Microsoft’s Edge is embracing the open-source Chromium project and expanding to other operating systems. It’ll even run Chrome extensions, company executives said recently.<\/b>
\nMicrosoft is overhauling its struggling Edge browser in pretty much every way over the next year. The proprietary EdgeHTML engine underpinning the browser will be abandoned in favor of the Chromium code used by Google\u2019s Chrome and several other browsers. After the shift, Microsoft plans to end Edge\u2019s Windows 10 desktop exclusivity by bringing it to Macs and older versions of Windows.
How Chrome-like will Microsoft’s version of Chromium be? Enough that Chrome extensions will run on top of it, Microsoft Edge project manager Kyle Alden wrote on Reddit on Friday. Existing Progressive Web Apps (web apps that feel like Win32 apps) will continue to run and be downloadable from the Microsoft Store, he added.
That said, there are concerns about one browser project dominating the web. \u201cThis is actually… bad news for browser ecosystem health,\u201d Stack Overflow and Stack Exchange co-founder Jeff Atwood wrote on Twitter when rumors of the change sprouted earlier this week. \u201cQuadrupling down on Chrome as the default HTML engine everywhere isn\u2019t the right way to go.\u201d
Chromium\u2019s status as an open-source browser may alleviate some of those fears, and Belfiore says Microsoft will lean into code contributions. \u201cOur goal is to do this in a way that embraces the well-established open source model that\u2019s been working effectively for years: meaningful and positive contributions that align to long-standing, thoughtfully designed architecture, and collaborative engineering,\u201d he wrote.
Edge will break free of its Windows 10 shackles as part of the move. The browser will be updated on its own, separate from Windows 10\u2019s major twice-annual updates, and will come to Windows 7 and 8. \u201cWe also expect this work to enable us to bring Microsoft Edge to other platforms like macOS,\u201d Belfiore wrote. Last year, Edge appeared on iOS and Android .
Microsoft\u2019s core browser running on Macs! Hell hath truly frozen over\u2014though it remains to be seen how successful the move will be considering the superb state of modern browsing. Edge doesn\u2019t even crack the top three in our roundup of the best web browsers, falling behind Chrome, Opera, and Firefox. Chrome and Opera both rely on the Chromium project as well. Look for Edge to shift over to the open-source engine sometime in 2019.<\/p>\n