Microsoft - Do this to gain market share from Google Chrome

Iron Contributor

 

Change #1 - Edge should NOT resemble Internet Explorer
This is a new browser built from scratch and completely different from IE - it should look NEW. Please change Edge chromium icon that resembles internet explorer. 

 

There is a psychological aspect to this, it might appear as a small issue, but it has a big impact and Microsoft should not ignore this - If you give this browser any resemblance to IE, people will be more inclined to choose Google Chrome, over Edge Chromium, not because Edge is not a better browser than Chrome, but because it looks like the old and ugly underperforming Internet Explorer browser and people wont choose it.

 

Give Edge Chromium, a fresh, new looking icon, with new colour(s) (not the current blue) perhaps, change the name as well and do some good work to publicize your new browser. 

 

If Microsoft doesn't correct this early on, it will be a huge mistake, that will slow the adoption of Edge, and that means slower growth for Bing and slower growth in Bing ad dollars.

 

 

Change #2 - Allow all Windows versions to install Edge
Please don't restrict Edge Chromium to Windows 10 only. Google Chrome has been successful because they give everyone and every platform access. Allow all versions of Windows (Windows 7 and Windows 8.1) to be able to install Edge Chromium. 

 

 

Change #3 - Edge tied to Microsoft family safety

Please dont tie Microsoft Family Safety to Edge browser. 

 

If users want to block bad content using Microsoft Family Safety, they should not be forced to use your browser. What if your browser doesn't have what they want and they still Want Family Safety? They wont move to Windows 10.

 

Make Family Safety have the ability to manage content in all browsers as it did in Windows 7 and 8.1. I think more families will have the incentive to move to Windows 10, and that means, they will try using Edge Browser. Freedom is a greater incentive to make more people adopt your browser than the strategy of forcing people to take a particular action in order to benefit from your products. 

 

 

Change #4 - Mobile Browser & Support for all platforms

If building a browser will help Bing have more data and rake in more ad dollars, there's no reason edge should not work in Linux, Mac OS, android and iOS as well.

 

All major browsers support all plaforms, Edge should not be left behind. 

 

 

Change #5  - Loading icon - Gives  impression of a slow browser
Please change the Loading GIF icon, that shows up when a page is loading. Those many circles moving slowly, give the appearance of a slow browser. Firefox replaced slow loading GIF icon long time ago, they now have animated linear dots. Chrome has one continous line. Don't let edge have any appearance of a slow browser.

 

-- End of suggestions on how Edge can win Browser war - - 

 

 

-----------------------------------

Other technical changes 

-----------------------------------

 

Change #6 - Optimization when loading Multiple Tabs
If you open two YouTube pages, it appears the first YouTube page that you opened, slows down, because other YouTube tabs that are also trying to load. I don't know how Chrome does it, but it manages loading of mutiple tabs, fairly well. In fact, this is not for YT pages only, if you open multiple tabs for other sites simultaneously, they also act like this. 

 

Change #7 - Translator & Dictionary
Please add Translate on right click context menu in Edge Chromium

Add an inbuilt dictonary and a spell checker

Don't give us any reason to switch back to Chrome.

 

Change #8 - Extension Toolbar reset error
Once an extension has been sent to the menu, please make sure they don't come back to the tool bar. Currently, if you disable an extension that was on the tool bar, extensions that were hidden in the menu keep popping back again and everytime you have to keep hiding them. Please fix this.

 

Change #9 - Automatically picked search engines do not work consistently
Edge is supposed to pick search engines automatically. Simply search something, and it will pick it up and allow you to search from a website straight from the address bar. This search feature keeps failing. It worked OK for some time. Then it started failing for several days. This week, this feature has mysteriously started working again I don't know the next time it will stop working. Pls have it work without failing.

 

Change #10 - Extension Toolbar - Spacing
Please reduce the spacing in between extensions in the tool bar. Bigger spaces are supposed to give a clean look, but I have about 10 extension on the tool bar, they seem to be occupying too much space. 

 

8 Replies
Thank you @Henry-Williams1889 for these suggestions. I will make sure that the right peopl ont he Microsoft Edge team see this thread.

@Henry-Williams188 

 


 

Change #10 - Extension Toolbar - Spacing
Please reduce the spacing in between extensions in the tool bar. Bigger spaces are supposed to give a clean look, but I have about 10 extension on the tool bar, they seem to be occupying too much space. 

 


I agree with that. Also, the line spcing in the context menu is too wide. Please make it narrower.

@Henry-Williams1889 


@Henry-Williams1889 wrote:

 

Change #1 - Edge should NOT resemble Internet Explorer
This is a new browser built from scratch and completely different from IE - it should look NEW. Please change Edge chromium icon that resembles internet explorer. 

 

There is a psychological aspect to this, it might appear as a small issue, but it has a big impact and Microsoft should not ignore this - If you give this browser any resemblance to IE, people will be more inclined to choose Google Chrome, over Edge Chromium, not because Edge is not a better browser than Chrome, but because it looks like the old and ugly underperforming Internet Explorer browser and people wont choose it.

 

Give Edge Chromium, a fresh, new looking icon, with new colour(s) (not the current blue) perhaps, change the name as well and do some good work to publicize your new browser. 

 

If Microsoft doesn't correct this early on, it will be a huge mistake, that will slow the adoption of Edge, and that means slower growth for Bing and slower growth in Bing ad dollars.

 


This, absolutely this. The E and edge branding has got to go. One of the reasons why legacy edge did not catch on was because people saw the blue E and immediatly assumed it was just IE with a fresh coat of paint. If the edge team truly wants this to take off, YOU MUST REBRAND. Edge users and power users alike will know this is completely different, but new users are going to immediatly see the E,

open it up,

and download chrome.

 

I understand I am just a guy on the internet, but please listen. New edge will go down the same path as old edge and as IE before it, if it does not differentiat from them.

@Elliot Kirk, I have to echo the points about the look of the Microsoft Edge icon.

Whoever was responsible for marketing Edge to the average User really dropped the ball. I was so disappointed when I first saw it. Despite all the hoopla about Microsoft's new Edge browser, seeing that stupid 'e' just irked the heck out me because of all my past negative experiences with Internet Explorer. 

So please, this time around, do something different that grabs users attention right from the start. Make Edge look edgy or rename it entirely and for gosh sake splash some REAL colour on it. Enough with the blue.

@Elliot Kirk 

 

Could change it to an upper case blue E
Would look & convey contemporary cutting-edge tech & design & express it as being a new chapter/era for the browser

Here's a couple of thoughts I threw together E.jpg

My feeling is it ought to remain blue. Some continuity is good marketing.  Change the look, but, keep the colour. (IE can, still, be very easily forgotten ;)) AND, the blue is the OS colour & Edge is its browser; for that reason, alone, staying with the blue makes sense to me.

Cheers,
Drew
thVY64FD02.jpg


@Drew1903 I'm sorry, but no.

Microsoft had it's chance with legacy and continuity when it first introduced Microsoft Edge. Three years later and the browser has never reached its potential. Any other company other than Microsoft would have shuttered the project and closed their doors in disgrace.

If you're that committed to trying to recapture the market share Microsoft has lost over the years you're going to need to start with a clean slate. 


@Eternal_Optimist  "Microsoft had it's chance with legacy and continuity when it first introduced Microsoft Edge. ... If you're that committed to trying to recapture the market share Microsoft has lost over the years you're going to need to start with a clean slate."

 

You're right.

 

(1) Microsoft needs to bring Edge Chromium out from under the disastrous legacy of Internet Explorer, a browser that dropped from 60% market share a decade ago to under 10% at present, retaining the 10% only because enterprise customers still use it. Consumers don't and for good reason.

 

Edge (Classic) gained little traction in terms of market share, I suspect, because users saw Edge (Classic) as an (somewhat) improved release of IE, rather than a different browser with remarkable functionality.

 

I suspect that Microsoft's wisest marketing choice would be to cut the cord and brand Edge Chromium as a brand new browser, neither Internet Explorer not Edge (Classic) nor Chrome. I think that it Microsoft had done that, rather than branding Edge (Classic) as an IE replacement, Chrome might not have gained an additional 10% market share since Edge (Classic) was introduced in 2016.

 

If Microsoft is determined to keep the Edge brand, so be it, but then Microsoft needs to do what Firefox did when it released Firefox Quantum -- it marketed the rewritten browser as brand new, and marketed it under the Firefox Quantum brand, suggesting that the new browser was a quantum leap from the old.

 

(2) Branding is important, but it isn't everything. Microsoft needs to make Edge Chromium a significantly better browser than Chrome, in do so in a way that catches consumer's attention and offers them a compelling reason to switch from Chrome. I don't know what that compelling reason might be, but my guess is that market researchers could give Microsoft a strong hint.


Microsoft is not asking consumers to just switch their computer browser from Chrome to Edge Chromium. At a bare minimum, it is asking consumers to switch browsers both on their computers and on their Android devices. And more realistically, Microsoft is asking consumers to pull out of the Google ecosystem (Google sync, Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Docs, Google Cloud, et al) and move over to the Microsoft ecosystem.

 

That is going to be a jump for folks tied into Chrome in the world of interconnected devices. Folks like that -- 65% of the computer browser market currently and a higher percentage of the Android market -- are going to need a compelling reason to make the switch.

@tomscharbach 

Much that same as it's impossible to have some Folks be interested in or excited about Chrome/Google.  Works both ways.

And, even though it was indeed touted as replacing IE, I do forget about IE or that people, in their minds, tie back to it.  Myself, I fail to make any connection with Edge (even if there is) back to IE. They are SO different that I will agree, THAT is when the logo should have changed. 

Anyway,  I sort of thought the suggestion of an upper case E  would imply a departure, whilst, still, being able to say, "E is for Edge".

Or it implies the browser grew up, lol It can have a big E, now LOL.

IE is, now, rarely mentioned or used and it will eventually be gone-gone. The few who are, still, using IE, are oft the same few who haven't yet moved the heck off Win7. But, sure change the logo for this, now.  It's overdue.  Should have changed when Edge was (1st) born, now that you mention it.  My error it seems, wasn't aware attitude towards IE would have anything but a positive view towards Edge; Edge makes IE look so bad.

Thanks for enlightenment.

Cheers,
Drew
thVY64FD02.jpg