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Comment by sys_64738 | Hacker News Reader

This move is actually genius by Microsoft. They will negate the need to install Chrome on Windows. Microsoft will gain control of the browser market.

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One of the linked posts spent a great deal of time differentiating between the browser interface and the engine itself. The average user doesn’t understand the difference, so being told “Edge is more like Chrome now” doesn’t actually make it Chrome for them. Other than tricking user agent checkers from putting up the inferior browser warning (is that still a thing?) this won’t stop people from using Edge to install Chrome.

How so? I don't believe the layperson really cares all too much about the underlying engine, it's more a marketing thing. And the IE brand is forever tainted.

Word of mouth. Ads. The media. Plenty of avenues will quickly frame why Installing Chrome is so yesterday.

I think Google will continue to have a headlock on the browser market via the forced-inclusion of Chrome (and the other 20 non-removable apps of theirs they force on you) on most all Android devices -- like Microsoft once had with IE on Windows. Mobile is the market, most people don't even own desktop computers nowadays.

Even if that is true. Gaining control of the “Windows desktop browsing market” is at best a Pyrrhic victory.

63% of all browsing is done on mobile.

https://www.stonetemple.com/mobile-vs-desktop-usage-study/

Microsoft has already conceded the mobile space. They're doubling down on desktop dominance.

If they were doubling down on desktop dominance they'd be doing something more interesting with Edge than conceding it to the competition.

(Microsoft is doubling down on Azure and DevDiv, if anything.)

This seems only to put the desktop at risk, especially with (EdgeHTML-powered) HTML+CSS+JS as the "third pillar" of the original Universal Windows Platform strategy, this only seems to further feed questions about Microsoft's overall confidence in UWP and thereby that middle word, Windows itself. This decision is directly showing a weak flank to "Chrome OS". What's to stop Chromebooks from attacking Windows for just being the junk drawer of old Win32 applications and games around a Chrome OS knockoff?

There's certainly still a lot of value, especially in enterprise, invested in that "junk drawer", but is that enough any more? Yeah, there's just no way that this decision is doubling down on "desktop dominance".

What's to stop Chromebooks from attacking Windows for just being the junk drawer of old Win32 applications and games around a Chrome OS knockoff?

That’s all Windows has been for years. There hasn’t been anything interesting happening nor any serious money invested in writing PC software for well over a decade. The only non game companies making any money selling desktop software are Microsoft and Adobe.

That perspective is indeed why I think Microsoft is leaving themselves extremely vulnerable here (and I worry as tiny, tiny little shareholder). I don't think it is entirely true, mostly because of the giant amount of "dark matter" PC development that remains in the enterprise and industrial worlds, but it definitely feels true at least in the consumer space.

There is nothing that Microsoft can do. Personal computers are big, bulky and not as a convenient for what most people do with their computers most of the time.

Even from a corporate standpoint, enterprise deployments of desktop apps are cumbersome. That’s the reason that even corporate LOB apps have moved to the web. Besides a web site is the ultimate cross platform app.

It hasn't. Otherwise it wouldn't have developed a mobile Edge browser (also based on Chromium), and other mobile apps for Android and iOS.

I don't think they want control over the browser market, just the browser users on Windows. People are less likely to ditch Edge if it is more compatible with the way Chrome and Safari work (including the ability to run Chrome extensions). That means they have more visibility and control over those users.

They’re also releasing Edge for Mac and Linux so sounds like they’re all in on their strategy.

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