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Microsoft Windows

Microsoft Edge On Windows 10: the Browser That Will Finally Kill IE 255

An anonymous reader writes: Windows 10 launches today and with it comes a whole new browser, Microsoft Edge. You can still use Internet Explorer if you want, but it's not the default. IE turns 20 in less than a month, which is ancient in internet years, so it's not surprising that Microsoft is shoving it aside. Still, leaving behind IE and launching a new browser built from the ground up marks the end of an era for Microsoft. “Knowing that browsing is still one of the very top activities that people do on a PC, we knew there was an opportunity, and really an obligation, to push the web browsing experience and so that’s what we’ve done with Microsoft Edge," Drew DeBruyne, director of program management at Microsoft told VentureBeat.
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Microsoft Edge On Windows 10: the Browser That Will Finally Kill IE

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  • by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 29, 2015 @04:16PM (#50208851)

    Because if so, it'll be just as dangerous as it ever was.

    • Edge is ie with all the crusty code needed for old version compatibility/quirks mode removed, or it started off as that at least

      • by Jamu ( 852752 )
        Clearly that's not the case now: It has integrated Flash support.
        • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

          by Anonymous Coward

          Clearly that's not the case now: It has integrated Flash support.

          There you go. Microsoft wouldn't stand still by letting some other manufacturer make a Flash plugin with vulnerabilities: they decided they could make all those vulnerabilities in-house.

    • by Guspaz ( 556486 ) on Wednesday July 29, 2015 @05:25PM (#50209437)

      IE hasn't been integrated with the shell for a decade. If you type a URL into an Explorer window in Win7 or 8, it just launches your default browser, which may not be IE.

    • by im_thatoneguy ( 819432 ) on Wednesday July 29, 2015 @05:40PM (#50209579)

      No it's written in WinRT which is to say it's sandboxed from the rest of the operating system using the WinRT app model. One of the annoying things about developing for WinRT is just how low privileged an application in WinRT is without any means to escalate except by explicit user permission. Shell access is impossible. COM is nearly non-existent. The only way to get data to and from the application in the WinRT framework is through a specific API contract that makes Soviet Russia look like a libertarian paradise by comparison.

      In short, by writing Edge in WinRT they automatically picked up a lot of security features automatically. I would be really surprised if in its current state it could be used to modify system files.

  • Um... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by MightyMartian ( 840721 ) on Wednesday July 29, 2015 @04:18PM (#50208881) Journal

    I think Firefox dealt it the mortal blow, and then Chrome finished the job.

    • Re:Um... (Score:5, Informative)

      by ArcadeMan ( 2766669 ) on Wednesday July 29, 2015 @04:27PM (#50208981)

      And then Chrome turned around and finished Firefox.

      • Yes, well, we often hurt the ones we love.

        About the only place I still see IE is on some web-based applications from the late 90s thru the mid-00s that were built using IE 5 and 6's very insecure ActiveX architecture. Up until last year, we were forced to use such software on one of our government contracts, and it literally meant viewing the site in Compatibility Mode with security settings cranked down to nothing. They finally updated the underlying Siebel engine to the HTML5 version, and after that every

      • Which is now why Chrome is so bloated.
      • Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)

        by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Wednesday July 29, 2015 @06:53PM (#50210251)
        Comment removed based on user account deletion
        • This. The only reason I dropped Firefox was because of changes the Firefox team made (and the attitude they had when making those changes), not because of features other browsers introduced before Firefox.

      • I know that Chrome is the 45% usage king, but it's not like Firefox (~15%) is dead by any stretch.

        No it's not perfect, but Firefox is good enough for me - Sync, AdBlock Plus, Firebug, etc. And I'm not interested in giving Google every piece of info about my browsing habits.

      • by rtb61 ( 674572 )

        Now would that be Chrome on Android vs FireFox on Android or Chrome on Windows vs FireFox on Windows or Chrome on Linux vs FireFox on Linux or just all jammed together. A lot of Chrome numbers come from Android and FireFox not being the default loses out in a big way on the mobile phone platform, especially when a lot of the default actions on a mobile phone reach out to the internet to do local use stuff.

      • by bjwest ( 14070 )

        And then Chrome turned around and finished Firefox.

        I think Mozilla is doing that themselves. With each FF upgrade, I seem to loose more and more functionality and it gets slower and slower. I find I'm starting use Chrome more and more lately, even though I know I'm loosing some privacy in doing so.

  • by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 29, 2015 @04:19PM (#50208893)

    New Browser code from Microsoft written from the ground up? Time to go look up details on Microsoft's Bug Bounty program.

    • The browser UI is new, but the rendering engine is still based on Trident. They just removed all the legacy stuff, and focused on clean implementations of the standards without worrying so much about backward compatibility. Edge will puke about as badly as Chrome or Firefox will if fed code and markup intended for IE7, instead of falling back to IE7's rendering style.

      Which isn't to say there aren't going to be security bugs, of course. But then, the same is true of all the big browser vendors.

      • even better... it is a fork of the IE codebase. NOT from the ground up. You could probably get some bounties just investigating things they already fixed in IE.
      • The only things holding back people to Windows, I thought - IE and VB style client server apps. There are still ao many websites, specially banking and so-called inhouse web apps that rely on ActiveX and Craptive things on the Windows Ecosystem. So with Edge, the intrwebs will be forced to support a standards-compliant browser on the Windows desktop. Very good.

        Once that is complete, the only reason for Windows on the desktop will be gone, and browsers like Firefox, Chrome and Opera - which are all standards

    • by T.E.D. ( 34228 )

      New Browser code from Microsoft written from the ground up? Time to go look up details on Microsoft's Bug Bounty program.

      From what I'm gathering, you may need to wait a while. Its still so raw that a lot of it is Not Even Wrong yet.

  • by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 29, 2015 @04:24PM (#50208939)

    You might be wondering, why didn’t Microsoft put Cortana in a different place in Edge; why the address bar? DeBruyne spelled it out for us: “Second to the start menu, it’s probably the most trafficked place in the Windows user interface.”

    So why did you remove the start menu in windows 8?

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by fredgiblet ( 1063752 )
      Because it's better to use the search functions than the start menu. Also, in this context "Start Menu" probably includes the start screen of 8.
      • Because it's better to use the search functions than the start menu.

        Please explain why.

        • Speed. You can dig through the start menu or tap the first two letters of the program's name.
          • Speed. You can dig through the start menu or tap the first two letters of the program's name.

            Presuming that the first two letters correctly identify the program you want to run. And then there are the dead ends when you mistype a letter....

            .

            • Speed. You can dig through the start menu or tap the first two letters of the program's name.

              Presuming that the first two letters correctly identify the program you want to run. And then there are the dead ends when you mistype a letter....

              .

              While we can all argue about the milliseconds saved by.......

              The right way to open programs

              What Winws 8 got so wrong was that people wanted to open their programs the way that wanted to open programs. And a lot of people like shortcuts on the desktop One of the biggest complaints I got was that some of the programs (desktop apps) coulld be placed on the desktop, many couldn't (metro apps)

              Not everyone is a fine typist, and we look pretty stupid trying to explain why the customer cannot have what t

            • I'd bet money it still saves time in the long run even when you count mistypes.
        • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

          by thegarbz ( 1787294 )

          Honestly, search has been here since Vista and was refined in Windows 7. The only time in the past 7 years I've actually dug through a menu was when I forgot what a program was called but I could remember what the icon looked like.

          Want to start Handbrake? Tap start > Type "han" > Hit enter.
          Want to start Word? Tap start > type "wo" > hit enter.

          I can do most of these faster than anyone can even take their hand off the keyboard and move it to the mouse.

      • by T.E.D. ( 34228 )

        Essentially, they redesigned that bit of the interface around the only part of it that was still useful in the modern age: the program search feature..

    • by vux984 ( 928602 ) on Wednesday July 29, 2015 @05:01PM (#50209267)

      So why did you remove the start menu in windows 8?

      Lol, well said.

      However, to be fair to MS, they didn't "remove it" they revamped it. They rightfully identified that there was a ton of functionality jammed into it, and that it was a shitty UI for most of it, while simultaneously its primary design driver was a vestigial hierarchical folder structure from Windows 95 that really was quite hideous and unusable, and rarely used.

      Every one used the start menu to shutdown, to get to control panels etc, to access frequently used and pinned apps, and to search.

      shutdown? because that's where it was. No real need for it to be there relative to anywhere else.
      control panels same thing. So they moved them (and also added them to right click start menu).
      pinned apps... you can still create taskbar menus and pin apps etc in win8.

      search -- there's two types of search:
      -- type one ... "power user quick launch" . For example type cmd to launch command or pow to launch powershell, etc etc... the win7 start menu worked well for this

      -- type two -- actual search. Where you want to find something that you don't know what its called, or to find a document. Having your whole search interface in a small popup in the corner that was liable to disappear on you at random was silly and useless. The win7 start menu sucks for real search.

      Finally... heirarchical start menu browsing... was clumsy in Windows 95 and all but useless in a modern PC. Nobody used it unless they had to, and browsing multiple levels of nested folders was clumsy.

      The start screen in windows 8 ... was better for search. And the other commands were relocated. The problem with windows 8 was simply that the new locations were non-obvious. (how do I shutdown?) And the "type one" quick search-launch functionality was now really clutzy switching to a full screen app for quick launch makes no sense. (And really the whole 'go full screen' was a mistake. The old start menu was broken... but the new one was also broken, better in some ways, but worse in most.

      But they were looking for a solution to a definite problem. Anyone who honestly looks at the windows 7 start menu has to acknowledge that it does too much, and does MUCH of it poorly. It needed attention.

      Unfortunately windows 8 was a step in mostly the wrong directions. Too touch centric. Too much key functionality hidden off screen. Charms bar was just bad. Not having window border controls for mouse users was just bad. Defaulting to using 'modern ui' for viewing pictures etc was just bad. 8.1 cleaned up a lot of that, but it was still not ideal. Too much was driven by the tablet/mobile design rather than really trying to solve the problem for desktop users in a way that made sense for desktop users.

      Windows 10 (build 10240) seems like a pretty good compromise so far. There's still plenty I don't like, but I think its a genuine step forward from 7 rather than a step sideways.

  • by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 29, 2015 @04:25PM (#50208955)

    "He then laid out Microsoft’s three goals with Edge:"

    1) Build a browser that feels “responsive, fast, and lightweight” but that is also “clean, doesn’t get in your way, and also works great with the modern web.”

    No, idiot, build a browser that IS responsive, fast, and lightweight. I don't care how it makes me 'feel'.

    2) Build a browser that is trusted and lets people feel safe.

    Again, no, I want the browser to BE safe, and don't care how it makes me 'feel'. All this touchy feely crap you can leave to the hippies. Also if you want me to trust your browser, then make the code open-source and the software FREE (as in speech, not beer)

    3) Build a browser that is “personal and productive,” fitting in with what Microsoft is trying to do overall as a company.

    No, I don't want a personal browser, I want a simple browser that answers 1 and 2 without the bloat that is IE (or worse Office)

    • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward

      'feel' is being use as an emotive marketing term to engage the buyer more.

      If they're being truthful then the way they'll make it 'feel' responsive, fast, and lightweight is by *being* responsive, fast, and lightweight, but enough so that you actually notice the difference to before and to competitors. So fingers crossed.

      Trust and safe though are more about brand. Doing away with the IE brand and calling it edge rather than IE12 is dumping their old baggage - the history of bugs (ActiveX etc) and the fact it

    • Also if you want me to trust your browser, then make the code open-source and the software FREE (as in speech, not beer)

      Looks like you're not the target audience......

  • by T.E.D. ( 34228 ) on Wednesday July 29, 2015 @04:42PM (#50209109)

    ...still needs work. Here's what I saw this morning on twitter [twitter.com] from Jeff Atwood (of CodingHorror / StackExchange fame)

    errr.. is there any way to use MS Edge browser in fullscreen mode on tablet? I see a lot of wasted toolbar space here.

    Richard Gregg @odgregg 10h10 hours ago

    @codinghorror No. And even F11 doesn't go fullscreen

    Jeff Atwood @codinghorror 10h10 hours ago

    @odgregg :( so much screen space wasted, toolbar at bottom, 2 toolbars at top. Bad regression now I see what @drpizza was on about

    Richard Gregg @odgregg 10h10 hours ago @codinghorror @drpizza Yeah, edge definitely seems only 2/3rds there so far. Web notes should have been lower priority

    • I have yet to figure out this obsession some people have with screen space. Bitching about three friggin' toolbars?

      • by T.E.D. ( 34228 )

        I don't know what size tablet he was trying to use, but I do know that when your screen space is really limited, having a huge percentage of it taken up with interface elements is beyond annoying.

        On my home desktop at 1280x1024x3, yeah its no big deal.

      • I have yet to figure out this obsession some people have with screen space. Bitching about three friggin' toolbars?

        Tablets have insufficient screen space. Wasting any of it is sacrilege. I would complain about three toolbars, too. I have zero toolbars on firefox, That seems to be about the correct number.

      • I have yet to figure out this obsession some people have with screen space. Bitching about three friggin' toolbars?

        On a smaller tablet that screen space does come at a premium, but if that's the biggest complaint then it's pretty impressive.

  • by Anonymous Coward

    "IE turns 20 in less than a month, which is ancient in internet years , so it's not surprising that Microsoft is shoving it aside."

    Hard to get into the article when the summary is already so full of B.S.

    Let's see now, the internet itself is over 25 years old; guess it's got to go. Linux is also nearly 25 years old; what a fossil. Heck, Windows is nearly 30 years old; how can Microsoft justify selling such an outdated P.O.S?

    The reason I.E needs to go has little to do with it's age and more to do with it's d

    • Microsoft Windows nearly single-handedly created the antivirus industry by neglecting security (and still does to this day).

      Microsoft, yes Windows no. I can remember using McAffee anti-virus on MS-DOS long before I started using Windows.
      • Agreed -- the grand parent is pretty ignorant of the history about viruses.

        https://nakedsecurity.sophos.c... [sophos.com]

        i.e.

        * 1982 - Prehistory: Elk Cloner
        * 1987 - nVIR
        * 1988 - HyperCard
        * 1990 - MDEF -- (Windows 3.0 released)
        * 1991 - German folk tunes
        * 1995 - Word macro viruses (Window 95 released)

  • by Sponge Bath ( 413667 ) on Wednesday July 29, 2015 @04:48PM (#50209163)
    IE is like the horror movie killer that keeps coming back after repeated stabbings, burnings and exorcisms. Call it Chuckie, Freddie or a Leprechaun, it will be back.
  • by wile_e_wonka ( 934864 ) on Wednesday July 29, 2015 @04:51PM (#50209183)

    I don't see why people think IE can be "killed." Until you convince curmudgeony old people (like governments) whose web-based tools break on anything other than IE to pay green money to update their websites, IE will stick around. And, since some people (mostly governments) will never be willing to pay money to fix something that "isn't broken" (as long as you use it on IE), IE will never, ever be completely dispensable.

    • by T.E.D. ( 34228 )
      Certainly if all it took to "kill IE" was a higher-quality browser, IE would have had its dead carcass chunked into the Indian Ocean years ago.
  • Mainstream (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward

    IE turns 20 in less than a month, which is ancient in internet years

    Look, the Internet has been around more than 25yrs. Can we stop this internet speed "really moves fast" thing. Really. Facebook has been around since 2008 and Google since 1998. And look at their progress. Not much since 2006-2008. If you want beta, crappy apps and ideas, and stupid trends, yes, the Internet "moves fast" in that context. If you want services & products that you incorporate into your life, aka the real "Internet" (ignor

  • The core browser functionality is there and working, but there is still a lot missing. For example, the right-clicking on a hyperlink only has options for opening in a new tab or new window. All the other options (Copy Shortcut, Properties, Save Target As..., etc.) are missing. As previously mentioned, F11 doesn't do anything and there doesn't seem to be any way to run full-screen at all (just maximized, which leave the title bar). Also, when first launched, the address bar is not shown - this feels very st

  • by wonkey_monkey ( 2592601 ) on Wednesday July 29, 2015 @06:25PM (#50210021) Homepage

    Hey Cortana, how can I block ads when I'm using Edge?

  • MS can call it whatever they like... the chances that at its core this thing isn't going to be IE are small.

  • So IE is old and badly maintained, so just "trust us" that our new Edge browser will get better maintenance and support after it replaces IE. Never mind that it will be the same pile of schlubs maintaining the thing as were maintaining IE. It will be different this time, just "trust us".

    If MS ever officially apologizes for the Ribbon interface and throws it into the same burn pile as Clippy, then I might start trusting them a little more. So far they have a nasty habit of shoving garbage down their custo

  • Everyone join

    http://www.saveie6.com/ [saveie6.com]

    The best browser ever! Don't submit to a post Gates Microsoft!

  • by choupette ( 645734 ) on Thursday July 30, 2015 @05:36AM (#50212719)

    I just installed windows 10 yesterday as an upgrade to windows 8.1.

    it kept all my settings, in a very accurate way except for one : it replaced my browser with edge. So at the first reboot I launched chrome, and it whined about not being my defaut browser, so I clicked the "make chrome my defaut browser" button, and a window came, recapitulating my prefered apps for music / videos / etc, I thought to myself that it was thoughtful to show me all those settings, but I had other things to do, so I closed that window.

    Well, next reboot, same problem : chrome wasn't my default browser, you actually have to go to the bottom of the window that pops up, and the deselect edge for your prefered browser at the bottom of the window. So I finally did it.

    I thought about the same thing : " ... browsing is still one of the very top activities that people do on a PC" yes, so why the hell don't they change the browser as chrome requested, and why the hell do they put this option on the bottom of the window, which is not visible unless I scrolled down (I have a 1920x1080 screen) ?

    well I think I know why, I'll be sure to check edge's market share in the next months.

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