Microsoft has agreed to bow down to Google's monopoly on the internet yet again, by confirming that it will move its Edge browser to the same web rendering engine as Chrome.
In a blog post on the Mozilla website, creator of rival web browser Firefox, Chris Beard states that "by adopting Chromium, Microsoft hands over control of even more of online life to Google".
Microsoft building a web browser using Chromium is a huge deal, and it showcases Microsoft's true commitment to building the best browser it can.
Microsoft has given Edge numerous advantages in the war on retention.
The new Edge won't be a Universal Windows Platform app in order to make it usable outside of Windows 10, which accounts for about half of all Windows installations.
Microsoft has confirmed that it's changing the way it develops Edge web browser for Windows 10. The rationale here being making developmental work easy across all platforms but it won't hurt to increase the user base as well.
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On the mobile front, Microsoft's Edge browser was built without the EdgeHTML engine.
Safari could join Firefox, Chrome, and Edge support for Web Authentication. Microsoft explained those details about a year ago, but that's why its present Chromium shift will be geared to Edge on the Windows desktop.
In a slightly cheeky tweet Sean Lyndersay, principal lead program manager for Microsoft Edge, pointed out that his team needs new developers for the browser. Beyond that, Edge will be coming to MacOS for the first time.
Edge for the desktop now just runs on Windows 10, but the promise of bringing Edge to all supported Windows versions suggests that Microsoft will build it for Windows 7 and Windows 8.1, too, as well as associated Windows Server products. Edge currently suffers from compatibility issues with some websites, many of which are now optimized to run properly on Chrome. We do expect to offer a new WebView that apps can choose to use based on the new rendering engine. But, maybe the switch to Chromium and the launch on Mac can revitalize the browser. Likely that's the plan, although Microsoft hasn't specifically said so, at least in recent public announcements.
Microsoft Edge will evolve according to Microsoft. "We look forward to working with Microsoft and the web standards community to advance the open web, support user choice, and deliver great browsing experiences". There's a lot of reasons for this change, and the move is a good one, but it's also a little sad for the web as a whole.
The goal is to help Edge play better with current Web standards and with other Chromium-based browsers, such as Google Chrome. In the near term, the company said it intends to finish porting the Chromium codebase to support ARM-64, to improve accessibility in Chromium via Microsoft assistive technology, to add support for modern input mechanisms like touch controls, and to contribute to ongoing security hardening.
