{"id":11300,"date":"2018-12-07T09:11:11","date_gmt":"2018-12-07T09:11:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/?p=11300"},"modified":"2018-12-07T09:14:29","modified_gmt":"2018-12-07T09:14:29","slug":"the-end-of-the-edge-browser-engine-another-pivotal-moment-in-microsofts-history","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/11300-the-end-of-the-edge-browser-engine-another-pivotal-moment-in-microsofts-history.html","title":{"rendered":"The end of the Edge browser engine. Another pivotal moment in Microsoft’s history"},"content":{"rendered":"

Microsoft\u2019s Joe Belfiore has announced<\/a> that future versions of its Edge web browser will be built on Chromium<\/a>. Chromium is an open source browser project originated by Google, which uses it for Chrome. The browser engine is Blink, which was forked from WebKit in April 2013.<\/p>\n

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Belfiore does not specify what will happen to Chakra, the JavaScript engine used by Edge, but it seems likely that future versions of Edge will use the Chrome V8 engine instead.<\/p>\n

There is plenty of logic behind the move. The immediate benefit to Microsoft in having its own browser engine is rather small. Chromium-based Edge will still have Microsoft\u2019s branding and can still have unique features. It opens an easy route to cross-platform Edge, not only for Android, but also for MacOS and potentially Linux. It will improve web compatibility because all web developers know their stuff has to run properly in Chrome.<\/p>\n

This is still a remarkable moment. The technology behind Edge goes right back to Trident, the Internet Explorer engine introduced in 1997. In the Nineties, winning the browser wars was seen as crucial to the future of the company, as Microsoft feared that users working mostly in the browser would no longer be hooked to Windows.<\/p>\n

Today those fears have somewhat come to pass; and Windows does indeed face a threat, especially from Chrome OS for laptops, and of course from iOS and Android on mobile, though it turns out that internet-connected apps are just as important. Since Microsoft is not doing too well with its app store either, there are challenges ahead for Microsoft\u2019s desktop operating system.<\/p>\n

The difference is that today Microsoft cares more about its cloud platform. Replacing a Windows-only building block with a cross-platform one is therefore strategically more valuable than the opportunity to make Edge a key attraction of Windows, which was in any case unsuccessful.<\/p>\n

The downside though (and it is a big one) is that the disappearance of the Edge engine means there is only Mozilla\u2019s Gecko (used by Firefox), and WebKit, used by Apple\u2019s Safari browser, remaining as mainstream alternatives to Chromium. Browser monoculture is drawing closer then, though the use of open source lessens the risk that any one company (it would be Google in this instance) will be able to take advantage.<\/p>\n

Internet Explorer was an unhealthy monoculture during its years of domination, oddly not because of all its hooks to Windows, but because Microsoft stagnated its development in order to promote its Windows-based application platform (at least, that is my interpretation of what happened). <\/p>\n

Let me add that this is a sad moment for the Edge team. I like Edge and there was lots of good work done to make it an excellent web browser.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Microsoft\u2019s Joe Belfiore has announced that future versions of its Edge web browser will be built on Chromium. Chromium is an open source browser project originated by Google, which uses it for Chrome. The browser engine is Blink, which was forked from WebKit in April 2013. Belfiore does not specify what will happen to Chakra, … Continue reading The end of the Edge browser engine. Another pivotal moment in Microsoft’s history<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[55,56,80,1519],"tags":[260,359,422,586],"class_list":["post-11300","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-microsoft","category-mobile","category-software-development","category-tech","tag-chromium","tag-edge","tag-google","tag-microsoft"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11300","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11300"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11300\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11302,"href":"https:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11300\/revisions\/11302"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11300"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11300"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11300"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}