrome - and has the advantages of bing nearly 100% compatible with it. For a while, there wasn't much reason to use it, but it's gotten quite good over the past year - you might be surprised.
I trust Microsoft a little bit more than Google (which is not to say much), and Edge and Chrome are the only reasonable alternatives we have in 2020 for a web browser (now that Brave has been killed in my opinion by a thousand paper cuts)
>what does Edge have that is better than Firefox or Chrome?

an extremely good text-to-speech engine built in together with a good reader mode. My primary reason for using Edge.

The old Edge had the best PDF reader I've ever used which makes it a little disappointing that it's going away.
I think they're doing this as a marketing move for the developer community, rather than in any real hope that people will use it. Trying to shore up their geek image.

Not that I think that's a bad idea on their part. I do think they've changed, but they also need to be seen to have changed.

When you download and install Microsoft Edge, information about your device, such as your release channel, basic hardware information, update identifiers, an identifier unique to your device, and a resettable identifier unique to your browser are sent to Microsoft during the installation process [1]

Note that you can't reset the device identifier.

Note that the use of tje word such is very well though. No word or comma in this document is loosely chosen.

IMO, for someone that uses a Google account and services but does not have a Microsoft account, it would minimize the profile that both companies have on you adding the benefit of Chromium sandbox security.

1. https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-edge/privacy-whit...

I've been using Edge on a Windows machine and prefer it to Chrome. I'm likely to switch to using it on Linux.
Who would download a virus like this _knowingly_ onto their system?