New Edge: worthy competitor, finally

[MdniteEagl]

This is NOT one of those "I hate Firefox, I'm switching to..." posts. Firefox has been working well for me for several years - the initial switch to Quantum was buggy for me, but it's been fine for quite a while now, and I've been using Mozilla browsers since the original Netscape days. And to be honest, the original Edge that came with Win10 in 2015 was just plain awful.

But just to see if the new Chromium-based Edge was finally a competitive browser, I downloaded it and gave it a shot. To be fair, it's not bad. In comparison with Firefox 75, the new Edge (which carries the Chromium version 81, same as the current version of Chrome) is finally a worthy competitor. There are some websites where Edge renders the pages significantly cleaner than Firefox. Like Firefox, it blocks Flash by default, but you can allow it to be used on a case-by-case basis. Firefox has better menu spacing, so a well-populated bookmark folder doesn't have a scroll bar. Firefox also has a larger extension library, although Chrome-compatible extensions will likely be adjusted and migrated to work with Edge. Speed appears to be comparable. A good job by Microsoft - they now have a browser worth using.

Hopefully, this pushes Mozilla to continue development of Firefox, now that there's one more legitimate competitor.

[DanRaisch]

Moving to MozillaZine Tech as this is more about Edge than Firefox.

[kerft]

According to here, Edge is the worst browser for privacy https://arstechnica.com/information-tec ... -browsers/

[robobox]

I feel that Microsoft should have tried to make it more unique, as the new versions of Edge feel like a rebranded Chrome. And it could be a competitor, but Microsoft really needs to give it a UX that isn't almost exactly like Chrome's. Another thing Microsoft needs to do is give it features that aren't on Chrome, and sure, it feels fast, but so does Chrome. And if they want to keep power users, they should keep FTP support past Edge version 81. (Chrome is dropping FTP support in version 82 - yes, you heard me right. Maybe they will drop TCP support next )

[mtalbot]

The new Edge is just a rebranded Chrome (Chromium really) and one of the few things I see in its favour is that Microsoft have finally admitted that they can't produce a decent web browser of their own (flash back to IE6 - shudders).

Yes, Chrome will be dropping support for FTP but, then again, so will Firefox. As for dropping TCP, please don't give them ideas!

[XxMartyG36xX]

I believe MS hasn't made a very smart decision. By just creating re-branded chrome, they aren't winning back people from Chrome. Mozilla users are already Chrome detesters, so they aren't coming to Edge either. So, whom exactly Edge is targeting?

Only one set seems like potential target are users who will be buying new computers, they will be marginally less in need of installing Chrome as it's copy would be available.

[Kevin McFarlane]

I've not tried the new Edge yet but I expect it will be auto-arriving in the next few days perhaps. Whether or not Edge is sufficiently differentiated from Chrome or not right now, it certainly can differentiate itself, just as Opera and Vivaldi do. The latter two are both superior to Chrome as far as I'm concerned. Objectively they have more features. Subjectively it's a matter of whether a user cares for those features or not. Ditto for Firefox.

[Kevin McFarlane]

I believe MS hasn't made a very smart decision. By just creating re-branded chrome, they aren't winning back people from Chrome. Mozilla users are already Chrome detesters, so they aren't coming to Edge either. So, whom exactly Edge is targeting?

Only one set seems like potential target are users who will be buying new computers, they will be marginally less in need of installing Chrome as it's copy would be available.

At the very least, Microsoft make lives easier for themselves by doing this as they don't have to keep fixing Edge for broken web sites.

[mightyglydd]

Been seeing this, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yg5cUyPBHjI

[TheVisitor]

Today MS pushed via Windows Update the new Edge-chrome.... not that I ever used Edge as Fx is my main browser.

surprisingly they migrated uBO from the old Edge...

[TheVisitor]

Looks like maybe Google and Edge-chrome has removed the setting to stop auto-play.

edge://flags/#edge-autoplay-user-setting-block-option appears in Edge-chrome but not latest Chrome, however the setting in Edge-chrome does not seem to stop the autoplay.

In Edge-chrome - Settings->Site Permissions there is : Media Autoplay - setting this to BLOCK and restarting the browser does not stop videos, i.e. Youtube
from playing, and new sites are not stopped from autoplaying.

[Snake4]

Looks like maybe Google and Edge-chrome has removed the setting to stop auto-play.

edge://flags/#edge-autoplay-user-setting-block-option appears in Edge-chrome but not latest Chrome, however the setting in Edge-chrome does not seem to stop the autoplay.

In Edge-chrome - Settings->Site Permissions there is : Media Autoplay - setting this to BLOCK and restarting the browser does not stop videos, i.e. Youtube
from playing, and new sites are not stopped from autoplaying.

yeah i can see in Edge-Chromium , but werent they gonna change that behavior in 84 ? which is due i think in July, but afaik, Nicrosoftr stil forces Flash to be installled ? untill Microsoft stop forcing users to update flash in windows update i don t think Microsoft are gonna fix that, wouldnt Vivaldi suffer from the same problem?

[4td8s]

yeah i can see in Edge-Chromium , but werent they gonna change that behavior in 84 ? which is due i think in July, but afaik, Nicrosoftr stil forces Flash to be installled ? untill Microsoft stop forcing users to update flash in windows update i don t think Microsoft are gonna fix that, wouldnt Vivaldi suffer from the same problem?

speaking of Flash, Adobe plans to kill it by end of 2020.

and MS will also follow suit as mentioned in this old blog a few years ago

By the end of 2020, we will remove the ability to run Adobe Flash in Microsoft Edge and Internet Explorer across all supported versions of Microsoft Windows. Users will no longer have any ability to enable or run Flash.