Microsoft Edge 75 (Chromium-based) First Impressions

[lexluthermiester]

While Mozilla, as a company, may be more trustworthy

They believe and behave in transparency, so to me, that's a big point in their favor.

the FF browser has a long history of having the most vulnerabilities

While that is true, all browsers have a history of vulnerabilities. At least with Mozilla they're up front and open about it.

That's why I use Pale Moon

Agreed. Palemoon is a great browser! I do use it for some tasks.

 

[Bill_Bright]

Conspiracy? lol

And who would they be conspiring with?

If anyone does plan on installing that preview build of Edge, keep in mind it is just that, a "preview build". If you go through the link I provided above first, please note the following,

In these first builds we are very much focused on the fundamentals and have not yet included a wide range of feature and language support that will come later. You’ll start to see differences from the current Microsoft Edge including subtle design finishes, support for a broader selection of extensions and the ability to manage your sign-in profile. We look forward to people starting to kick the tires and will be refining the feature set over time based on the feedback we receive.

Like the Windows Insider program, Microsoft wants and depends on feedback from early users. Constructive criticism is good.

@Bill_Bright To be fair, the rendering engine in IE wasn't good. Always behind the curve on web standards.

See, this is what I was talking about. "Always behind the curve"? Not hardly. In recent years, yes.

And for sure, some of the problem was Microsoft expecting sites to adhere to Microsoft standards. And that worked for many years. If IE hadn't worked so well for so many years, it would not have pushed out my favorite, Netscape - which I gave up only after being threatened with job termination. But it did not take me long to set aside my biases and understand that IE was a darn good browser too.

At least with Mozilla they're up front and open about it.

And I will give them credit for coming out with patches pretty quick too. The point is, however, IE was not bad, it was not unsafe. If you used FF, you could still get infected, you still needed to do all the things necessary for "practicing safe computing" regardless the browser of your choice. People hated IE because people hated Microsoft - at least the Big Brother side of Microsoft. Not because IE was bad though that is what many wanted everyone to believe.

FTR, I hated the Big Brother side of MS too. As I have said many times, many of the plans by the marketing weenies and policies of the executives were just plain horrible and if they just kept their grubby paws out of the developers way, things would be great because in spite of what many think and want us to believe, the developers at MS are top notch.

 

[Sasqui]

And who would they be conspiring with?

Google... I assume you have no sense of humor.

 

[lexluthermiester]

you still needed to do all the things necessary for "practicing safe computing" regardless the browser of your choice.

This we agree complete on. People still need to take the time to learn a good, secure computing ethic.

 

[John Naylor]

Our policy, since most folks work from home a significant % of the time, is to allow employees to use whatever Office Suite, browser, etc they prefer whether here or at home. We provide and support the PCs at both. Only hard exception is AutoCAD as sharing files is tedious and worrisome. Only restrictions we have ever had were client initiated as when we were doing work for a certain federal agencies, we were not permitted to use MS Office; this was back in the day of the "concept" viruses and I guess someone circulated a memo I guess stating that this could lead to the fall of civilization as we know it. But we don't tell clients what to do, I have learned that if ya don't do what your clients and wife want, then you don't get what you want. And I know what you're thinking ... But I am referring to repeat business (client) and peace and quiet (Wife),

Our problem was, with identical machines with identical OS installs and identical software, one machine would work just fine with Chrome and the other was totally boinky. Spent hours and hours trying to figure out WTH and finally just gave up. Removing Chrome solved the problem. I still don't know what problem is other than i don't have to deal with it anymore. As for Chrome versus Edge on data mining ... two sides of the same coin.

On the personal side, I find FF the most functional and having the most choices .... privacy options improve with each release. As it's open source it's to be exected that users feel safer using it, from a privacy perspective, than other closed alternatives since anyone can examine it. As for the "infection stuff" in over 230 machine-years (No, of machines in use x Years of each use), we have never "had" an infection. In that time, have had about a dozen false positives, most of those associated while converting spreadsheet based tools to In Game Applets for Saga of Ryzom Game. I handle the math side, buddy does the WebIG programming and it was some Delphi DB thing that some vendors AV tends to trip over. In each case it was submitted to vendor and determined to be a FP. With a) a good hardware firewall, b) a good subscription based AV / Malware Suite and c) sound user practices, you should have little to fear from infections... that being said, I think given the choices availabe, it still makes perfect sense to avoid anything with a history of vulnerbilities

 

[GoldenX]

ROTFL

Yeah right! Then answer this. Did you "stop" getting infected just by switching to another browser? Your answer is likely one of two. (1) I didn't get infected before or (2) I also installed a firewall, swapped or added a A/V, stopped clicking on every link, cleaned out the clutter, installed a router and more - same things needed regardless the browser.

IE was a great browser for many many years. But in recent years, it could not keep up with the times and newer threats. Microsoft's mistake was trying to keep patching it. They should have retired it when W8 came out.
Yeah right.

For anyone not pre-set in their anti-Edge, MS bashing ways, Microsoft has made available the official pre-release version through here. It is recommended any unofficial versions be uninstalled first.

Only IE allowed downloads to autoexec on their own. Only IE can freeze while doing nothing. You must be the first person I've ever seen defending this monstrosity.
IE didn't work well, it had no competition. That slightly different.

 

[lexluthermiester]

hat being said, I think given the choices availabe, it still makes perfect sense to avoid anything with a history of vulnerbilities

But that would mean avoiding the internet entirely as every OS and browser in existence have been subject to vulnerabilities of one kind or another, establishing a history.

 

[Bill_Bright]

Google... I assume you have no sense of humor.

When it comes to technical discussions in technical forums, that is pretty much true. And I won't apologize for that either. That said, you did put the lol in there so I did, in this case, assume you were joking. It just really made no sense because Google wants Edge to do well too, since it is based on Chromium. So it just wasn't a good joke either.

when we were doing work for a certain federal agencies, we were not permitted to use MS Office

That is odd as I worked for the federal government (DoD and State Department) for decades and our users were ONLY allowed to use MS Office on Windows systems. What we did see banned, however, was upgrading to Vista, IE7 and for awhile, Office 2007. Those systems had to stay with XP, IE6 and Office 2003.

it still makes perfect sense to avoid anything with a history of vulnerbilities

Then that surely leaves out FF too.

What program would you suggest that has never had vulnerabilities? MacOS? Linux? UNIX? Avanti? Vivaldi?

The fact is, the longer any software product has been around, the longer its history of vulnerabilities will be.

it had no competition.

Sure it did. Netscape ruled for many years.

Only IE can freeze while doing nothing.

Oh, wow! Now its clear you are just making stuff up.

But this is just silly now and proves my point that some are just so biased against MS they will take any and every opportunity to bash them.

 

[GoldenX]

...
Oh, wow! Now its clear you are just making stuff up.

But this is just silly now and proves my point that some are just so biased against MS they will take any and every opportunity to bash them.

Man, IE is dead, you won't receive payments for defending it now.
Speaking from experience. IE11 on any processor that isn't an FX, Core iX or better, is a slowfest. Try it yourself, grab a Pentium Silver, Atom, AMD E series, Athlon X2 and tell me how IE11, Firefox and Chrome works. Just opening a second tab is slow.
Edge was a godsend arriving too late.

 

[Aquinus]

You know, I don't really care what browser you run, so long as I can run JavaScript on it, if I were in the business of collecting information and even that isn't the end of it. Between everything that comes over via HTTP and the information you get access to via any browser in JavaScript, I would be more concerned about the sites you visit than the browser you use, if I'm going to be completely honest. You can disable JavaScript, but the experience is bound to be terrible and data can still be collected by anything that goes over HTTP(S).

The bottom line is that you shouldn't go to pages where you're not sure if you should trust it or not and trust is the keyword. People might trust Google and might not care that metrics are being gathered about them. I'm not going to say that's right or wrong, but not everyone distrusts entities that collect data. The reality is that just about everything on the internet collects data. We have web applications these days, not some Geocities website that was made using Netscape.

 

[Ravenas]

Man, IE is dead, you won't receive payments for defending it now.
Speaking from experience. IE11 on any processor that isn't an FX, Core iX or better, is a slowfest. Try it yourself, grab a Pentium Silver, Atom, AMD E series, Athlon X2 and tell me how IE11, Firefox and Chrome works. Just opening a second tab is slow.
Edge was a godsend arriving too late.

IE was only successful when developers actually used MS proprietary formats, forcing the user base to follow suit. It's a shame a large majority of the user base transferred to a data mining browser.

 

[GoldenX]

IE was only successful when developers actually used MS proprietary formats, forcing the user base to follow suit. It's a shame a large majority of the user base transferred to a data mining browser.

And now companies prefer to use that engine instead of their own.
Imagine if all games were made in unity...

 

[Bill_Bright]

Man, IE is dead, you won't receive payments for defending it now.
Speaking from experience. IE11 on any processor that isn't an FX, Core iX or better, is a slowfest. Try it yourself, grab a Pentium Silver, Atom, AMD E series, Athlon X2 and tell me how IE11, Firefox and Chrome works. Just opening a second tab is slow.
Edge was a godsend arriving too late.

IE is dead? Really? You think? Gee whiz!

Maybe that is why the very first time I mentioned IE in this thread in post #23, I slammed IE and Microsoft for scaling back maintenance on IE so it became unstable and unreliable! And yes, it became slow too. And at the same time, I bashed MS for pushing out the "half-baked, unfinished, not-ready-for-prime-time Edge" and that is why I switched to PM. So it is hardly me defending IE (or MS) to seek payments.

Yes, Edge arrived late, but not too late - it actually came too early because it clearly was not a finished product. And now, nearly 4 years after the release of W10 and Edge, it is clear the original Edge will never succeed. This entirely new Chromium based version is here in hopes to rectify all that. I think Microsoft should have thrown in the towel earlier, but I say better late than never. And I applaud them for [finally!] swallowing their pride and admitting their defeat!

I also say if you want to bash MS, Windows or IE, go for it and I will defend your right to do so with vigor. Just do it with facts, not falsehoods as you did above when you claimed that IE was the "only" browser that froze while idle, or I will defend the falsely accused with the same vigor.

There's enough factual fodder out there for MS haters to use without making stuff up!

It's a shame a large majority of the user base transferred to a data mining browser.

I agree! And the irony is many of those same people are the ones bashing MS over privacy when Google's entire business model is based on tracking the activities of their users.

And now companies prefer to use that engine instead of their own.

Why not? Chromium is an excellent browser! As long as MS parses out the Google services (as Bleeping Computer reported they were), there is nothing wrong with building upon what is good to make it better. Man has been doing this since the beginning of time.

 

[Mayclore]

I tried it out as my default browser for most of the day yesterday, and I guess my initial impression is "I would actually use this". In fact, I still am. It's snappier than Vivaldi, if a little more plain in appearance (for now).

 

[GoldenX]

@Bill_Bright try it, grab an old computer, or one with a low end cpu, test IE against Firefox and Chrome. Only IE lags.
It's no wonder all my clients ask for Chrome on their 1GB Atom N455 notebooks.

 

[Bill_Bright]

@Bill_Bright try it, grab an old computer, or one with a low end cpu, test IE against Firefox and Chrome. Only IE lags.

Wow! Did I ever say it was fast? NO!!!!!!!!!!!!! Is this thread about IE? NO!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[GoldenX]

Wow! Did I ever say it was fast? NO!!!!!!!!!!!!! Is this thread about IE? NO!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Nice tactical retreat.

If someone uses Edge for bookmark sync, the Chromium version should allow more compatible platforms. That was an unfulfilled promise of Edge, the only thing we got was an Android version that used Webview.
Can someone try if the plugin framework of normal Edge works on the Chromium one? Ublock from the store for example.

 

[lexluthermiester]

Let's get back on topic guys.

 

[trparky]

It's coming along very nicely, they've fixed a lot of issues with the last update including a bug that forced me to stop using it since it made watching YouTube videos in full-screen mode very annoying. Notifications are finally working properly too, that was another thing that was broken but now fixed. I finally have TPU notifications in the Windows 10 Action Center from Edge.

 

[Space Lynx]

In 20 years Google is going to run this world, nation states will cease to exist. Mark my words. Poor FireFox.

 

[trparky]

Poor FireFox.

Some would say that Firefox/Mozilla is killing themselves. They don't need to have anyone do it, they're doing it to themselves.

 

[theFOoL]

I use Firefox just fine and also Opera instead of Chrome

 

[lexluthermiester]

Some would say that Firefox/Mozilla is killing themselves. They don't need to have anyone do it, they're doing it to themselves.

Not sure I understand your logic here. Not trying to be aggressive at all, how do you arrive at that conclusion?

 

[trparky]

The changing of the extension platform from XUL to WebExtensions, the idea of paying some amount of money per month to have an ad-free web experience, etc. Now I understand the reasoning behind changing to WebExtensions but some believe that was a bad move since they killed crap tons of extensions in one shot.

 

[theFOoL]

As I mentioned before, until Firefox removes extensions when this payment method comes it's All Brave Browser from there. Just hopefully Mozilla won't do what I'm thinking of. That would be wrong. Firefox is open-source so yes they shouldn't do This