5 ms·

Edge switching chromium has made me care even less about it.

badrabbit 7y ago
I dislike both but maybe they can fork it and de-google it. MS is in a position to care about privacy if they want,at least to lure Chrome users where as Google will always be big-brother.
- snarfy 7y ago
  I can see a future where Edge is a better Chromium than Chrome is.
- pilif 7y ago
  Chromium based Edge is de-googled. However it is Microsofted and Binged instead. At least there is now choice which company gets to have all of your data.
  - olyjohn 7y ago
    Or you could not give either of them your data and use Firefox. I hear it's been around for a little while.
    - pilif 7y ago
      Mozilla’s track record in that regard isn’t stellar either though between episodes like the pocket integration and that forced iRobot marketing promo extension. I think browsers have become so complicated that maintaining them is so expensive that you need to sell user data one way or another in order to cover the maintenance costs.
- forgot-my-pw 7y ago
  You can just use Chromium: https://www.chromium.org/getting-involved/download-chromium https://www.chromium.org/getting-involved/download-chromium But you'll be missing the auto updates.
  - jklinger410 7y ago
    Chocolatey is good for that
    - lostmsu 7y ago
      No it is not. Their Chromium got stale about a month and a half ago. I had to switch to Brave because of that.
    - runxel 7y ago
      Sadly, no, it's not. Often enough Chocolatey packages lag behind, sometimes even multiple versions and months.
- lostmsu 7y ago
  I switched to Brave, as it is also degoogled, but unlike Chromium has automatic updates.
Someone1234 7y ago
Isn't that half the point though? Developers didn't "care" about Edge, so sites break (or are incompatible), and users weren't buying in because the upsides of Edge didn't out-weight the downsides (breakages). Now nobody has to "care" about Edge-Chrome because if it supports Chrome, it supports Edge-Chrome, and therefore users can use it for a lower perceived cost via the lack of breakages. Then it is just up to Microsoft to add just enough unique features/value-adds on top of Chrome to outweigh the little to no downsides. Plus Microsoft likely saves money over developing/maintaining their own HTML rendering engine. So the amount of gain they need is much smaller to make it successful.
- wnevets 7y ago
  >Developers didn't "care" about Edge, so sites would break (or be incompatible), and users weren't buying in because the upsides didn't out-weight the downsides. Was that the actual problem with Edge tho? My problem with Edge was always the UI and lack of customization. Edge was already very standards compliant and didn't require an abundance of special testing like IE
  - Someone1234 7y ago
    In fairness I did say it was "half" the problem. :) When I tried to use Edge, I found the same as you, but I also had a lot of sites (particularly "app"-like experiences) break in unusual ways or outright refuse to load. But I am also looking at developer-targeted stuff more than a normal user might so YMMV.
  - zamadatix 7y ago
    Unfortunately in a browser monoculture being highly standards compliant isn't enough. Take one of the top posts on HN today, left is a Chromium based browser and right is Edge: https://i.imgur.com/C6WRaAD.png https://i.imgur.com/C6WRaAD.png
    - wnevets 7y ago
      To be fair it also doesn't look correct in firefox either.
jonfw 7y ago
There isn't anything inherently wrong with the chromium web engine. Lot's of open source browsers use it's backend without having to communicate to google whatsoever. It's fast and it works everywhere
- ori_b 7y ago
  And where Google goes, it goes too. Forking and keeping up is likely too expensive.
  - jonfw 7y ago
    > Forking and keeping up is likely too expensive. There are no limits to the number of open source projects that suggest otherwise.
    - pcwalton 7y ago
      Those forks of Chromium don't make changes to the core. Things like ungoogled-chromium restrict themselves to smaller changes around the edges (no pun intended).
  - The_rationalist 7y ago
    And somehow it's supposed to be more efficient to totally duplicate the effort like Firefox does?
    - olyjohn 7y ago
      If anybody is duplicating the effort, it's Chromium/Blink/KHTML or whatever it is now. Firefox pre-dates it all by years. I love how twisted up the history of the web browser has become.
    - ori_b 7y ago
      Firefox is mostly funded by Google at this point too. I don't have solutions, but I don't like that the web standards are fully owned by an ad company.

I dislike both but maybe they can fork it and de-google it. MS is in a position to care about privacy if they want,at least to lure Chrome users where as Google will always be big-brother.

snarfy 7y ago
I can see a future where Edge is a better Chromium than Chrome is.
pilif 7y ago
Chromium based Edge is de-googled. However it is Microsofted and Binged instead. At least there is now choice which company gets to have all of your data.
- olyjohn 7y ago
  Or you could not give either of them your data and use Firefox. I hear it's been around for a little while.
  - pilif 7y ago
    Mozilla’s track record in that regard isn’t stellar either though between episodes like the pocket integration and that forced iRobot marketing promo extension. I think browsers have become so complicated that maintaining them is so expensive that you need to sell user data one way or another in order to cover the maintenance costs.
forgot-my-pw 7y ago
You can just use Chromium: https://www.chromium.org/getting-involved/download-chromium https://www.chromium.org/getting-involved/download-chromium But you'll be missing the auto updates.
- jklinger410 7y ago
  Chocolatey is good for that
  - lostmsu 7y ago
    No it is not. Their Chromium got stale about a month and a half ago. I had to switch to Brave because of that.
  - runxel 7y ago
    Sadly, no, it's not. Often enough Chocolatey packages lag behind, sometimes even multiple versions and months.
lostmsu 7y ago
I switched to Brave, as it is also degoogled, but unlike Chromium has automatic updates.

Someone1234 7y ago

Isn't that half the point though? Developers didn't "care" about Edge, so sites break (or are incompatible), and users weren't buying in because the upsides of Edge didn't out-weight the downsides (breakages). Now nobody has to "care" about Edge-Chrome because if it supports Chrome, it supports Edge-Chrome, and therefore users can use it for a lower perceived cost via the lack of breakages. Then it is just up to Microsoft to add just enough unique features/value-adds on top of Chrome to outweigh the little to no downsides. Plus Microsoft likely saves money over developing/maintaining their own HTML rendering engine. So the amount of gain they need is much smaller to make it successful.

wnevets 7y ago
>Developers didn't "care" about Edge, so sites would break (or be incompatible), and users weren't buying in because the upsides didn't out-weight the downsides. Was that the actual problem with Edge tho? My problem with Edge was always the UI and lack of customization. Edge was already very standards compliant and didn't require an abundance of special testing like IE
- Someone1234 7y ago
  In fairness I did say it was "half" the problem. :) When I tried to use Edge, I found the same as you, but I also had a lot of sites (particularly "app"-like experiences) break in unusual ways or outright refuse to load. But I am also looking at developer-targeted stuff more than a normal user might so YMMV.
- zamadatix 7y ago
  Unfortunately in a browser monoculture being highly standards compliant isn't enough. Take one of the top posts on HN today, left is a Chromium based browser and right is Edge: https://i.imgur.com/C6WRaAD.png https://i.imgur.com/C6WRaAD.png
  - wnevets 7y ago
    To be fair it also doesn't look correct in firefox either.

jonfw 7y ago

There isn't anything inherently wrong with the chromium web engine. Lot's of open source browsers use it's backend without having to communicate to google whatsoever. It's fast and it works everywhere

ori_b 7y ago
And where Google goes, it goes too. Forking and keeping up is likely too expensive.
- jonfw 7y ago
  > Forking and keeping up is likely too expensive. There are no limits to the number of open source projects that suggest otherwise.
  - pcwalton 7y ago
    Those forks of Chromium don't make changes to the core. Things like ungoogled-chromium restrict themselves to smaller changes around the edges (no pun intended).
- The_rationalist 7y ago
  And somehow it's supposed to be more efficient to totally duplicate the effort like Firefox does?
  - olyjohn 7y ago
    If anybody is duplicating the effort, it's Chromium/Blink/KHTML or whatever it is now. Firefox pre-dates it all by years. I love how twisted up the history of the web browser has become.
  - ori_b 7y ago
    Firefox is mostly funded by Google at this point too. I don't have solutions, but I don't like that the web standards are fully owned by an ad company.