Microsoft developer blames Google for the switch to Chromium engine in the next version of Windows 10

[Guest]

I'll never stop repeating this:

Edge had the best scrolling experience I've tried so far, especially on touchscreen.
Using chrome on my Windows 10 tablet was a nightmare, edge had a better experience. 

Anyway I think that is totally normal, it's always been like this for big companies to have this approach, also web developers will always tend to support major browsers for compatibility and features, and that's it.

I remember 18 years ago when you required to use Internet Explorer to view certain sites, thanks to microsoft, but still it suffered from stability issues... And people were not using it as main browser anyway

EDIT: I think there is a typo into the thread title

[vetali]

So Google is doing what MS did in the late 90s into the early 2000s. 

 

Granted, the only thing current MS has in common with the MS of that period is name. Still funny, regardless. In the end MS adopting Chromium into Edge is a win for consumers and likely MS in the long run. Less time and money wasted on being a day late and dollar short with their browser. 

 

[Fasterthannothing]

I'm not a fan of Google having a monopolistic stake in the internet (let's be real the joke that people used to answer Google when ask what the internet is not a joke anymore) however if you can't beat them join them. It won't be long before Firefox falls to Google it's not if but rather when. I have a feeling what's going to happen is the government is just going to wait till it's a complete monopoly then break them up into other companies like they did with AT&T  (known as Bell) a long time ago.

[Princess Luna]

3 hours ago, GoodBytes said:

leaving Firefox the only large player out there with its own engine before Google has total domination on the web standard.

Firefox Resistency here we go~

[asus killer]

microsoft complaining about shady stuff from another company.

 

Funny 

[Delicieuxz]

4 hours ago, GoodBytes said:

The reason is that Google uses it's monopoly on services like YouTube that it has, to contentiously update their websites and web browser with changes so that Chrome performs fine on them, and break or slows down other web browsers engines, like Edge, Opera (before they switch to Chromium engine) and Firefox.

So, exactly what Microsoft does with major Windows 10 patches, then, breaking 3rd-party UI programs, resetting the system defaults, re-installing MS junkware.

 

If Microsoft has an issue with those kinds of scummy practices, then why has Microsoft been employing them in strong force for the previous many years?

 

1 hour ago, vetali said:

So Google is doing what MS did in the late 90s into the early 2000s. 

 

Granted, the only thing current MS has in common with the MS of that period is name. Still funny, regardless. In the end MS adopting Chromium into Edge is a win for consumers and likely MS in the long run. Less time and money wasted on being a day late and dollar short with their browser. 

If that's what Microsoft was doing in the late 90s and early 2000s then that's something that current Microsoft still has in common with Microsoft from that earlier period. Because these things are precisely what Microsoft does with major Windows 10 updates. And now we have confirmation from a Microsoft developer that it's a deliberate tactic, and not merely incompetence.

 

Microsoft should be sued for those harmful and anti-competitive practices.

[LAwLz]

4 hours ago, GoodBytes said:

For example, as he mentions: Google updated YouTube to break the Edge video acceleration system which delivered (claimed by Microsoft) to the user the best battery life while watching videos on the web, while ensure that Chrome is not affected by this. Then, as soon that was done, Google announces how their web browser performs better during video playback, while in reality no optimization work was ever done on the web browser in that regard, to ensure that user to switch or try Edge. 

There are several lies or at the very least questionable claims in this paragraph.

1) Google has, as far as I can track never claimed or marketed Chrome as having better video watching battery life than Edge. I can't find it at least. Maybe someone else has better luck than me.

 

2) According to the Microsoft Edge battery test series, Chrome also got a hit in battery life if you look back at last year's spring results.

April 2018:

Edge - 14:20

Chrome - 12:33

Firefox - 7:15

 

December 2017:

Edge - 16:08

Chrome - 13:32

Firefox - 9:52

 

April 2017:

Edge - 12:31

Chrome - 9:17

Firefox - 7:04

 

This is assuming that the video even played on Youtube. Microsoft has not disclosed how they play their video in their battery tests. It might just be a local file, which would make this ex-Microsoft employee's claims even more questionable.

 

3) How the hell can a single, empty <div>, disable some "video acceleration magic" or whatever Microsoft claims to have?

At best I can stretch myself to assuming Microsoft did some black magic trickery to speed up the execution of specifically Youtube, but when Google did some minor changes to the page those optimizations broke. If that's the case, maybe Microsoft should have spent less time making a handful of select pages work well and instead made the foundational stuff in Edge better, so that changes to a single div doesn't cripple the performance?

 

4) Can't he post some code to prove it? Should be very easy to cough up some tests to prove that his claims are true. Copy the code, show where the "hidden div tag" is, remove it and execute the page again and show how it now performs better. Should be very easy to do.

 

 

4 hours ago, GoodBytes said:

We have seem a Firefox developer also complain about action that Google has taken to ensure that Firefox performs poorly on YouTube. 

And maybe we should add that what you're referring to was a pretty complex issue and not at all "Google are evil and trying to slow other browsers down!"? Maybe we should also add that the Mozilla developer corrected himself after having made several wrong assumptions such as assuming it was Shadow DOM causing issues (which it seems like it wasn't), and that Youtube used Shadow DOM version v0 (it didn't, it used Shady DOM).

Here is an explanation I wrote on what was going on:

 

I'd like to see some proof before throwing crap at Google for "deliberately ruining Edge's performance".

[vetali]

13 minutes ago, Delicieuxz said:

If that's what Microsoft was doing in the late 90s and early 2000s then that's something that current Microsoft still has in common with Microsoft from that earlier period. Because these things are precisely what Microsoft does with major Windows 10 updates. And now we have confirmation from a Microsoft developer that it's a deliberate tactic, and not merely incompetence.

You're bending a lot to try and fit your narrative. 

[Delicieuxz]

3 minutes ago, vetali said:

You're bending a lot to try and fit your narrative. 

Nope. And that's a very odd thing to say, given that you just acknowledged in your own previous post that Microsoft is guilty of doing the same thing.

 

The Microsoft developer acknowledges that deliberately breaking things via updates is a tactic. We have seen that being done throughout Windows 10's major update release history - to an extent probably more more consistent and extreme than was done in Microsoft's history.

 

If you think I bent anything for acknowledging the implications of the Microsoft developer's comment as it pertains to current Microsoft's reputation, then you were completely fabricating a false reality by asserting Microsoft was doing that in the late 90s and early 2000s. You've judged yourself.

[J.b091]

Let's admit everyone Microsoft was always poor with browsers. First their IE, which was disaster, now they tried to improve and replace it with Edge, but still it's behind especially when comparing it to such big browsers like Chrome or even FF. I prefer any day browsers like Chrome, Firefox, Opera to that Edge. Microsoft is only good with making OS. In other fields they suck in my opinion.

[williamcll]

Not giving up on internet explorer (as well as removing them from windows after 7) and force edge on everyone was the first problem.

[J.b091]

18 minutes ago, williamcll said:

Not giving up on internet explorer (as well as removing them from windows after 7) and force edge on everyone was the first problem.

Yeah, forcing something to people is usually a bad sign. Good product doesn't need advertisement & shout: "look at me, I'm best, use my browser". That usually creates contrary actions & makes people thing that something is fishy in your product.

[LAwLz]

40 minutes ago, williamcll said:

Not giving up on internet explorer (as well as removing them from windows after 7) and force edge on everyone was the first problem.

Wait, you think it was a problem that they didn't force Edge on everyone?

I'd argue that they tried to force it as much as was legally possible.

 

They changed the "default program" prompt to be more difficult to change the default.

They added an extra confirmation step where they beg the user to not change the default browser from Edge.

They injected ads and notifications through Chrome to make people change to Edge.

They pushed out notifications in Windows to tell users how much better Edge was that Chrome.

 

The list goes on.

The reason why they kept IE around was that a lot of sites still use the proprietary stuff Microsoft once pushed when they were the ones holding a monopoly on the web.

They were the ones who made it so that some things only worked with IE, and now they have to pay the price (and we users too, to some extent).

[Umberto]

16 hours ago, RorzNZ said:

What about Safari?

I doubt that, besides, the chromium engine is a fork of webkit so they have a fair share of shared components. 

[Dabombinable]

23 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

Wait, you think it was a problem that they didn't force Edge on everyone?

I'd argue that they tried to force it as much as was legally possible.

 

They changed the "default program" prompt to be more difficult to change the default.

They added an extra confirmation step where they beg the user to not change the default browser from Edge.

They injected ads and notifications through Chrome to make people change to Edge.

They pushed out notifications in Windows to tell users how much better Edge was that Chrome.

 

The list goes on.

The reason why they kept IE around was that a lot of sites still use the proprietary stuff Microsoft once pushed when they were the ones holding a monopoly on the web.

They were the ones who made it so that some things only worked with IE, and now they have to pay the price (and we users too, to some extent).

Lets just say that my mum is extremely frustrated with the education department. Due to various deals they've had over the years with MS, nearly all websites that she needs to use for work reuire IE, and won't function properly if run in any other browser-even Edge (which seems to be just as buggy and nearly as feature incomplete).

[Teddy07]

surprise surprise the world is not fair

[GoodBytes]

57 minutes ago, Dabombinable said:

Lets just say that my mum is extremely frustrated with the education department. Due to various deals they've had over the years with MS, nearly all websites that she needs to use for work reuire IE, and won't function properly if run in any other browser-even Edge (which seems to be just as buggy and nearly as feature incomplete).

Well, at the time, as Microsoft had 90% market share, web developer would often times do this. Not helped that the contract sign with web developers specifically states the web browser name "Internet Explorer", and no other web browser. And many times, like contracted software developers at the time, would purposefully ensure a lock down, as the contract states specific environment it needs to run in. It could be done to open and works with all sorts of environment, but usually web dev companies likes money, so they lock it down and hope of future contracted work to make it support a different environments.

 

I have seen many times custom business software that would run specifically under a specific version of Windows, like Windows XP SP1, and if you update the system to a newer Service Pack, the software would not work. Often times they go out of their ways, even checking system files, to ensure that it doesn't work on anything else than that specific environment, while there are no reason to do that in the first place.

 

So the educational department may have fallen into that boat, and not due to Microsoft directly.

[RejZoR]

24 minutes ago, Dabombinable said:

Lets just say that my mum is extremely frustrated with the education department. Due to various deals they've had over the years with MS, nearly all websites that she needs to use for work reuire IE, and won't function properly if run in any other browser-even Edge (which seems to be just as buggy and nearly as feature incomplete).

Actually, that isn't MS's fault. It's lazy webadmins who just slammed support for single browser and called it a day. The same as with Chromium now where admis just assume everyone uses Chrome and just go with that. I know it's frustrating to constantly update pages to make them work, but not doing that entirely is just lazy and lame.

[GoodBytes]

To add, if we consider currently Edge as using Chromium, Chrome has 80% market share. The rest is split with Safari, IE and Firefox.

On mobile, Chrome has 53% market share at a global scale, where the remainder is split between Safari taking a large part at about 22%, And the rest is split with UC Browser (popular in China), and a small single digit percentage for: Samsung web browser, Android built-in basic web browser and Opera Mobile which doesn't use Chromium engine (not yet at least).

 

[Teddy07]

7 minutes ago, GoodBytes said:

Well, at the time, as Microsoft had 90% market share, web developer would often times do this. Not helped that the contract sign with web developers specifically states the web browser name "Internet Explorer", and no other web browser. And many times, like contracted software developers at the time, would purposefully ensure a lock down, as the contract states specific environment it needs to run in, for the hope of future contracted work to make it support a different environment

3

Thanks for the interesting post. I learned something!

 

Smart move from the developers. They kinda took advantage of the contract and the fact that small businesses do not have an IT department which means the business has a paucity of information.

[LAwLz]

2 hours ago, GoodBytes said:

Well, at the time, as Microsoft had 90% market share, web developer would often times do this. Not helped that the contract sign with web developers specifically states the web browser name "Internet Explorer", and no other web browser. And many times, like contracted software developers at the time, would purposefully ensure a lock down, as the contract states specific environment it needs to run in. It could be done to open and works with all sorts of environment, but usually web dev companies likes money, so they lock it down and hope of future contracted work to make it support a different environments. 

Yeah, let's blame the web developers rather than Microsoft.

Those damn developers who created websites that only worked in Internet Explorer.

How about we talk about why websites that worked in Internet Explorer didn't work in other browsers?

 

The reason for that was because Microsoft refused to comply with the standards agreed upon by the W3C. For example Internet Explorer did not pass acid2 until IE8 launched, because IE had up until then only supported Microsoft's own version of CSS. The entire reason Acid2 was created was to highlight how poorly Internet Explorer supported the web standards.

 

I would really appreciate it if you could stop being so hellbent on defending Microsoft at all times, and blaming everyone else.

The reason why a lot of websites only work in IE is because of things like Microsoft creating their own standards rather than following the open ones, or because of things like ActiveX (another attempt from Microsoft to block other OSes and browsers from gaining support). Not because of some conspiracy theory that companies deliberately blocked other websites from working so that they could demand more money later.

[GoodBytes]

21 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

Yeah, let's blame the web developers rather than Microsoft.

Those damn developers who created websites that only worked in Internet Explorer.

How about we talk about why websites that worked in Internet Explorer didn't work in other browsers?

Yeah, let's blame the the software developers rather than Google and Apple.

Those damn developers who created apps that only works on Android and iOS

How about we talk about why apps that worked on Android and iOS didn't work on other phones?

 

What I am highlighting is the reality of things. Devs don't support low market shares. That is why, if you read Mozilla blog, Mozilla is very concerned.

Reading comments on other articles about Edge switching to Chromium engine, Blink, highlight some people mentioning that they have found sites that says that it doesn't work with Firefox, and to use Chrome.

 

Ars even made an article (analysis) raising the alarm on how Google, since 2009 tried to control the web.

Interesting read: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2018/12/the-web-now-belongs-to-google-and-that-should-worry-us-all/

Yes, Microsoft, did the same with IE...  of course they will. What benefit is it to follow open, when you reach that level, if you are in Microsoft shoes? Going open will add massive amount of delays in making things standard before you can implement it properly, which only now you can implement to where you wanted. Do it closed, you are done in months or even weeks, and you deliver something that was not possible before, or not as nice or what-not.  Web developers COULD make sites that support other web browsers. But it is costly and time consuming to do. Can you explain to your upper manager, as a web developer, or client, why things would costs more, because you want to make a special version of the web site for that 10% market share (and that is assuming that this 10% is not split into other web browsers with all their quirks)? No way it will pass anything. They'll say, screw them. IE only.

 

21 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

The reason for that was because Microsoft refused to comply with the standards agreed upon by the W3C. For example Internet Explorer did not pass acid2 until IE8 launched, because IE had up until then only supported Microsoft's own version of CSS. The entire reason Acid2 was created was to highlight how poorly Internet Explorer supported the web standards.

This has indeed what killed IE. Microsoft was used to control the web, with its advances that were, arguably, better than what was available, but they sleep, so standards moved forward, not 9only catches up, but ended up with more polished feature set, but also completely surpassed it.

 

21 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

I would really appreciate it if you could stop being so hellbent on defending Microsoft at all times, and blaming everyone else.

Unlike you, who defend with your life Google, I do criticize and acknowledge Microsoft mistakes and wrong doing. The only time I "defend Microsoft", is when non-sense is written, with crazy conspiracies of the style of: "Microsoft includes Paint in Windows.... a clear plan to ban Photoshop and any other drawing software, forcing your to use their drawing solution! And it has telemetry data, so anything you do will be owned by Microsoft, and they will sell your work for millions of dollars and so you are now a slave to the company, can't make a living, but gives you that small hope of making money, so that you are pushed to continue to work.....And you know it is true because on the license agreement it states you have no write to de-compile the software.. they are hiding things!"

 

 

 

21 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

The reason why a lot of websites only work in IE is because of things like Microsoft creating their own standards rather than following the open ones, or because of things like ActiveX (another attempt from Microsoft to block other OSes and browsers from gaining support). Not because of some conspiracy theory that companies deliberately blocked other websites from working so that they could demand more money later.

 

[Doobeedoo]

There's no doubt about of shady practices. Having such control and also over popular website too. 

But yeah never though Edge would switch engine really. It will get updated much more frequently which was the biggest flaw really. 

I'm using Opera and Vivaldi though. Even though Opera switched too, over time they got back featurs it was missing initially after switch. Vivaldi is a great browser too, it really evolved nicely and is fast and feature packed. 

 

I will be odd once the Edge switches to Chromium but interesting to see how market share may change. I just wonder will they keep the branding name after such a drastic change. 

[LAwLz]

6 hours ago, GoodBytes said:

Yeah, let's blame the the software developers rather than Google and Apple.

Those damn developers who created apps that only works on Android and iOS

How about we talk about why apps that worked on Android and iOS didn't work on other phones?

1) Why would we talk about that? It's a completely different topic.

2) You're comparing apples vs oranges. Apps not working on other platforms is because the code is platform dependent by nature of the different APIs. The reason why an Android app didn't work on WP is because WP did not use the same APIs as Android. Microsoft created their own proprietary APIs for Windows phone (UWP).

 

6 hours ago, GoodBytes said:

What I am highlighting is the reality of things. Devs don't support low market shares. That is why, if you read Mozilla blog, Mozilla is very concerned. 

Reading comments on other articles about Edge switching to Chromium engine, Blink, highlight some people mentioning that they have found sites that says that it doesn't work with Firefox, and to use Chrome.

 

Ars even made an article (analysis) raising the alarm on how Google, since 2009 tried to control the web. 

Interesting read: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2018/12/the-web-now-belongs-to-google-and-that-should-worry-us-all/ 

Don't change the subject.

 

You said that the reason why some websites only work in IE is because companies deliberately blocked other browsers browsers, so that they can charge extra money for adding it in later.

I say that's bollocks and the reason why some websites only work in IE is because Microsoft created their own standards and did not follow the W3C standards, which meant developers had to essentially created two separates websites. One that worked with IE, and another one that worked with every standard-compliant browser. Since that required twice the amount of work, a lot of them settled for just supporting IE, which is what Microsoft hoped for and one of the main reasons why they didn't follow the standards to begin with.

 

6 hours ago, GoodBytes said:

Yes, Microsoft, did the same with IE...  of course they will. What benefit is it to follow open, when you reach that level, if you are in Microsoft shoes? Going open will add massive amount of delays in making things standard before you can implement it properly, which only now you can implement to where you wanted. Do it closed, you are done in months or even weeks, and you deliver something that was not possible before, or not as nice or what-not.

Please don't spread a bunch of misinformation about how Microsoft only developed their own proprietary web technologies because "it helped speed up progress".

It took them 4 years to pass Acid2 for crying out loud. Even if you make the massive assumption that Microsoft developed their own technologies to speed up progress, that is no excuse for not supporting the standards that already exists.

They clearly deliberately made IE incompatible with existing standards, and forced their own which only worked in IE. That caused developers to have to code their websites specifically to support IE. Developers were left with three options because of Microsoft's decision to not follow standards:

1) Use the W3C standards to create a website which worked in all web browsers except IE, since it didn't support the open standards.

2) Use Microsoft's proprietary technologies to create a website that only worked in IE, because IE was the only browser that supported Microsoft's own stuff.

3) Essentially develop two websites. One which used the W3C standards for support in all browsers but IE, and one version which IE supported.

 

If Microsoft had just followed the standards everyone could have developed one site which worked in everything. But Microsoft didn't like that idea. As a result, the work for developers who wanted to support all browsers doubled. Instead of doing everything twice, they decided to just cater to IE since that was the most popular browser.

That's why some websites only work in IE. It's not because developers deliberately blocked other browsers to extort more money from companies like you try to claim.

 

6 hours ago, GoodBytes said:

Web developers COULD make sites that support other web browsers. But it is costly and time consuming to do.

And the reason why it was costy and time consuming was because Microsoft did not support the W3C standards that other browsers followed.

 

6 hours ago, GoodBytes said:

This has indeed what killed IE. Microsoft was used to control the web, with its advances that were, arguably, better than what was available, but they sleep, so standards moved forward, not 9only catches up, but ended up with more polished feature set, but also completely surpassed it.

1) You again make a false dilemma argument where you pretend like you either do your own proprietary stuff, or support standards, when in reality you can do both. Doing both did not suit Microsoft though because they wanted this "you have to write your site specifically for IE" bullshit. If Microsoft had made IE4-8 more compatible with the W3C standards that existed back then, on top of implementing their own stuff, then we would have way less IE-only websites today.

 

6 hours ago, GoodBytes said:

Unlike you, who defend with your life Google, I do criticize and acknowledge Microsoft mistakes and wrong doing. The only time I "defend Microsoft", is when non-sense is written, with crazy conspiracies of the style of: "Microsoft includes Paint in Windows.... a clear plan to ban Photoshop and any other drawing software, forcing your to use their drawing solution! And it has telemetry data, so anything you do will be owned by Microsoft, and they will sell your work for millions of dollars and so you are now a slave to the company, can't make a living, but gives you that small hope of making money, so that you are pushed to continue to work.....And you know it is true because on the license agreement it states you have no write to de-compile the software.. they are hiding things!"

You're extremely delusional if you actually believe any of this.

You do realize that you're the one trying to push conspiracy theories in this thread, right? You're the one claiming that developers deliberately blocked non-IE browsers from working on their websites because they wanted to charge companies twice for developing the website. I offered the far more reasonable and well documented explanation that Microsoft did not make IE standards-complaint, so creating a website that worked in IE and all other browsers was a quite massive task so most people didn't feel like it was worth the time and money. If IE supported the W3C standards better, the amount of work to make a website function in all browsers would have been much lower.

 

And for your ad hominem attacks on me, you clearly haven't read a lot of my Google related posts if you think I always defend them.

I actually dislike Google quite a bit, and always recommends Firefox when I get the chance. But I actually care about the truth and facts, so when someone from let's say Mozilla claims that Google are deliberately slowing down Firefox on Youtube, I do a bit of digging to validate if it's true or not. If that developer then backtracks and says his initial claims were false, I won't ignore the correction and continue to post his original (incorrect) posts as "evidence" for my belief that more people should use Firefox. That would be something a disgusting, horrible, misleading cunt of a person would do, and I don't want to be that type of person.

I already have plenty of arguments for why I think people should use Firefox. I don't need to distort the truth, blatantly lie, deceive people or spread FUD to validate my position.

[mr moose]

On 12/18/2018 at 8:44 AM, vetali said:

So Google is doing what MS did in the late 90s into the early 2000s. 

 

Granted, the only thing current MS has in common with the MS of that period is name. Still funny, regardless. In the end MS adopting Chromium into Edge is a win for consumers and likely MS in the long run. Less time and money wasted on being a day late and dollar short with their browser. 

 

Whilst I do agree, this does explain why MS has had such a hard time getting back into both the phone market and web browser.

 

So we find out why edge wasn't the best and peoples response is this is fine because it wasn't the best.  IMO that is the wrong attitude, everything on the web should be an open standard so no company can control how good another companies product is.   Imagine if Sony decided to encode their DVD's so they only played HD on Sony equipment?  Would everyone be fine with that?