Forum Discussion
It's not Edge if it doesn't have these features!
Deleted I couldn't agree more. I started using Edge as my daily browser as soon as it was released on Windows 10 and even prefer it on iOS to Safari. The main reason I used Edge is because it is a smarter, more well organized browser than Chrome. The current build is just chrome with a new name. I think it will need to be stated over and over again that we still want Edge and not another Chrome. Great start!
rjansen85 Indeed, when I heard about Edge moving to Chromium engine, I thought that's all it was going to be, the rendering engine. This appears to be just a fork of the whole Chromium project with an Edge rebrand. Sure the syncing stuff for the MS ecosystem is great (why I like Edge on android, even though it's Chrome really), but a major reason I stopped using Chrome was the whole application itself became so bloated with a lot of background processes and poor performance, especially on launch and on lower spec systems. Edge also integrates well into Windows and especially in tablet mode whereas Chrome had problems and isn't a UWP app. Early days Chrome had terrible touch support unlike Edge.
That said, Edge is also becoming bloated, at least in background processes. Though I notice it's using suspended processes and not sure Chromium does.As a side thought, does the Chromium rendering engine replace or become available to our UWP apps currently using Edge engine? Similarly, can we use the new Edge as a UWP Kiosk app, given it's not UWP?
tjmoore To be fair though, just playing around with it, Edge Chromium has around 6 processes and taking 100MB, old Edge is sat there with 21 processes and 300MB, just on Google home page.
Also, running up on the tablet (Dell Venue 11 Pro, which is a slow Quad Atom Baytrail 32bit system, though decent enough for basics), and it's a lot more responsive than Chrome used to be. Haven't used Chrome on touch in a long time and looks like it's better now and also smooth scrolling seems to be working okay now. That was another thing Edge was so much better at. Some niggles though with the page not shuffling up on an input field when the touch keyboard appears which means can't see the next options below or a submit button without closing the keyboard.
Looks okay. Lacks a dark mode or adoption of the dark theme setting in Windows, but just a niggle.
A bonus is it's possible to install web sites like Facebook as an app (given the severe lack of updates to the terrible FB app in the store). Although FB seems very slow when using the links off the notifications button. Launches FB quicker than old Edge on a slow tabet though and scrolls through posts quicker. However old Edge launches much quicker into Google home page than new Edge & Chrome.
Will see. Still missing the features initially mentioned of course. Set aside tabs in particular is very useful. Though I know Chrome has/had an extension to do something like that.
I notice potential plans to launch Edge Chromium on other platforms, so that makes more sense to have it as a version of full Chromium rather than just the engine.
rjansen85 Edge on iOS is not the same Edge as on Windows. Edge on iOS is a skinned version of webkit/safari. Edge on Android is similarly already built around Blink (Chromium). Edge on Windows 10 was/is the outlier. This is one of the reasons why performance on mobile (Android/iOS) has already been at parity with the other major browsers for a while.
I see the decision here to be in perfect harmony with Microsoft's plan to abandon a unique mobile ecosystem and focus more on services.
