Microsoft Edge Might Come To Linux (zdnet.com) 146
The Microsoft Edge developer team held an AMA (Ask Me Anything) session on Reddit this week where they revealed some of their plans on current and upcoming features. From a report: The biggest tease the company dropped was its apparent willingness to release an Edge version for Linux -- a move that was once considered inconceivable. "We don't have any technical blockers to keep us from creating Linux binaries, and it's definitely something we'd like to do down the road. That being said, there is still work to make them 'customer ready' (installer, updaters, user sync, bug fixes, etc.) and something we are proud to give to you, so we aren't quite ready to commit to the work just yet. Right now, we are super focused on bringing stable versions of Edge first to other versions of Windows (as well as macOS), and then releasing our Beta channels," Edge devs said.
Edge = Chromium. (Score:2)
Edge = Chromium. Why is this in any way news/notable?
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And why? Well, one of the few things I could think is when you want to ensure maximum compatibility across different browsers.
Unfortunately today many web sites are now starting to get unusable when running the last Internet Explorer, it starts to look like a WTF on the web! Not that I use the IE for something serious, but now and then I use that - especially at work for the intranet.
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If it were about compatibility, there'd be no point. Chrome and Chromium are already there.
The new Microsoft move towards cross-platform presence is about data mining, and boosting their web presence by being the default search engine, etc. Now Chrome is no better - especially if you're disinclined to trust Google. But seriously, if that's the issue, Microsoft-branded spyware is no improvement. Perhaps a privacy-based push to get people to use Firefox or Chromium would be a better response than embracin
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The new Microsoft move towards cross-platform presence is about data mining,
And selling their own subscription SaaS. Microsoft can pick any web engine and wrap redirection to their own cloud services around it. Fighting web standards with their own browser is pointless if the object is to charge you rent for your own data and access to apps.
Not Interested (Score:2)
If I wanted to use crap coming out of Redmond, I wouldn't be using Linux.
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I have definitely chosen lynx over MSIE in the past.
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but Windows is the new Linux (tm)
Embrace the 40 foot squid!
Still better than the crap from North Carolina (Score:5, Interesting)
Hate on Microsoft if you really must, but the software they've ported to Linux is quite good.
VS Code is the best lightweight IDE available currently. .NET Core lets us use C#, one of the nicest general purpose programming languages around, on Linux. And at least it isn't slow and outdated like Mono was.
SQL Server running on Linux is much better than MySQL.
And Edge on Linux would probably be much nicer to use than Firefox.
None of Microsoft's Linux software has ever been forced on me.
I can't say the same about software that I find to be terrible, like systemd, PulseAudio, NetworkManager, GNOME 3 and Firefox. I have to go out of my way to avoid them, or scrape them out of a Linux installation after the fact.
Microsoft has only improved my Linux experience, while some of the biggest "supporters" of Linux have trashed it with some of the worst software I've ever used.
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One word: Skype. Skype had a perfectly nice Linux client until Microsoft bought it, stagnated it, and finally replaced it with a pathetic half-working web page wrapper app.
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You should judge everything on Skype.
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VS Code, C#: exactly what metrics are you using for determining "best" and "nicest"?
"slow and outdated like Mono was": I'd like to see some numbers on what you're saying. .NET Core vs Mono, "The results show that the open source Mono .NET Native is significantly more performant than the full .NET Framework using JIT compilation. This is particularly impressive given that it start with the .NET Core libraries, and the .NET Core-JIT performance is quite poor".
2016 survey performed by Steven Davis reports
SQL
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In what world is Edge better than Firefox? In what way?
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Poor baby is still butt hurt over systemd. Boo hoo. Grow up already.
Look at the windows init and system and how full of security holes it is.
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If I wanted to use crap coming out of Redmond, I wouldn't be using Linux.
Precisely. And now, Edge comes w/ Newsguard, which is supposed to fish out 'fake news' from real news. Microsoft has always been Left of center, but has been going really woke of late, w/ them contemplating an auto-politically-correct feature in their on the fly spelling corrections. And Newsguard has been pointed out as having the same bias as other 'fact check' outlets - heavily slamming right wing news sources while endorsing left wing ones.
Why would we care? (Score:1)
Linux users have many options for browsers currently, why would we want to use one from a vendor that has a bad reputation like Microsoft?
Microsoft is better than moz://a (Score:1)
You're right, I also think that Microsoft is better than moz://a these days.
When I ask myself what good Microsoft has done for Linux, I can immediately think of VS Code, .NET Core, SQL Server for Linux, and possibly Edge.
When I ask myself what good moz://a has done for Linux, I can't think of anything. Firefox is so slow and bloated any time I use it. Thunderbird had been abandoned, from what I can tell. Their Rust programming language has the most tyrannical community. Firefox OS was a massive failure. The
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To be fair, for a long time Linux as a desktop would have been not a real option without Mozilla. It was the only usable browser apart from Opera, which wasn't open. So I'd say they have done a lot.
I'd be interested why you judge Firefox to being slow and bloated. That is not something I experience.
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I would care, if they'd made Linux an equal platform and released initial versions to it. Unfortunately, this news is just establishing that Microsoft will treat Linux as a second class platform and if they do release Edge for it nobody should be confident about it being well-maintained or not disappearing.
Edge is just Microsoft's latest long term attempt to leverage a browser to sell Windows. Yes, at the moment Edge is basically Chromium. That's the embrace stage which they use to gain popularity. Next, if
Believe it or not, this would be welcome (Score:2, Informative)
I wouldn't use Edge as my personal browser. But as a web application developer I do work on projects that need to support Edge. Anything that will allow me to work using the system / tools of my choice without having to rely on VMs, dual-booting or having a separate system is a welcome advantage. I hope this actually happens,.
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Office on Linux? Separate machines. Doesn't anybody look at tools as individual and separate items?
Not if you end up having to carry multiple laptops with you in order to work in multiple environments while away from home or the office.
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Then there's the argument that by supporting Edge you are encouraging users to use it, and thus expose themselves to all of the horrors it brings with. It's best that it remains an icon at the bottom of their screen that they are assiduously trained never to click, ever, for any reason.
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You can also start looking for a new job now.
Don't be silly. Even here in 2019 the ability to support outdated IE garbage is still an marketable skill. For all the stupidity around the browser issues in the late 90s one thing Microsoft browsers are universally known for is stable and long term job opportunities for web developers.
If your employer is incapable of appreciating the lessons of the past, you owe it to yourself to find another place to work.
Holy crap. You would advocate deciding your employer exclusively based on them not supporting a standard browser that still has a 6% marketshare overall and a far larger than that market share in businesses? Are you off your
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Last I checked the customer decides which browser you support. Don't like it? Get another job
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Last I checked the customer decides which browser you support. Don't like it? Get another job
That's literally what I said. Maybe you really do work for Microsoft, you're certainly sufficiently incompetent.
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Maybe you don't have real world experience developing websites
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and thus expose themselves to all of the horrors it brings with.
What horrors? Chromium with a skin?
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Yep. They should ignore standards and just focus on Chrome
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Microsoft is sending a summer intern to training classes on apt and RPM.
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Hm, I could offer Professional Services for training people how to develop dpkgs and rpms from upstream tarballs. I do a lot of both.
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Which fails for distributions that use neither .rpm nor .deb.
Re: Embrace that Linux! (Score:2)
It doesn't need to, no, but Chrome handles its own updates, so an Edge that doesn't handle its own updates won't keep up with Chrome.
Next Windows will be Linux-based ? (Score:1)
Based on the rumors I read about the next version of Windows, it will be Linux in the backend with the "Desktop component" a subscriptiion-only service. Yep, no one will be able to pay only once for Windows anymore.
It will also help discredit Linux (look, it is Linux based and you have to pay a _subscription_ for it!).
So this looks like a test run for Edge on the next version of Windows.
As for the next version of Windows, keep in mind that M$ makes most of its money from Azure and from hosting virtually eve
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Based on the rumors I read about the next version of Windows, it will be Linux in the backend with the "Desktop component" a subscriptiion-only service. Yep, no one will be able to pay only once for Windows anymore.
I pay very attention to such rumors and I have never heard any such rumors. But lets analyze this statement based on logic. You are saying that Microsoft is going to abandoned the most successful kernel in the history of computing, one they have invested hundreds of million if not billions of dollars in development. They are going to abandoned it for open source kernel with poor device support, for what reason? An yes, compared to Windows, linux has poor device support. What is the logic behind MIcr
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Only NT is not the most successful kernel in the history of computing, it's dominant on desktop computers but that's a declining market, and it has a reasonable presence in corporate servers.
Linux is more likely the most successful kernel in history, it dominates mobile via android, dominates hpc, and is on billions of embedded devices that most people don't even realise. In most people's homes, the instances of linux outnumber windows thanks to routers, tv sets, phones, set top boxes etc.
Linux also has far
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Linux is more likely the most successful kernel in history
First of all the thread is not about embedded devices, or phones, or cars. It's about desktops and servers, computers.
https://www.computerhope.com/i... [computerhope.com]
Even if we included phones, aka android, you can see in this chart,
https://www.computerhope.com/i... [computerhope.com]
That linux only has a slight edge over windows. If you can call 4 billion devices slight. But if you just look at desktops and don't count android windows dominates everything. Linux is barely a blip on the chart.
So, windows, the most dominate co
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Well first of all we are not talking about phones, routers, TVs, or cars. We are talking about where Microsoft lives, desktops, laptops, and servers. The only place that linux exceeds windows installs in that area is servers. Every place else windows completely dominates these installs by almost 50 times.
So no, there is no chance that microsoft will abandon the most successful kernel in computer history for linux. Not going to happen.
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So there's that my anecdotal experience.
One of two things happened to you. You bought a laptop that was specifically designed with linux support in mind, or you got lucky. Probably the latter than the former. Laptop support is one of the worse examples you could have come up with. Most laptop installs with linux on them have devices that don't work or barely work. Bluetooth and wifi being among the worse. This doesn't mean you can't make it work, if you are willing to dig through obscure blogs and install drivers forever in beta test. T
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Linux has had better device support than MS Windows since the early oughts
No it hasn't. One of the biggest issues in the early days was device support on linux. I was there in the early days. I remember having to call manufactures to see if they supported linux. Most of the time they would laugh or ask "whats linux?" In the early days we discussed how to figure out what devices where doing and how to get them to work under linux. I remember compiling custom modules for my kernel and hoping they would work.
Linux support for hardware is much better today but it still not
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I believe these ideas come from the recent announcement that Windows Subsystem for Linux will use a real Linux kernel. It's still running under the Windows Executive.
Azure is mostly running on Windows Server, too. Even the "serverless" services like Azure Database for PostgreSQL are running on Windows.
Windows isn't going away.
Screw that (Score:2)
Give me IE 6. I could use a double charge of rates again
Lame move if it ever materializes... (Score:2)
The biggest tease the company dropped was its apparent willingness to release an Edge version for Linux -- a move that was once considered inconceivable
Of what use would porting Edge to Linux be if it's ineffectual on its own "native" platform?
What troubles me is that [desktop] Linux itself is ineffectual. Someone high up there is thinking: Ohh, let's port this thing to another anemic desktop platform...we're bound to succeed...Really!!
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I've run into some issues from time to time with Libreoffice, typically with incredibly complex multiply-cross-linked spreadsheets using vlookup and pivot tables.
Libreoffice is quite good, and I make-do with it, but I can't deny that Microsoft's productivity suite is just a little bit better.
And like the GP post, I would pay for it if they offered it for my OS. They don't though. And no, I will not pay for an online version.
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They tried to attack Linux at the patent level and lost BADLY. The method of operation for Microsoft is out of character.
They're just going back to what they think they know works. Embrace, extend, and then extinguish. You nailed it. Yes, Microsoft is still evil. And crappy at programming / UI design. Windows 10. LOL
On Windows 10 you can now run Linux. They just release v2 of it with better kernel support, integration with their bastard child powershell, etc. Old tricks: embrace extend extinguish.
They're st
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I don't trust MS. But what I really hate is their software and user interfaces. They suck, they always have.
Not inconcievable. (Score:4, Interesting)
I Remember using IE 4 or IE 5 on Unix (Solaris) back in the late 1990's. While Microsoft actively avoided porting it to Linux, the Unix version did indeed work and meant it wasn't as impossible to port as Microsoft Stated. It really didn't give us any advantages of Netscape of the time, mostly because your browsing experience during this time frame relied on plugins, such as Flash, a wide available font list, and Active X (which wouldn't run on a Unix environment). It did allow those crappy websites at the time, that did a check to see what browser you were using to only block your browser for no reason what so ever to run.
During this time Microsoft was under a big anti-trust lawsuit so they did these things to show that they are not so bad, but not expecting people to use them.
Today I don't think Microsoft sees Linux as a threat to its Consumer Windows Market. However Microsoft had failed on the mobile market, where Linux (with Android) is very strong. So with Microsoft new love of Linux is really allowing them to diversity their product base, as Linux won't kill them on the desktop, but it hits Apple on the mobile market, and Microsoft needs to stay relevant otherwise they can go out of business.
There is always an endgame. (Score:2)
I'll do anything for you, Microsoft
I suspect this is what they want all open source developers to say.
to keep us from creating Linux binaries (Score:2)
Uh huh, binaries.
Microsoft is killing windows (Score:2)
It's makes sense for MS to kill Windows. Windows will continue to grow increasingly complicated and become every more difficult to support legacy software at a time when competition from Google, Apple, and Linux is providing regular free OS upgrades. The near, medium, and long term future of software is services. I wouldn't be surprised if Microsoft soon ports Office to Linux and then begins to abandon support for Windows for legacy software.
Re:Microsoft is killing windows (Score:4, Insightful)
It's not Microsoft abandoning Win32 legacy software. They're well on their way - driven mostly by a desire to move to a more lucrative, subscription-based business model. But the problem is all the other legacy Win32 software. That stuff's expensive to rewrite, and as long as there's even one mission critical bit, no business is going to abandon Windows wholesale. Those lucky few newer businesses without legacy needs might.
But in any case, Microsoft still makes a ton of money off of those Windows licenses that come with every new computer. They're not going to abandon that - even if they no longer produce the desktop version of Office. And even if they wanted to save development costs by switching to a Linux kernel, they'd still go with a Win32 UI on top of it. The world - mostly - still demands it. And I speak as a Linux-only user, who still resorts to WINE (and occasionally RDP) to get my work done...
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as long as there's even one mission critical bit, no business is going to abandon Windows wholesale.
That's all the more reason for MS to kill Windows. MS doesn't make any money on your mission critical Win32 software, but they have to spend massive effort making sure that every Windows version is backwards compatible. If they break compatibility with your 20 year old software, they get blamed.
It would be better for MS to Open Source Win32 and migrate it to Linux. That way, if you want to keep it, you have an option and let everyone else worry about support for it.
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They still make enough money on Windows licenses to not consider killing Windows. Of course, were they to switch to a Linux kernel with the Win32 API on top, they'd save some development costs. And of course, a Microsoft-blessed Win32 layer would be more likely to run all apps than WINE ever could, so 'Microsoft Linux' would immediately dominate. But open sourced? Never. Why would they do that, when it would cost them the ability to sell Win32 desktop licenses?
Still, basing Windows on a Linux kernel co
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Why would they do that, when it would cost them the ability to sell Win32 desktop licenses?
I still hold that it makes sense. You have to think long term on this one. Every year, with every new update of windows, it becomes harder and harder to support the old software. MS is being held to a promise that's impossible to keep -perfect compatibility for all historic software forever. Every year that becomes more and more expensive. If you just plot out that to it's logical extreme, it will be come more costly for MS to continue supporting all of the historic software then it will to produce new feat
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Well, if they're really abandoning Win32, then they could just stop changing it - and support would no longer 'become more and more expensive every year'. It would have the same effect as open-sourcing it. Except that they'd still get to charge for it.
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The only thing out of Microsoft that I want besides their admittedly good keyboards and mice would be a version of Office that runs natively on Linux. They've had versions that run natively on OSX from the beginning of that OS, I can't imagine that it would be so much harder to port it to Linux if they really wanted to. Hell, I'd even be willing to pay retail price for it.
But I'm not going to use an online version of Office requiring a subscription. Libreoffice does enough that short of the real-deal, I
No... (Score:1)
Finally Microsoft got it right (Score:1)
Too bad Microsoft took 4 years to figure out EdgeHTML was going nowhere. At least now they will have a multi platform browser that competes. I use the developer version of Edge Chromium everyday and I think its faster without all the Google crap, although I'm sure Microsoft will replace some of that with their own.
Unconscionable (Score:1)
Not on my machine (Score:2)
Clearly, no.
What's the use case? On Windows, power users have long since gotten into the habit of downloading an alternate browser as the first action on any new computer. The only users of IE and later Edge were those casual enough of unsophisticated enough to use Windows out of the box. That set of users are as unlikely to be on any version of Linux as ...some really unlikely thing... (To paraphrase Pratchett, as I couldn't come up with anything that unlikely.)
Even if Edge was the greatest thing since
Wonderful, can't wait! (Score:2)
Yet another platform on which I won't use a Microsoft browser!
This would have mattered with EdgeHTML and Chakra (Score:2)
This would have mattered if Microsoft Edge were going to still use the EdgeHTML and Chakra engines, but they're not.
We don't need every browser using Blink/WebKit and V8 anymore.
not on my linux computers (Score:2)
No way I will install it on my linux computers. I even refuse to use it in windows
Burned by IE for Unix (Score:2)
Some of us remember MS's antics with IE on Unix (Solaris and HP-UX). This was an era when companies were supposed to pay to license Netscape. MS launched free IE and claimed you could have the same web experience on all your platforms. Great!
But no sooner had MS IE become the standard, they dropped Unix IE like a hot stone. If you want the Internet, you need Windows. This ultimately led to the locked in disaster that was IE6!
As that great orator said "Fool me once you can't get fooled again."
They need a new project manager... (Score:1)
This seems like a bad direction versus something with a little shorter turn around time like being able to view and delete individual cookies... four years later.