5 ms·

I see it as a version of Blink (the fastest and most secure rendering engine there is) which is not controlled by Google. To me, it is something to consider.

• anoncake 7y ago
  Blink is still controlled by Google. Microsoft doesn't control anything. They obviously don't control Google's Blink. They could fork it, but in that case they'd have to maintain a browser engine again. If Microsoft could/wanted to do that, they could have just stayed with the old IE Edge.
  • qxcbr 7y ago
    Since it's in their interests to have a browser installed on Windows by default, if Google did something wrong, they will definitely fork Blink. What alternative do they have?
    • anoncake 7y ago
      They have no alternative. Like everyone else, they're at the mercy of Google. It doesn't matter if it's in Microsoft interests to fork Blink, as that would require maintaining their fork. Which they can't. If Microsoft were able to maintain a browser engine, they would not be switching to Blink in the first place.
      • qxcbr 7y ago
        There's a big difference between writing their own engine from scratch and forking Blink. For starters, even if they fork, they can still keep cherry-picking fixes and new features from Google's Blink. After all Webkit is under the GPL so they can't just close the source.
        • anoncake 7y ago
          > There's a big difference between writing their own engine from scratch That's a strawman. Microsoft already had a browser engine, no one's talking about writing one from scratch. They are unable to maintain one. > For starters, even if they fork, they can still keep cherry-picking fixes and new features from Google's Blink. Yes. All of them. Because otherwise they aren't compatible with the Google-controlled web anymore. That kind of "fork" is pointless.
          • underwater 7y ago
            They were able to maintain and extend it. But they were starting from way behind while Google was rapidly adding new features. Microsoft had to choose between adding their own enhancements and standards (the reason for having an engine into the first place) and playing catch up to Google. With Blink they can have both.
      • tolmasky 7y ago
        The history of "Blink" has been Company X using it, then eventually forking, and winning: Apple decides to use KHTML instead of developing their own browser engine from scratch. This allows a very small team to focus on user experience, instead of the monumental task of replicating the entirety of the historical W3C standard, and ship Safari. Eventually Apple forks KHTML into WebKit. Google decides to use WebKit instead of developing their own browser engine from scratch. This allows Google to focus on unique features like process isolation and the new V8 javascript engine, instead of the monumental task of replicating the entirety of the historical W3C standard, and ship Chrome. Eventually Google forks WebKit into Blink. Microsoft decides to use Blink instead of developing their own browser engine from scratch. This allows Microsoft to focus on privacy-related features, instead of the monumental task of replicating the entirety of the historical W3C standard, and ship Edge Chrome. [What will happen next?] The HTML spec is HUGE, and getting to a point where a new engine can successfully render all the quirks of HTML, CSS, and JS (and WebAssembly, and...) is a harder and harder task every year. Look how long its taking Firefox to get their Rust rewrite going. If you want to focus on end-user features, it makes no sense to start by arbitrarily making a new browser engine that's goal is to... successfully replicate the behavior of existing competing engines (since that's the real standard). If your competitor is open source, then just use that, and focus on what you want to provide. It is my opinion that people have severely misinterpreted the power dynamic here. Every Windows machine will soon ship with a browser that, as is evident in this very thread, is "basically Chrome"... minus all the Google ID stuff. This is a nightmare for Google, what do they have to offer? "Download Chrome so we can track you!". That's the way its going to sound if Edge Chrome correctly puts its privacy features front and center. Meanwhile, they're getting support for CSS grid or whatever-js-feature for free from Google's hundreds of workers on Chrome.
        • anoncake 7y ago
          > Microsoft decides to use Blink instead of developing their own browser engine from scratch. Microsoft decides to use Blink instead of the browser engine they already had. > This is a nightmare for Google, what do they have to offer? "Download Chrome so we can track you!". The same things they offer now. "Download Chrome because it's a better and faster browser!" It doesn't have to be true, people believe it anyway. "Download Chrome because Edge doesn't support Youtube!" They totally didn't intentionally break Edge.
      • untog 7y ago
        MS are able to maintain a browser engine, it just isn't worth them to do it when IE compatibility is an afterthought for a great many sites. Maintaining a fork of Blink would be a lot more worthwhile.
• mda 7y ago
  Blink is mostly developed by Google and generally Google calls the shots for the project.