Let's talk about the Chromium Edge browser

Discussion in 'Windows 10' started by pf100, Apr 14, 2019.

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How do you use Edge?

  1. I use it a lot

    24 vote(s)
    43.6%
  2. I use it sometimes

    11 vote(s)
    20.0%
  3. I only use it when I have no choice

    2 vote(s)
    3.6%
  4. I don't use it.

    18 vote(s)
    32.7%
  1. pf100

    pf100 Duct Tape Coder

    Oct 22, 2010
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    I honestly want to know what the appeal of Edge is.
    There's a huge thread next to this one where people are going through a lot of trouble to get the
    Chromium beta working.
    Would you go through all this trouble for a different browser that's not ready yet?
    For instance, the Brave browser doesn't have sync working yet, except in the newest beta.
    Would you go through all that trouble to get Brave working with sync if you had to do what you're having to do to get Chromium Edge working?
    I know only 2 advantages of Edge:
    1) It comes with most versions of Windows 10 and can be installed on ones where it doesn't.
    2) It does 1080p on Netflix.
    The disadvantages are:
    1) It's not ready yet, it's still beta.
    I'm truly asking out of ignorance. This is coming from someone who has only used Edge to download Firefox and Chrome.
    The few times I've used it, it was slow and felt "mushy" when you click an option in settings which is typical for UWP apps. I'm not a fan of UWP apps in general.
    This is on a fast gaming computer, so it's not the computer, I assure you.
    So, please answer this one question for me:
    What is the appeal of the Chromium (or non-Chromium) Edge browser for you?
     
  2. Windows_Addict

    Windows_Addict MDL Expert

    Jul 19, 2018
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    Edge (UWP EdgeHTML) is laggy (but uses very low resources) I don't use it only because of it. chrome, on the other hand, uses high resources but gives best results, so yay for chrome. IDK why edge is slow, probably because of UWP.
    but now this changed (i guess) because of the chromium and legacy app base. so I don't really have any reason why I shouldn't use it.
    It gives better support on Netflix compared to chrome and Another minor thing is that now users can have extensions without the limitation (i.e. youtube downloading)
    anyway, at least it's not a bad browser now.
    btw my experience with Firefox wasn't good, faced many crashes and some websites were not properly working, flash was not inbuilt and I eventually gave up on it.
    Personally, I would like to use new edge because I don't like, one browser company (chrome) dominating the whole market.
     
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  3. Sean Pereira

    Sean Pereira MDL Novice

    Jan 20, 2018
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    Im using the new Chromium based edge browser and before that, just the normal edge browser, never had any problems with either and although I may get some arguments on this next comment, I really dont see any need to use a 3rd party browser when Windows 10 comes built in with a perfectly good one.

    I have a pretty fast gaming machine so dont really notice any speed difference between any of them, the new beta edge does seem very snappy though.

    Google chrome alone, when I checked out its resorces with task manager, I couldnt believe how many processes were running for it and how much ram it was using......it lasted all of about 10mins on my machine.

    I 2nd the above comment on Firefox, lots of crashes and "oops something went wrong" messages, websites not loading or taking nearly forever to load, that didnt last 5 mins on my machine.

    I love the new chromium based one, lets hope they can keep up the good work on this one and dont make some stupid mistake with the coding that slows it right down, even the original edge in the begining when it was known as project spartan was fast.
     
  4. kaljukass

    kaljukass MDL Guru

    Nov 26, 2012
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    #4 kaljukass, Apr 14, 2019
    Last edited: Apr 14, 2019
    Current heading "Let's talk about the Edge browser"
    Please change the heading, because currently it is misleading.
    You and most likely we all know, currenly is in use two different browsers with the same name, ie "Edge".
    To make everything more clear, use also different names everywhere, ie use for example names "Old Edge" and "New Edge" or "Microsoft Edge" and "Chromium Edge" or think Yourself something better, but so, that everything is clear about what we are talking.
    Currently is so, that some people don't understand any difference and also pictures are sometimes taken from old Microsoft Edge and then is everything messed.
     
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  5. JeanYuhs

    JeanYuhs MDL Member

    Feb 16, 2010
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    I don't understand what the whole "where people are going through a lot of trouble to get the Chromium beta working" thing is coming from. The first leak of it was installed in like 2 seconds, each successive one just as fast. The actual preview builds that have been released so far take a tiny bit longer to install because of the stub installer and downloading the files to install them - they're not included in the installer.

    I've had ZERO issues with "Edgium" so far, not one thing that has made me think "OK, this sucks, forget it..." - the only issue I have right now is that every time I do a download of various files (mkv, exe, etc) the files are "quarantined" by how it handles downloads I have to open the Download manager and then select "Keep" so I can actually access the file. Setting SmartScreen to OFF has not resolved that, nor has the one setting for "Block unsafe downloads over insecure connections" set to disabled in the flags either. Not sure there's a way to disable that functionality entirely but it would be nice - it's MY responsibility to download what I want, and I do get sick of the handholding security BS they keep adding to things.

    If stupid ignorant users get malware and virus infections that's on them, not Microsoft, seriously.

    Anyway, "Edgium" is my primary browser on LTSC 2019 since the first leak and will remain so until something goes horribly wrong. Sure I still have FirefoxESR52 Portable running as well because I've got that customized perfectly and newer versions of Firefox simply can't be customized the same.

    I find "Edgium" to be extremely fast in every respect, all the Chrome extensions I've installed so far work without issues, still wish their was a really good mouse gestures extension like Firegestures on Firefox in the past - I've tried every mouse gesture extension on the Chrome Market and they all suck or have some issues, or like too many of them they want additional permissions to scan every page of all the content which is utterly ridiculous. I know Google made alterations to how some plugins work in Chromium but even so, that's going a bit too far even if the extensions claim the data being sent back to their developers is "anonymous." Sorry, not gonna let that happen.

    So yeah, I like Edge as well because of the ePub/PDF support and how it handles those, it's my primary ePub/PDF reader actually (and I'm talking about native Edge in that respect, not "Edgium"). I hope that with the Chromium-based Edge they'll be able to port that functionality over exactly the same and I'm hopeful that in the long run "Edgium" becomes a truly fantastic browser.

    If there are issues with this thing installing it and using it I'd say that's on the end users attempting to do all sorts of things, make it portable, and other aspects. If it's downloaded, installed, and used I can't see an issue with it but there are a great many people that just have to tear it down just because.

    Also, it's beta software in heavy rapid development so yes, bugs, missing features, this is completely normal, folks, it will get better as time passes. Amazing how so many people miss that, and even more amazing when people dismiss it entirely.
     
  6. pf100

    pf100 Duct Tape Coder

    Oct 22, 2010
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    That's what I don't understand. What's the appeal of a browser that's in beta when there are fully working ones right now? But I think the answer is, "because I like it."
     
  7. Enthousiast

    Enthousiast MDL Tester

    Oct 30, 2009
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    Or because they can?
     
  8. pf100

    pf100 Duct Tape Coder

    Oct 22, 2010
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    That's probably the best answer I'm going to get.
     
  9. JeanYuhs

    JeanYuhs MDL Member

    Feb 16, 2010
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    If you think that Chrome, or Chromium, or Firefox, or Brave, or Vivaldi, or Opera, or any number of other browsers based on whatever codebase they were created from, are "fully working" then you don't understand how software gets developed. :)

    Nothing is ever done with respect to computer software - the only time it's truly and totally "complete" is when whatever developer happens to be working on it tosses in the towel and runs away hoping for a better life.

    Having said that, consider that Chromium - the basis for this new version of Edge - has been in development for pretty much the past decade, so what Microsoft has done here is actually very smart: they have decided to let Google write the codebase, tackle all the big problems, work out all the big bugs, expend the effort and the man and woman power to make it a workable product, and then Microsoft just downloads the source code since it's open source and then runs with it.

    So far, as I've said before, I haven't had one issue with "Edgium" that matters - it has yet to slow down, it has yet to crash, it has yet to cause me one single iota of a problem and everything that I care about works. As a browser it's as complete and "fully working" as I require it to be, and having the ability to access and install the extensions created for Chromium and Chrome by extension (pun very much intended) all I can say about "Edgium" is "It just works..."

    Can't speak for others, but I really do like it and I was confident that I wouldn't stand it once it was available. So far, in my usage of this Chromium offshoot, it's fantastic.
     
  10. toyo

    toyo MDL Senior Member

    Aug 14, 2009
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    Since I'm stuck in the past, I'll use what's closest to the old Opera, and that means Vivaldi for the time being. I have the new Edge installed and it's OK. The old Edge was also OK, I use it rarely, when I send some news items from the phone and pretty much nothing else. If the new Edge gets proper tab grouping and good customization options, of which Vivaldi has plenty, I'll consider using it instead.