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Comment by TonyStr | Hacker News Reader

I used a debloater on my windows 11 laptop which also removed edge. No big deal since Firefox is my browser if choice, but I'm a Web developer and need to test my apps in different browsers. I've tried to install edge multiple times, but I can never get it to work.

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Edge is still Blink+V8. Just test Chromium or Brave & forget about Edge.

That’s not exactly true, there’s a bunch of ancillary code too. For example, image handling, where Edge doesn’t support AVIF: https://caniuse.com/avif

But that's (+ AV1) about it. I wouldn't install edge just to test whether there are any files encoded with these codecs. (unless there are a LOT of media encoded in different ways e.g. youtube)

Just test on chrome and keep in mind to avoid AVIF

…Which you should be using the picture element or image() to fall all the way back to PNG or JPEG in most scenarios anyhow. New & improved formats like JPEG-XL should be considered ‘enhancements’ rather than relied on.

Don't remember what it was exactly, but I did run into some obscure scenario (something with tab focus I believe) where Edge had a bug that prevented my code from working.

Just spin up a VM for testing Edge, the differences are small.

Try the second set of instructions here https://www.intowindows.com/how-to-reinstall-microsoft-edge-...

Honestly, as much as I avoid it as a primary browser, I think all OSes should have a default browser that one could use as a preinstalled webview. Some way to avoid having to ship a 100 MB electron with simple web apps.

I don't think web apps are ideal, but having edge installed and available as a native webview is relevant.

I don't think this dream works yet, I don't think one can actually make THESE kinds of apps without shipping electron yet, but that should definitely be an option. I have no problem with edge used as a random weview in random apps. I only hate it when edge is opened as a dedicated browser.

I don't think an OS API to use Firefox as a webview is a reasonable ask :(.

How about you get VMware and install in there a vanilla Win10/11 just for the testing of Edge? Yes, it is heavy. Yes you will only fire it up when you need it. And this won't contaminate your machine.

You can’t remove plankton and expect the whale to survive.

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