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New Microsoft Edge

microsoft.com

35 pointsfasicle57 comments

Taking a look at the privacy whitepaper [0], there's a long list of data gathering initiatives that seemingly need to be turned off manually (a number of sections explicitly mention opt-out rather than opt-in). I can't check the defaults though, since it doesn't run on Linux. The main problem with opt-out is Microsoft's track record of re-enabling telemetry after it has been turned off by the user, and that's not something you'd want in a web browser.

[0] https://docs.microsoft.com/en-gb/microsoft-edge/privacy-whit...

Just about every update they push to my main workstation usually breaks something for quite a long time. the recent update which I thought I had deferred broke every single thumbnail and the system's ability to remake thumbnails on a machine that stores millions of video files. The heck with using their browser I don't want that to be broken after Avery pushed update too

I'm disappointed they didn't put more effort into making the UI look like the old Edge. Things like the tab previews, or the sidebar-like way that bookmarks worked. Instead it's Chrome with a different home page. There's more changes behind the scenes of course, but from the user's perspective it's not obvious what the difference is between it and Chrome. And given the choice I think Chrome would win every time because for years there's been a sentiment that tech people don't use the Microsoft browser so it must be bad. The Edge rebrand was the attempt to reverse that perception, except now they've negated the benefit of the rebrand by taking away the things that distinguished Edge.

> it's not obvious what the difference is between it and Chrome.

That's the whole point. If there's no difference between Edge and Chrome, why should the average user go out of their way to get Chrome?

Edge will be installed on Windows computers by default. People need to specifically download and install Chrome.

I am using Firefox at this time(only complaints are, performance which is less than chromium based browsers, and bugs in fenix).

I am not interested in Edge because it is just closed sourced fork of chromium.

Better use firefox or ungoogled chromium or new upcoming

Bold browser(brave browser fork without crypto or token)

https://github.com/BoldBrowser

Speaking of Chromium-based browsers - Has anyone here tried Vivaldi? How is it?

Yes. It is good. It is one closed sourced chromium fork i can recommend. It's developers are linux advocates too.

It has some opera browser features. It has also released part of it's source code.

At the end of the day,i am not using vivaldi because it is not open source. Brave browser is also nice imo(except crypto and tokens)

I used it for two years and switched to Edge. Vivaldi has nice features but it's a bit slow to start, and it has a few annoying bugs once in a while.

Why is this here? That is, is there something new since Edge launched months ago?

I'll stick to Firefox

Been using the new Edge Browser since two weeks, mostly for testing our new web app. I must say i'm really impressed. The speed definitely is better than Firefox (which is my default). To give due credit, this is the best browser from Microsoft.

Which is ironic given that the core is now from Google.

Although that core was mostly from Apple, and that core was mostly from KDE.

Wonder how much of each is left.

> More privacy & control

I suppose that excludes MS's aggressive use of telemetry in Edge itself

Does it have ublock and/or noscript addons?

All Chrome addons work

Still, we don't how much telemetry is baked in the core.

Good.

Great software learns from its users. It also makes developers' lives infinitely easier and ergo makes the product 10x better for endusers.

Great software companies talk to their users rather than take the data. Sorry but fuck the developers and cost. If your product can't make it to market without telemetry, then you have other problems.

My problem with Microsoft telemetry is this:

They take the data and still make decisions that are opposite of what the data clearly shows.

I just want them to properly sync tabs and bookmarks between PC and Android, and that would make Edge perfect for me.

I really like the reader mode and speech-to-text engine, it's very high quality. Just one question though, is the browser going to have linux support at some point?

It may have linux support at some time(like they have given hint before) but many linux users are not going to use this browser.

Lots of Linux users use Chrome so it’s wouldn’t be that surprising if it got a little traction from users that want a non-google chrome with out of the box widevine

Still no version for Linux. A lot of Linux users are getting impatient waiting for Microsoft to release this app.

Hear, hear. When Edge for Linux launches, developers for modern Windows customers (no IE) can finally do away with the Windows VMs to test their applications.

I'm glad I don't need to support Safari because there's no way in hell that that's ever going to come to Linux (or Windows again).

Citation needed? Linux users pining for Microsoft products is a rarity. Why would they go for a closed-source browser when they can go with the open-source, non-google Chromium (same engine) or Firefox?

One reason I might use it on Linux is to test our website/product UX on Edge and ensure wider coverage.

Would Edge for Linux be a valid test for Edge/Windows? Wouldn’t there be things like text rendering which would be platform specific?

Afaik , websites on all chromium based browsers look same.(because core of these browsers are same)

So,testing on edge would render same as chrome.

Plus one here and a few more in my company. I already run official Google Chrome everywhere and I don't give a hoot about running closed-source software, such as the official VS Code binaries.

I'm on Linux because it's the most practical choice for me, not because I'm a FOSS warrior. I want Edge because it's going to be a well-maintained option to get away from Chrome if I they start doing things I don't like, such as limiting ad-blocking with Manifest v3.

A few I'd say.

The main difference between Edge and Chrome is you have to reset your search engine to Google when you use Edge

I switched from Chrome for Edge's native integration with Windows credentialing and Office 365. In a corporate environment that relies heavily on Windows and the Office suite, it really works very well. Its elegant account management between personal and work instances is also fantastic.

You can configure Firefox to do native Windows authentication in an O366 enterprise environment. I have done this on my corporate laptop, and it lets me use Firefox as my primary browser for any corporate / SSO site.

https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Mozilla/Integrated_...

This is cool, thanks for the link. As an end-user, how would you go about determining the urls to add to the list?

I just checked and my URL list looks something like:

“corpdomain.com,microsoft.com,microsoftonline.com,office.com,corpdomain.sharepoint.com,corpdomain.local,windows.net”

If I find an SSO-enabled site that doesn’t work, I add it to the list. I hope that helps!

Note: This web page is for the Microsoft Edge browser, but it seems to detect your OS and shows the Edge version and download information for that platform (others are hidden behind a menu). So if some comments here seem to be talking about specific platforms, this could be the reason why.

I’ve been using Edge on Windows for a few months now. It crashes so many times (all windows just disappear suddenly) and makes my system unresponsive. It’s clear that Edge isn’t able to handle a few windows with a few tabs each, with memory management being the core issue.

When starting out to try it, I knew Edge would be using a lot of RAM since it’s based on Chromium, but I didn’t expect it to crash so much.

So Firefox stays, and continues to be, the primary browser.

On iOS, Edge is just another “skin” over Safari/WebKit underneath. It seems ok — i didn’t notice anything phenomenally better than some other browsers.

I found when using Ublock origin, when edge imported my extensions, it used the edge version, which has slightly different behaviour than the chrome store version. Install from chrome web store if you see inconsistent results

Thanks but no thanks.

If you have Edge by default then why would you want to install Chrome? Is M$ onto something here?

Interesting, while I can't find any way to enable extensions, looks like the Edge Browser for Android has built-in adblocker! [0]

(It's not uBlock.. But better than no protection).

[0]: https://i.imgur.com/T53p79k.jpg

I must admit, the landing page looks slick and very un-Microsoft.

All of our corporate computers have this now instead of IE11....very refreshing as a web developer to have something modern to target for intranet apps.

Can you use ublock origin on android with edge?

That would a actually be a hell of a competitive advantage. There are a few forks of chromium that have extension support but MS throwing down might push Google to allow them.

I don’t understand why Microsoft are still in the browser game. It would be like continuing to make mobile phones or mp3 players which they also lost a long time ago.

What would you suggest they do instead?

Because if they don't roll their own around Blink the answer isn't going to be "Ship Firefox" because if you actually ask all your users and developers "Just ship Chrome" will come out way on top.

Not saying I agree with it but thats reality. I'm more disgusted by the browser mono culture than most and how so many engineers recoil when I bring up their work isn't functioning at all even in browsers like Safari let alone Firefox and they consistently make snarky comments like "We should just tell them to use Chrome".

> It would be like continuing to make mobile phones

I mean, they are https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/surface/devices/surface-duo

i’d suggest they stay out of business they can’t be successfully at. if your strategy is to ride the entrenched windows desktop vs. make an awesome product that people love then you will lose in the long run.

Yeah. ok but what browser should they ship instead?

At least it sends your passwords to NSA skipping Google.

You don’t think that Google is an NSA front?

Interestingly, one of the most important battles in the browser (and apps in general) market now is the privacy aspect. There are two vendor groups here: one explicitly mentions it (Apple, Mozilla), and the other remains silent, speaking only about non-provacy features (Google, Microsoft).

There is an explicit section for privacy on the page as I can see, there is even a dedicated page to it: https://microsoftedgewelcome.microsoft.com/en-us/privacy

Also they wrote a privacy whitepaper for Edge as well: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-edge/privacy-whit...

This is absolutely not the same. Mozilla is actively fighting with user tracking agains their will. Apple is also making some steps in the same direction and speaking about it loudly. In the meantime, Google and MS are doing whatever they can get away with.

This landing page explicitly mentions respecting privacy.

Marketing language is not always a reliable source of information

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