Microsoft Edge is the top downloaded package on macOS Homebrew

formulae.brew.sh

21 points·payasr··8 comments

*Top downloaded cask, which only includes GUI applications . Regular formulae are at [1]; the most popular is OpenSSL.

Note that these statistics are only for the last 30 days, and they only include users who have opted into Homebrew analytics (and I suspect users who don’t opt in are much less likely to download Microsoft products). That being said, I’m definitely still surprised that it’s number 1 — who uses Edge on a Mac? Maybe web developers who need to test their websites?

[1]: https://formulae.brew.sh/analytics/install/30d/

Looking over the past year [0] shows a more expected distribution, with Edge at #8 and Chrome and Firefox above it.

[0]: https://formulae.brew.sh/analytics/cask-install/365d/

I swapped to it from Firefox. I want to avoid google, but the chromium dev tools are better. Also they have a really nice side tabs in Edge (built in).

Additionally they also have a built in tab suspension feature with an exclusion list.

I did for a while but then it started trying to interefere with my Amazon purchases so I went back to Firefox.

You want to avoid Google for Microsoft? What is the reason?

Microsoft is arguably the lesser evil given that their business model doesn't rely on data collection and tracking.

> cask, which only includes GUI applications

Casks include way more than GUI applications: fonts, drivers, audio plugins, colour pickers, proprietary CLI tools…

Is this a way to avoid that awful Microsoft updater?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com