Microsoft Is Going Ahead And Rebuilding Edge Browser Atop Chromium

[Guest]

Well we need a variety of browser engines and microsoft goes with google, like all others except of mozilla and some small browser teams. A good news would be microsoft drops DirectCompute in favor of OpenCL or microsoft drops DX12 in favor of Vulkan.

And if NVIDIA would finally drop CUDA in favour of OpenCL, and Apple dropped Metal in favour of Vulkan, the world will be sane again and developers will breathe a huge sigh of relief.

Unfortunately, it's very unlike to happen.

[ZeroPointEnergy]

Wait, I don't get it. Isn't chromium based on webkit and that was based on khtml which was LGPL?

[gbcox]

I know very well the difference between free and open source software, many projects accepted in Gnu / Linux are open source, Chromium is not the only one, Ubuntu self-defines open source and most of the community of Gnu / Linux accepts open source projects, this I see only grudge with Chromium.

You need to re-read my comment. You're completely missing the point.

[Flaburgan]

It is a very bad news indeed. To those who don't get why as one open-source seems better than one open and one closed engine, the problem here is monopoly.
Remember that in our world based on profits, we won't do anything if it is not profitable. So if I can support 90% of my visitors by testing only one engine, why would I bother test the others? So I will start developing website not the way the norm tells me to do, but the way blink supports it. **A chromium monopoly means the end of the W3C standards** and with them, the end of the free Web. This is one of the worst news of the year.

[Charlie68]

You need to re-read my comment. You're completely missing the point.

I understand very well the point, Microsoft's browser will be based on an open source engine instead of being a proprietary engine, for me it's a half-win. I understand your speech that this decreases the choice, but it was still a choice between a proprietary software and an open source, no one will miss it. It would be different if this happened with Firefox, because at Chromium the only alternative is Firefox, nothing has changed.

[jpg44]

If Chromium was a legitimate open project or standard it would be fine. But it isn't - its holistically Google controlled, with contributors signing over copyright to Google via CLA and changes requiring a signoff by Google employees.

We are absolutely living in a time where Google determines what the Internet is, not any standards organization or consortium of disparate interests. We already lived through Microsoft determining what the Internet was and it was a dark age. The only difference that for Microsoft the Internet was competition to their software products in the early 00s - so crippling it via IE was practical. For Google their products are all online, so it isn't their prerogative to cripple the Internet but cripple the non-Google Internet. Which, because its much less apparent its harm, can be much more heinous with greater long term ramifications from its damage.

This isnt quite true, anyone can fork chromium and make their own browser using its code. Only to get code into Google's official release do you have to sign anything

[moriel5]

i had thought that Edge was already partially based upon Chromium?
Back when I was an insider (thanks to Realtek's horrid WiFi drivers, I had moved to Linux), I remember that Edge, back at the first public version of Windows 10, as well as slightly before, Edge's versions tracked Chromium versions (with an ever lengthening gap).

[TemplarGR]

It is a very bad news indeed. To those who don't get why as one open-source seems better than one open and one closed engine, the problem here is monopoly.
Remember that in our world based on profits, we won't do anything if it is not profitable. So if I can support 90% of my visitors by testing only one engine, why would I bother test the others? So I will start developing website not the way the norm tells me to do, but the way blink supports it. **A chromium monopoly means the end of the W3C standards** and with them, the end of the free Web. This is one of the worst news of the year.

Not really. A Chromium monopoly does not mean the "end" of W3C standards, it just means that Chromium standards will be the new W3C standards... That's not necessarily a bad thing...

Either way, if it is open source on a proper licence and you can use it anywhere, why does it matter?

[microcode]

Honestly, Mozilla has neglected Gecko for about a decade. It is riddled with bugs, especially around SVG, and is a pain in the ass to develop for. I really hope they hire some more actual technical staff who are willing to do the tough but necessary work of making Gecko not a steaming heap of shit; because it will soon be the only alternative browser engine left in the game.

I certainly can't use Firefox on a day-to-day basis, and it makes building websites harder.

[torsionbar28]

Yeah. Let's call it the last person standing. Don't be sexist

Ahem, the term is 'Ze'. You racist KKK Nazi bigot islamophobe.