6 ms·

Yeah, this is just depressing and honestly a little baffling. Seems contrary to Microsoft's interests - why let Google control this aspect of the Web? (Obvious

Yeah, this is just depressing and honestly a little baffling. Seems contrary to Microsoft's interests - why let Google control this aspect of the Web? (Obviously, MS will maintain their own fork and can permanently fork away whenever they want/need to, I guess, so it's not like they've locked themselves in forever, but still) I actually wasn't aware of the problems with Edge. This is the first I've heard of them... I hadn't heard much about it from either devs or users, so I assumed lots of people were more or less happily (or at least uneventfully) using it as Windows' default browser. Never thought I'd be sad to see Internet Explorer (or its descendant) bite the dust, given what a plague upon humanity IE was for so many years, but I'm not sure this is the happy ending we might've wished for.

SlowRobotAhead 8y ago
>I actually wasn't aware of the problems with Edge. This is the first I've heard of them... Same, but neither of us actually use Edge. Just like nearly everyone reading this comment.
- JohnBooty 8y ago
  Browser market share isn't decided by people like us. It's decided by people who use the default browser in their environment.
aphextron 8y ago
>Yeah, this is just depressing and honestly a little baffling. Seems contrary to Microsoft's interests - why let Google control this aspect of the Web? Chromium != Google. Chromium is the FOSS project that Chrome is based off of.
- pcwalton 8y ago
  An overwhelming majority of the committers to Chromium, as well as the leadership, are in the Google reporting structure.
  - ryacko 8y ago
    Chromium is just a fork of WebKit, a fork of KHTML. Unless Microsoft is really planning on downsizing their web browser division, they’ll fork it instead of maintaining a rebranded patch set.
    - Jyaif 8y ago
      Unless MS wants to work on the browser secretly for years (the reason for the Webkit fork) or Google refuses many contributions from MS (the reason for the Blink fork), there's no need for a fork.
      - ryacko 8y ago
        There’s other reasons beyond rendering engines and JS JIT compilers to fork.
- snaky 8y ago
  Just try to build it not using Google's internal builds of various tools and libraries.
- JohnBooty 8y ago
  Google's employees make up the bulk of Chromium's contributors and leadership. Microsoft is of course free to diverge from it as much as they like but, like any other Chromium-based browser, they are either going to be joined at the hip to Google's decisions, or they'll be downstream consumers. The bottom line is that while MS will be contributors to Chromium they won't be in the driver's seat.
satyenr 8y ago
I don’t think they intend to let Google control anything — least of all the future of the web. They have been burned too badly by them for that. They are more likely to do what Google did — they used WebKit in the early years of Chrome and then forked it to create Blink once it had gained enough traction. Microsoft is likely to do the same at some point — assuming their browser gains traction. And I, for one, hope it does — and that they make it cross platform. We need an a way to browse the web without Google tracking and Firefox is just not cutting it. And while Safari works, it is not available on other platforms. Regarding the problems with Edge, mainstream websites don’t face problems — but you hit the edge cases (no pun intended) when you try to use it for smaller sites — and especially sites meant for limited audience — e.g. internal websites built by enterprises. They are often tested for Chrome and Firefox only — and maybe Safari if there are significant number of Macs in use. I can’t really blame the developers for not wanting to waste their time on a browser with limited usage and — especially since it often presents challenges not posed by other browsers.
- gdwatson 8y ago
  "... and Firefox is just not cutting it." What are your objections to modern Firefox? Most of the criticism I've heard is that it's become too much like Chrome. I'm quite happy with it personally.
  - satyenr 8y ago
    To be honest, my experience with FF has not be been great in the recent years — although I do acknowledge that it has improved recently. I can’t point my finger at one thing — it was combination of little things that bothered me enough to make me switch to Safari and later Chrome. That said, my comment was directed towards that FF’s market share is plunging rapidly and unless things change drastically, it might become another Opera — a niche browser at best. We need something that can counter Chrome and by extension, Google — something that developers have to support in addition to Chrome. FF has been playing that role nicely so far, but for how long? FF is not cutting it in terms of adoption — in terms of challenging the might of Chrome.
  - wlll 8y ago
cm2187 8y ago
Not that I have any insight into Microsoft but it appears to be consistent with their strategy of disengaging from the client. Why bear the cost of maintaining your own browser technology given the extraordinary complexity, a low market share and little to no associated revenues. I wouldn't be too sad if Firefox was switching to chromium either. Then developers would only need to worry about rendering into one engine, and users would have all their sites always working.
- 300bps 8y ago
  Not that I have any insight into Microsoft Apparently I called for this over four years ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7909383 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7909383
- sametmax 8y ago
  > I wouldn't be too sad if Firefox was switching to chromium either. Then developers would only need to worry about rendering into one engine, and users would have all their sites always working. That would be a terrible day for the open web. Damn it, somebody inject some IE6 into these people stat.
- JohnBooty 8y ago
  Ah, I can see you weren't around during the days of IE6, when the web stagnated and suffered under Microsoft's stranglehold and ineptitude. Keep in mind that, for quite a few years, developers welcomed the oncoming Microsoft browser monopoly; IE3/IE4/IE5 were generally better and faster than their Netscape counterparts and Opera was so niche as to be irrelevant. Then Netscape (the for-profit enterprise) folded and there was no viable competition to IE for a while, and the broken mess known as IE6 became a serious problem for years since it had something like 98% market share. Trusting any company, even Google, to be the de facto sole steward of the web is insane. They are a for-profit company. That may not make them intrinsically evil, but they sure as hell aren't intrinsically good.

SlowRobotAhead 8y ago

>I actually wasn't aware of the problems with Edge. This is the first I've heard of them... Same, but neither of us actually use Edge. Just like nearly everyone reading this comment.

JohnBooty 8y ago
Browser market share isn't decided by people like us. It's decided by people who use the default browser in their environment.

aphextron 8y ago

>Yeah, this is just depressing and honestly a little baffling. Seems contrary to Microsoft's interests - why let Google control this aspect of the Web? Chromium != Google. Chromium is the FOSS project that Chrome is based off of.

pcwalton 8y ago
An overwhelming majority of the committers to Chromium, as well as the leadership, are in the Google reporting structure.
- ryacko 8y ago
  Chromium is just a fork of WebKit, a fork of KHTML. Unless Microsoft is really planning on downsizing their web browser division, they’ll fork it instead of maintaining a rebranded patch set.
  - Jyaif 8y ago
    Unless MS wants to work on the browser secretly for years (the reason for the Webkit fork) or Google refuses many contributions from MS (the reason for the Blink fork), there's no need for a fork.
    - ryacko 8y ago
      There’s other reasons beyond rendering engines and JS JIT compilers to fork.
snaky 8y ago
Just try to build it not using Google's internal builds of various tools and libraries.
JohnBooty 8y ago
Google's employees make up the bulk of Chromium's contributors and leadership. Microsoft is of course free to diverge from it as much as they like but, like any other Chromium-based browser, they are either going to be joined at the hip to Google's decisions, or they'll be downstream consumers. The bottom line is that while MS will be contributors to Chromium they won't be in the driver's seat.

satyenr 8y ago

I don’t think they intend to let Google control anything — least of all the future of the web. They have been burned too badly by them for that. They are more likely to do what Google did — they used WebKit in the early years of Chrome and then forked it to create Blink once it had gained enough traction. Microsoft is likely to do the same at some point — assuming their browser gains traction. And I, for one, hope it does — and that they make it cross platform. We need an a way to browse the web without Google tracking and Firefox is just not cutting it. And while Safari works, it is not available on other platforms. Regarding the problems with Edge, mainstream websites don’t face problems — but you hit the edge cases (no pun intended) when you try to use it for smaller sites — and especially sites meant for limited audience — e.g. internal websites built by enterprises. They are often tested for Chrome and Firefox only — and maybe Safari if there are significant number of Macs in use. I can’t really blame the developers for not wanting to waste their time on a browser with limited usage and — especially since it often presents challenges not posed by other browsers.

gdwatson 8y ago
"... and Firefox is just not cutting it." What are your objections to modern Firefox? Most of the criticism I've heard is that it's become too much like Chrome. I'm quite happy with it personally.
- satyenr 8y ago
  To be honest, my experience with FF has not be been great in the recent years — although I do acknowledge that it has improved recently. I can’t point my finger at one thing — it was combination of little things that bothered me enough to make me switch to Safari and later Chrome. That said, my comment was directed towards that FF’s market share is plunging rapidly and unless things change drastically, it might become another Opera — a niche browser at best. We need something that can counter Chrome and by extension, Google — something that developers have to support in addition to Chrome. FF has been playing that role nicely so far, but for how long? FF is not cutting it in terms of adoption — in terms of challenging the might of Chrome.
- wlll 8y ago

cm2187 8y ago

Not that I have any insight into Microsoft but it appears to be consistent with their strategy of disengaging from the client. Why bear the cost of maintaining your own browser technology given the extraordinary complexity, a low market share and little to no associated revenues. I wouldn't be too sad if Firefox was switching to chromium either. Then developers would only need to worry about rendering into one engine, and users would have all their sites always working.

300bps 8y ago
Not that I have any insight into Microsoft Apparently I called for this over four years ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7909383 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7909383
sametmax 8y ago
> I wouldn't be too sad if Firefox was switching to chromium either. Then developers would only need to worry about rendering into one engine, and users would have all their sites always working. That would be a terrible day for the open web. Damn it, somebody inject some IE6 into these people stat.
JohnBooty 8y ago
Ah, I can see you weren't around during the days of IE6, when the web stagnated and suffered under Microsoft's stranglehold and ineptitude. Keep in mind that, for quite a few years, developers welcomed the oncoming Microsoft browser monopoly; IE3/IE4/IE5 were generally better and faster than their Netscape counterparts and Opera was so niche as to be irrelevant. Then Netscape (the for-profit enterprise) folded and there was no viable competition to IE for a while, and the broken mess known as IE6 became a serious problem for years since it had something like 98% market share. Trusting any company, even Google, to be the de facto sole steward of the web is insane. They are a for-profit company. That may not make them intrinsically evil, but they sure as hell aren't intrinsically good.