News: 1600800133

More likely, this is a case of MS following the idiom "keep your friends close and your enemies closer".

Increasingly irreverent desktop software company ports wrapper around dominant Linux browser to Linux.

News at 11

"Increasingly irreverent"

They may well be. Hadn't really considered their religious views, up til now.

My android phone autocomplete is obviously possessed

I think we all know that MS' religious beliefs involve the guy represented in the icon to the upper right --->

Chrome/Chromium dominant on Linux? This seems highly doubtful to me.

Do you have any sources to support that claim? (I'm asking out of genuine interest, I couldn't find browser market share for each OS )

It's a Dominant Linux browser.

Webkit was a kde project. It was written for Linux and took over the world when Apple and Google based their browsers on it.

Naturally it has morphed a fair bit since then, but I thinks its fair to call it a dominant linux browser.

This is clearly newsworthy but Microsoft have done fsck all to make chromium work on Linux.

Errr. no it doesn't, it means Microsoft are playing a different game. They are selling services now, even the Xbox and game playing is a service from them, offered as a subscription service.

Windows is no longer offering any income from sales as such, it is like the hardware Apple sells, it is self sustaining but does not support the company, Azure and subscriptions for Office 365 do.

Edge with chormium does this as well, it provides users with an opportunity to use Microsoft's services in the background and thus allows them to slurp your data, they unpicked 30+ Google services from the browser before releasing it as Edge, something none of the other Chromium based browsers have been able to do. It would be interesting to see if MS offers 3rd parties a chice of Chromium browsers, one that uses Google and one that uses MS services, or even one with none, but I would assume that woudl break the browser.

Just imagine a "lipstick on a pig" comment here.

"keep your friends close and your enemies closer"

I was actually thinking "Embrace, Extend, Extinguish" but yours will do, too.

Even though it's based on open source technology, will the Micros~1 browser for Linux be OPEN SOURCE? Will it PHONE HOME? will it (eventually) REQUIRE A Micros~1 logon so you can be more easily TRACKED? Will it even WORK on FreeBSD? Will it require MONO and/or ".Not Core" ???

And I ~shudder~ to consider the implications of what a Micros~1 browser for Linux might haul in with its dependency tree... (and many of us REALLY hated it when Debian's gnome included 'tomboy' and hauled in ALL of mono, a decade or so ago - imagine what the Micros~1 browser will "need")

I think you have missed the point. Microsoft are a co contributor to Chromimum.They have their own agenda and may stop Google dominating the Open Source project as they do at the moment, as in we want this Google benefiting feature and you will all have it too.

Now on Linux you can chose between giving all your data to the Devil (all Chromimum based browsers except edge) or his brother (Microsoft New Edge) and use their associated services in the background or use Firefox. That is the choice.

There are no added extras it is otherwise the same bar Google services, but including all extensions which are now a case of pick your store.

they did'nt port IE to linux....

Cant think office 2020 will be far behind.. and thus the masses cheered as they could dump windows forever

Almost all Office users are using the online version - which now works pretty well from Linux.

With Edge all of sharepoint should work

>> Almost all Office users are using the online version

I find that highly unlikely. If anything because there is no crack for the cloud stuff. Unless of course you mean Outlook and Teams opens up pdf / word documents in an annoying "word-like" viewer before you can download and open them in a proper program.

Because IE is dead. MS even killed IE8, so any OS using it for Windows or MS Update, say reinstalled X-Ray machine, can no longer connect to MS Servers. Fails on HTTPS and FTP. VMware ends IE11 support next year. MS has even killed their own Edge, and is using the guts of Chrome (Chromium?) in it now.

I was trying to get updates and converters for Office 2003 and Office 2007. MS's site search is now useless for that, you have to search cnet instead. MS wants to rent you Office 365. Not office as you know it. But then The Ribbon (Office 2007 and later?) isn't Office as you know it. Easier to find the third party "Recreate the Traditional Menus" plugin than any MS service pack or plugin for real versions of Office (i.e. ones that came on CD and didn't need the Internet, even the phone activation still works, though you may need to search the Internet to find the phone numbers).

1-800-930-031 to activate all MS Products in Ireland. No quiz any more on why you are reinstalling, fully automated.

"I was trying to get updates and converters for Office 2003 and Office 2007."

You were trying to get updates for 13 year old software and seem surprised you can't find it?

MS is actually really good about things like that. They even still had MS-DOS at one point in time.

@"You were trying to get updates for 13 year old software and seem surprised you can't find it?"

I am surpirised since I found them fine, also once WU is set for apps as well as OS then it still finds them fine too.

Good software just works forever, just because MS keep fking up the reinvention of the wheel doesn't mean you have to go along with them. Just wait until they release a version where all the good stuff works and the new stuff is actually useful.

Hence why I am waiting for windows21

I honestly can't remember IE for Linux, but I suspect they did. I know I did run IE 5.something on Solaris at one point.

IE 6 and later were windows only. IE 5 was also available on Mac Classic, OSX, Solaris and HPUX. It was released in 1999. Linux at that time was beginning to be useable as a daily driver, but not really used much outside of student bedrooms.

I knew of many companies running their whole Internet platform on Linux back in 1999, with entire dev teams using it on the desktop as well. First commercial system I saw running on Linux was 1996, at the factory of a certain large Japanese car manufacturer in Swindon. It was definitely beyond just student and hobbyist use by then.

or is this just another way of MS slurping data from more users.

Snog, Marry or Avoid?

Avoid!

That's what I was thinking. Then I read about something called Share point? in the comments above.

Sounds like Google has won?

I believe MS has scrapped IE and their previous in house Edge on Windows for an Edge Branded Chromium.

Google has what percentage on each platform and what with Chrome and what % of what's left is based on Chromium?

I had to switch to Brave on Android, because Mozilla made Firefox nearly unusable. I've been using firefox derived Waterfox so as to have Classic Theme Restorer. I wonder how long that will last before I have to use Chromium.

So more about the total failure of IE and Firefox vs Google than Windows vs Linux. Firefox was a market leader and strangled themselves with copying Google.

>I believe MS has scrapped IE and their previous in house Edge on Windows for an Edge Branded Chromium.

But when this internet craze ends Microsoft will be the real winner

I started using Bromite on Android given all the problems I've had with Firefox. I've been a long time Mozilla user, but a this point would have a hard time recommending Firefox to people. Sticking with FF for now on Windows and Linux, but I can't say a future switch is off the table. Honestly, my choice to use FF over Chromium is really just ideological.

No thanks, MS. Firefox is working just fine for me on Linux.

Firefox is working reasonably well for me on Linux (with one annoying bug, it's spell checking against South African English rather than the UK English it is actually set to in preferences).

That aside, I can't see me ever using an MS browser on Linux. The concept sounds rather disturbing, rather like inviting a door to door Window salesman into your home.

... rather like inviting a door to door Window salesman into your home.

It is much worse than that.

Can't believe that anyone could possibly consider being so reckless. ie: downright stupid.

I've said it once and will keep saying it:

Install/run MS software/code inside my Linux box?

Not till hell freezes over.

Twice.

O.

I totally agree with your sentiments, and will be leaving Edge off my system. But, I did install Visual Studio Code, and it actually works quite well ... despite my OS choice of Debian Testing / Gnome3 / Wayland.

Icon. Because.

But with all the commits MS have made to Linux, you are using MS code already.

@"That aside, I can't see me ever using an MS browser on Linux" when MS start paying distributors to include it and set as default browser.

MS are doing their sneaky "let me just help you with that" before they grab it and make everything based upon MS versions of existing standards SEE MS v Sun

Firefox has turned to absolute shite but there's not really anything better. For example, Pale Moon dropped things like fine-grained cookie control as well, so it's not a replacement.

Does Edge do the Chrome stupidity of automatically adding www or m and automatically changing even clicked links to https, because yesterday the top level of the site you were testing DID support HTTPS, but for various reasons it doesn't now and you really really want to load the http:// version?

Also a wildcard *.. isn't a true subdomain wildcard as https://www... will fail. Though Chrome is sure that's what you mean by http://..

You can fix it with a rewrite rule AND totally clearing Chrome's Cache. Sometimes.

Will it open PDFs even when not asked to open them?

Haha *Falls over*

Like when Microsoft released Internet Explorer for Solaris on SUN SPARC. I RUSHED to install their shit code on my vastly superior architecture (had a Sparc 25, two Ultra 5s and an Ultra 10 in my spare bedroom). Not.

I'll install Edge on my Linux box about the heat death of the fucking Universe.

While I haven't tried the Chromium based Edge, I can see that it maybe useful for environment of mixed Windows, Macs and Linux machines to all have the same browsers but you don't want to go with Chrome, but you want maximum compatibly with badly written site that only usually work properly in the Google browser.

Personally though I would just go with pure Chromium before Google or Microsoft fiddled around with it, Brave or Vivaldi as they are also multi platform and use the same rendering engine.

Well, it's another browser for web developers to have to test against.. They'll love that.

No need. It's Chromium. If you don't use esoteric stuff it'll render like any Chromium browser.

What is the point of Edge? It's nice and all that they're contributing. But what does it offer over Chrome? What's their USP? What's their, well, edge?

I don't know the point for the Linux version, but for Windows it's part of the MS ecosystem with GPO configuration, somewhat tighter security controls (PUA blocking/SmartScreen, etc.) and IE mode because we cannot dump the need for Java in the browser (thanks Oracle EBS). So for us, it's a way to force people off IE, add some additional configuration control and security, and keep running legacy crap. A better Chrome than Chrome - just barely.

This seems to me to be the very definition of a product that no one will ever use.

From a user's point of view:

Why?

Simplicity in syncing bookmarks etc between Linux and Windows versions would be one thing.

Edge is a fork of Chrome

Chrome is a fork of Safari

Safari is a fork of Konqueror, which was released on Linux about a quarter of a century ago.

First the Navigator, then the Explorer, then the Conqueror, with a K, because that’s how the KDE project names things.

Internet Explorer for UNIX returns! Surely you haven't forgotten that one? Yes, it really is true that Micros~1 once made a browser for Solaris and HP-UX.

Worst of both worlds!

So the browser wars were for nothing?!!!