Microsoft Edge (linux ver)

seanragout

So......Microsoft have released a development version of their edge browser for linux.
My question is anyone curious enough to try it? They have only released deb and rpm versions though.

I am curious, not necessarily a fan but curious none the less so I downloaded the deb
version extracted the files and copied over individual files to corresponding folders in root.

It was fairly straight forward and painless and it worked! Been messing around with it a little.
Indeed using Edge to write this piece and well I don't see what the fuss is about, it really is just chromium with a clean UI it does the walk and talks the talk but no better or worse than any other browser.
Sync with other Microsoft services doesn't work as yet. The option is there but nothing happens, YET.

That option when it is enabled I can see being attractive to people who have to use Redmond services for
work and want to dabble some at home

This was just an intellectual exercise and I'm just playing around, will I keep it? not sure

what about you guys!

brent

I have trust issues with the browser's creators. 🙂

that said at work (W10) I've used it and went right back to chrome. It didn''t feel/perform like Edge was a chrome-like browser; was a little chunky and visually confusing like an explorer-type browser. seanragout didn't use it on linux, as you did, just on a bloated work Dell so my comments subjective.

kyrios

My interest for this? > /dev/null

Staudey

@EbonJaeger created a .eopkg package for it immediately after release 😂

EbonJaeger

Staudey @EbonJaeger created a .eopkg package for it immediately after release 😂

I've been using it on Windows pretty much since it was released, and I can't use anything else. For me, it's super performant, has a nice UI, and uses a fraction of the resources of any other browser. I try Firefox and Vivaldi every new release and I'm back to using Edge within a day every time. So yep, I absolutely packaged it for myself! xD

So far it works decently. It has a bit to go though before it's quite there, but it is still the first release of the dev version of the browser on an entirely new platform. The scrolling feels sluggish, and it crashed on me once when opening a new tab.

SuperJC710e

Staudey Care to share your package build files?

RobertK

So interesting I did the Base Mark Web 3.0 test with 5 browsers. Here are the results.

Firefox 312.61
Vivaldi 595.2
Brave 608.62
Chrome 680.12
Edge 703.54

So, Edge beat all the browsers and all the browsers crushed Firefox. Those are the results I had on my PC with the Kubuntu distro I have dual booted with Solus (probably deleting Kubuntu soon).

Brucehankins

RobertK where's Opera?!

kyrios

EbonJaeger I use firefox as default browser everywhere but on my professional laptop not all the extensions I need are whitelisted so I also use chrome (don't ask why a same extension can be whitelisted for a browser but not for the other, that's the mystery of "well managed" company policies), but of course on the intranet, there are still applications designed for internet explorer and now microsoft is making edge mandatory... Haven't found any exclusive use for it yet but soon or late someone will manage to make something that will absolutely require this browser.

Conclusion: I currently have 3 browsers running in parallel, soon I'll have 4 of them... I don't call this performant nor less resource hungry. Of course this isn't edge's fault just a "professional" usage of a computer.

I feel so much better on my home computer 😃

moriel5

EbonJaeger I agree, from my experience, no other Chromium-based browser comes close to Edge's performance and stability, regardless of OS and hardware (I have been testing it on Windows (installed the enterprise version) for a very long time). It also hands-down beat Chromium in every way possible, and for places where Chrome was installed (not by me), it also made Chrome feel like a sloth.

That said, while there are hiccups here and there (certain websites fail to properly load, though that could be a result of my strict privacy settings), my time with the Edge preview is simply fantastic.

No issues scrolling, that's for one, and the performance is way better than both Firefox Nightly and Vivaldi Dev, over here, plus, overall, less issues with websites (Firefox Nightly has CSS bugs the past two cycles, though, other than that, I have always had less website breakage with my strict privacy settings on Firefox than Vivaldi).

Hardware acceleration is working great here, though I had to toggle a few flags as a result of my old hardware (Radeon HD 6950). Only hardware acceleration for video is currently unavailable.

As for system resource utilization, I was astounded to see Edge using much less system resources (CPU, GPU, RAM, and storage (on a 7200RPM HDD) than either Firefox or Vivaldi (and I have more extensions on Edge than on Vivaldi), and keeping it that way, even with a few tens of tabs open at the same time (_80MB of RAM at startup, and between 80-140MB after extended usage, depending on how many things are open).

I still prefer Firefox, however with the breaking bugs it is facing currently (Stable users wont be seeing this for quite some time, unless they manage to fix the issues), I may need to delegate it to being my secondary browser, with Edge as my primary.

Harvey

Brucehankins

RobertK

Brucehankins I tried the newest version of Opera and didn't like it so uninstalled it.

WetGeek

moriel5 no other Chromium-based browser comes close to Edge's performance and stability

This really surprised me. Many of you know that I keep a Windows SSD up-to-date, and swap it into my main workstation in order to operate my label maker, as I've found no equivalent that will run on Linux. A while back, I tried out Edge, out of curiosity, and did not get the impression that it was a finished product. Today I can't remember exactly what faults I ran into back then, but I do remember that I considered them to be showstoppers, and with several other browsers on that machine, I never looked at Edge again while using Windows 10.

It doesn't seem that long ago that I tried Edge, but maybe it's been improved a lot since then. I'll take another look the next time I use that machine on Windows, and I'll give the Linux version of it a try sometime. Microsoft (I used to work there) has a long history of releasing unfinished software. They always wanted to get revenue coming in as early as possible, and then slowly improve the product through numerous updates. I would expect that Edge might be quite a bit better now than it was then.

DataDrake

@prateekmedia Please don't post links for unofficial eopkgs or repos. They aren't allowed.

Harvey

WetGeek
Well what most people knew as Edge was before it was chromium based but sadly they joined the chrometinum...

Honestly I would suggest considering vivaldi. The only reason I don't use it is 1 extension. Mutli-account-container (Firefox). If you haven't gotten used to it, use vivaldi, its great.

WetGeek

Harvey If you haven't gotten used to it, use vivaldi, its great.

Indeed, that's my go-to browser for most uses.

WetGeek

Harvey Well what most people knew as Edge was before it was chromium based

I didn't realize that there was ever a time when it wasn't chromium based. The version I first tried was definitely chromium, and it fetched my LastPass add-on from the Chrome Store. But then I very rarely boot up Windows, so I'm not surprised I missed a version.

downhill

Harvey I recently installed Opera and I'm beginning to prefer it over all of the other browsers I use. I am also fond of Min, but I've received warnings from some site logins about it not being a secure browser, so I only use it for general browsing.

jppelt

WetGeek Isn't Vivaldi from the team that created Opera and then left because it was sold to some Chinese consortium? I've tried Vivaldi...not long enough as I felt overwhelmed. Not sure how I feel about it, conflicted, but really enjoying Brave - lighting quick. Not sure about the crypto thing. Not sure about the built on chromium thing. That being said, I'm sticking with it for now as it is smooth...almost as smooth as Solus 🙂

Harvey

WetGeek
Yep

Edge was initially built with Microsoft's own proprietary browser engine EdgeHTML and their Chakra JavaScript engine, a version now referred to as Microsoft Edge Legacy. In 2019 Microsoft announced plans to rebuild the browser as Chromium-based with Blink and V8 engines.

Harvey

jppelt
Less about the sale itself and more about the decisions being made that annoyed them and many long term users.

Although intended for general users, it is first and foremost targeted towards technically-inclined users as well as former Opera users disgruntled by its transition from the Presto layout engine to a Chromium-based browser that resulted in the loss of many of its iconic features. Despite also being Chromium-based, Vivaldi aims to revive the features of the Presto-based Opera with its own proprietary modifications.

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vivaldi_(web_browser)

Opera continually kills things to adopt chromiums implementation. Last I remember was PIP (Picture-In-Picture, users were not happy). While this makes sense from a technical debt standpoint. If you are going to do everything the same way.. why do you exist?

Vivaldi understands this.

In the case of Jon S. von Tetzchner, co-founder and former chief executive of Opera Software, the answer is to launch a company that picks up where the old company is leaving off. He and 19 other ex-Opera employees have launched a new site called Vivaldi aimed at people who want a replacement for the My Opera community site, which Opera is closing on March 1.

...

The closure of My Opera isn't the only bone von Tetzchner has to pick with Opera.

He also thinks the company is too focused on mobile advertising and spent too much money on the acquisition of the SkyFire video compression technology. But his biggest complaint is that the company has, in his opinion, squandered its reputation for building a browser with cutting-edge features and high performance.

"If you look at the number of new features during the last four years, then compare that to the four years before that, it's a very significant difference", he said. That's what led Opera to scrap its own Presto browser engine in 2013 and move instead to Google's open-source Blink project that's also at the heart of Chrome.

I would have kept Presto," von Tetzchner. "The decision to move away from Presto was taken after years of negligence. They should have increased the investment to stay competitive. They stopped investing in the engine, then they took the consequences and threw it away.

Source: https://www.cnet.com/news/ex-ceo-picks-up-where-opera-left-off-launching-vivaldi-site/

WetGeek

jppelt Isn't Vivaldi from the team that created Opera

Definitely Opera developers who created Vivaldi, but I had never heard the part about selling it to a Chinese consortium. I always assumed it was probably because of creative differences. I just looked it up in Wikipedia, and found nothing about Chinese ownership, so I suspect that's probably just a conspiracy theory.

I find it interesting that the Vivaldi organization is considering creating an email client. It would take a lot to tear me away from Thunderbird, but if any development team could ever do that, I'd bet money on the Vivaldi team. I can't wait to get a look at what they come up with.