Edge on Linux: Thoughts from a Linux user
https://vivaldi.com/blog/edge-linux-browser-review/
Microsoft Edge (linux ver)
Solarmass ...twice he says "but it's not vivaldi" thus not recommending it. But at least he wasn't obscuring his bias. And he was thorough. What I like about it is the warts and all honesty more or less. My favorite of a few memorable sentences was "Unsurprisingly the default search engine provided by Edge is Bing. " I didn't love it and I didn't hate it is the sum--but at least that reviewer dug somewhat deep and listed a lot of positives.
@JoshStrobl? my American word "favorite" gets underlined now! This is brand new! I love it. My spell check prefers "favourite." Is this a consequence of the Flarum thing today, or just a coincidental thing with Firefox and language packs on the same day? No complaint, it's awesome it sees me an ocean away, like I'm on 'holiday'
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I'm all-in with Vivaldi now. I have two windows with different tabs on my mini desktop and I can sync (one or both windows and specific tab(s) from each window) while on my laptop - nice little feature. The sync capes are really smooth. I love the stacked tabs and the notes. Features I never used on Firefox I know find indispensable on Vivaldi. So far, super smooth and fast. I was having fun tiling news sites to compare coverage and I added Twitter on my side bar for any time access. It's like Solus, the more I use it, the more comfortable and settled in I get, the happier I am. Solus and Vivaldi...a real nice combo!
Has anyone installed Ms Edge on Solus yet? It's very cool and fast, have web pages read out to you in different languages and voices and handy extensions. You don't need an .eopkg file, just download the latest .deb version and open it with the extractor. Copy the folder "msedge-dev" to somewhere on your home directory. Make a link to %home%/msedge-dev/msedge and you're done. Have fun :-)
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xarai001 I've been using Edge on Windows, Android and iOS for many months, and on Solus for several weeks. The Dev version for Linux is the same version as the Windows 10 Dev version, but a few features available for Windows are not yet available for Linux.
I like Edge a lot, and I am considering making it my default across all the platforms when a stable version is released for Linux.
Rather than attempting to "roll-my-own" and taking on the task of maintaining the package as a new Dev version is released each week, I installed Edge using a Flatpak version that will go into the Flatpak stable repository with the Stable version of Edge for Linux is released.
If you want to install the Flatpak:
(1) Check to see that Flatpak is installed (it should be, unless you removed it).
(2) Install the Flathub BETA repository via the terminal, using these commands:
flatpak remote-add flathub-beta https://flathub.org/beta-repo/flathub-beta.flatpakrepo
flatpak install flathub-beta org.godotengine.Godot
(3) Install Microsoft Edge via the terminal, using this command:
flatpak install com.microsoft.Edge
To stay current, the Flatpak version needs to be updated weekly using the terminal command:
flatpak update
When the stable version of Edge is released, it will update monthly.
Prior to installing Edge on Solus using the Flatpak, I tested Edge on a Ubuntu 20.10 computer dedicated for testing Edge. I have not noticed any performance degradation using the Flatpak on Solus.
Disclaimers: I am not associated with or contributing to the Flatpak project. I have been an active participant in the Microsoft Edge Insider program since April 2019.
Something I noticed.. I have another laptop that I routinely install new distros on for fun. Maybe 6 months ago I had MXLinux installed and installed the .deb version of Edge.
I vividly recall that features that are not available now were available then. I am absolutely certain I synced in my bookmarks.
Any idea why this functionality is gone?
And literally as I write this I realize that Google stripped Chrome APIs from Chromium. But I have to ask... if that is the reason that bookmarks no longer sync in Linux, why hasn't that affected Windows and other versions of Edge as well?
I'm quite confused about this.
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jrsilvey I'm not quite sure that I understand. Microsoft released Edge-Linux on October 20. Sync was not then available on Edge-Linux. Microsoft first introduced MSA sign-in and sync on Edge-Linux three weeks ago. What in the world were you syncing to last October?
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jrsilvey And literally as I write this I realize that Google stripped Chrome APIs from Chromium. But I have to ask... if that is the reason that bookmarks no longer sync in Linux, why hasn't that affected Windows and other versions of Edge as well?
Edge sync is not related to Google in any way, shape or form. Microsoft went to a lot of effort to unGoogle Edge before releasing the initial test versions in April 2019, and nothing has changed in that respect since. Edge uses the MSA to sync, just as Edge Classic did since 2016.
That is what I figured.. The Chromium Edge experience is really focused on giving the Microsoft walled garden experience that Google Chrome gave.
That leaves me confused still though. Why could I sync in my bookmarks when I was using Edge on Linux when using the .deb version a few months ago when the software first became available on Linux? I'm absolutely certain I did.
My roommate is in the Windows Insider and Edge Insider program and he downloaded the Edge Beta on flatpak and the bookmarks sync wasn't available.
It's a minor discrepancy but I just didn't understand why that had changed or what caused the sync feature not to work.
Could it be something about the Collections feature?
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jrsilvey That leaves me confused still though. Why could I sync in my bookmarks when I was using Edge on Linux when using the .deb version a few months ago when the software first became available on Linux? I'm absolutely certain I did.
I have no idea what you were syncing or how. Edge syncs through the user's Microsoft Account on Microsoft servers. I know for a fact that sync on Edge-Linux was not available until March 23, and at that point it required a flag to be set. The flag is no longer needed in the two most recent versions.
jrsilvey My roommate is in the Windows Insider and Edge Insider program and he downloaded the Edge Beta on flatpak and the bookmarks sync wasn't available.
"When" might be a relevant question, because only the last three Dev versions of Edge-Linux support sync at all, and sync required that a flag be set on the March 23 Dev version. Your roommate should check to see if he is on Version 91.0.845.2 or higher. If he cannot sign in to his MSA and sync using the current version, he might want to contact Microsoft Edge Insider Support.
I have only seen one report in the MEI forum concerning sync failure with Edge-Linux, and I think that problem was a user-setting problem, although I did not explore it.
jrsilvey Could it be something about the Collections feature?
I doubt it. Collections syncs through a user's MSA, as I understand it, although I don't use that feature so I'm not certain.
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Ah.. My apologies. It wasn't sync. I imported the bookmarks manually onto Edge from my other browser when I was using Edge on MXLinux.
I don't have Edge on my Solus system and was operating from memory.. your post helped me recall what had happened.
So.. not a sync issue, but still completely perplexed why such a basic function as importing bookmarks wasn't available when I tried to help my roommate use the feature a week or two ago. Whenever he clicked on the settings page to import his bookmarks the page was completely blank.
I'll check with him tomorrow and see if it has been resolved.
Thanks very much for your response by the way.