4 ms·

Microsoft couldn't build a viable browser that wasn't based on Chromium, so I don't have any faith that open-source can.

cweagans 5y ago
"If Microsoft can't do it, nobody can" is not an argument that holds a lot of water for me, especially if we're talking about web browsers. Microsoft has a track record of braindead decision making when it comes to their browsers. Couple that with their stubborn refusal to deprecate anything if it's a BC break and you've got an environment where not much can get done. Case in point: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/internet-explorer/ie11-deploy-guide/tips-and-tricks-to-manage-ie-compatibility https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/internet-explorer/ie11-depl... That article about IE 11 mentions about an IE 5 compatibility mode that can be activated. IE11 is essentially the sum of IE5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, and 11. So yeah: Microsoft couldn't maintain 7 browsers bundled into one, but who could? Moreover, who would? That's a terrible decision made completely from a place of fear ("what if that one customer that depends on IE5 compatibility mode gets really, really mad and drops their windows support contract!??!?!"). It'd be an absolutely massive undertaking, but it's not impossible. In fact, I'd go further and say that it's necessary.
- thrower123 5y ago
  I was referring more to their failure with Edge 1.0, where they did mostly jetison the legacy cruft and start a greenfield project to match Chrome and Safari. They threw a lot of effort into a mediocre product that almost no one used.
  - cweagans 5y ago
    tbh, I forgot about that, but it wasn't exactly a green field project, right? They started with a fork of Trident. It'd be hard to know without an engineer from Microsoft chiming in, but it's entirely possible that the first bit of EdgeHTML was just Trident with all of the compatibility modes turned off. Maybe they removed them entirely, but just removing those piles of code doesn't fundamentally change the thing they hooked into, right? All the plumbing to support old cruft could still be there, which would make working on EdgeHTML almost as hard as working on Trident. Mozilla incubated Servo with a team of five (as of ~2014). It's not a complete browser on its own by any means, but surely that points at some degree of possibility.
blibble 5y ago
it was shown this week MS couldn't even ship an up-to-date version of curl with Windows a browser is... more complicated
petre 5y ago
They could but I was probably a lot of duplicate effort when they could fork Chrome and brew in their own telemetry as opposed to Google's.

cweagans 5y ago

"If Microsoft can't do it, nobody can" is not an argument that holds a lot of water for me, especially if we're talking about web browsers. Microsoft has a track record of braindead decision making when it comes to their browsers. Couple that with their stubborn refusal to deprecate anything if it's a BC break and you've got an environment where not much can get done. Case in point: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/internet-explorer/ie11-deploy-guide/tips-and-tricks-to-manage-ie-compatibility https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/internet-explorer/ie11-depl... That article about IE 11 mentions about an IE 5 compatibility mode that can be activated. IE11 is essentially the sum of IE5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, and 11. So yeah: Microsoft couldn't maintain 7 browsers bundled into one, but who could? Moreover, who would? That's a terrible decision made completely from a place of fear ("what if that one customer that depends on IE5 compatibility mode gets really, really mad and drops their windows support contract!??!?!"). It'd be an absolutely massive undertaking, but it's not impossible. In fact, I'd go further and say that it's necessary.

thrower123 5y ago
I was referring more to their failure with Edge 1.0, where they did mostly jetison the legacy cruft and start a greenfield project to match Chrome and Safari. They threw a lot of effort into a mediocre product that almost no one used.
- cweagans 5y ago
  tbh, I forgot about that, but it wasn't exactly a green field project, right? They started with a fork of Trident. It'd be hard to know without an engineer from Microsoft chiming in, but it's entirely possible that the first bit of EdgeHTML was just Trident with all of the compatibility modes turned off. Maybe they removed them entirely, but just removing those piles of code doesn't fundamentally change the thing they hooked into, right? All the plumbing to support old cruft could still be there, which would make working on EdgeHTML almost as hard as working on Trident. Mozilla incubated Servo with a team of five (as of ~2014). It's not a complete browser on its own by any means, but surely that points at some degree of possibility.

blibble 5y ago

it was shown this week MS couldn't even ship an up-to-date version of curl with Windows a browser is... more complicated

petre 5y ago

They could but I was probably a lot of duplicate effort when they could fork Chrome and brew in their own telemetry as opposed to Google's.