Google's Chromium-based Edge: We're in the second decade of the 21 century, and it seems impossible to imagine that the Microsoft browser was once in its infancy World Wide Web. The journey from absolute domination to equilibrium and decline has been slow but steady and with heaps of errors, facilitating attacks, and creating problems for competition regulators on two continents.
This week, Microsoft was released its first public beta browser Microsoft Edge based on open source Chromium code.
If history can teach us, Microsoft's chances of success are few.
Let's remember the story:
1995: Microsoft releases it Internet Explorer with the first version OEM of Windows 95, pushing the browser to hundreds of millions of computers within a few years. This version is followed by versions of Internet Explorer for Mac and Linux.
2001: Μετά την απόφαση ενός δικαστηρίου πάνω στην αντιμονοπωλιακή νομοθεσία των Ηνωμένων Πολιτειών, η Microsoft κυκλοφορεί τον Internet Explorer 6 και ουσιαστικά σταματά την ανάπτυξη του προγράμματος περιήγησης για όλες τις άλλες πλατφόρμες except of Windows.
2004: Ο Mozilla Firefox rises from the ashes of Netscape and begins to take market share from the increasingly insecure Internet Explorer.
2006: After a series of painful security issues, Microsoft releases Internet Explorer 7, which launches tabbed browsing. However, it fails to prevent the loss of market share.
2008: Google releases it Chrome. The new browser in a few minutes surpasses Firefox as the most popular alternative to Internet Explorer and less than a decade later manages to be the undisputed new browser champion on multiple platforms.
2012: With the release of Windows 8, Microsoft is literally betting on Modern Internet Explorer. The functional system stops developing within two years.
2015: With Windows 10, Microsoft is launching a completely new browser, Microsoft Edge, based on a new EdgeHTM processor. Wow!
2019: Microsoft announces that it will stop developing EdgeHTML and will use Google Chromium as the engine for the next version of Edge.
This is the third reboot to build a reliable Microsoft browser in less than a decade. Normally, we could say it's a sign that doesn't inspire too much confidence.
But maybe this time it will be different.
A browser for all platforms (Windows, Linux, Mac) will be able to solve Microsoft's biggest problem, which is that users who do not use Windows 10 do not currently have the ability to run a modern browser from Microsoft. This of course affects the developer community, which develops plugins and addons for browsers running on all systems.
The results for using browsers are terrible. According to the latest statistics from the US Government's Digital Search Program (US Government's Digital Analytics Program), less than 16% of the traffic on Windows 10 computers comes via Microsoft Edge while Internet Explorer has an even greater share of usage.
This was significantly reduced from the 20% that Edge had in Windows 10 to 2017. Meanwhile, Chrome's share of use of Windows 10 is over 60%.
However, allowing computer users to change programs browsing and giving them reasons to do so are two different things. And the barriers to adoption appear to be many and significant.
By retaining the Microsoft Edge trademark instead of completely changing the browser name, Microsoft may have pulled the carpet under its feet. Busy users will have to understand the difference between the old and the new Edge and this is not easy, especially when the alternative is very easy and completely recognizable: You just use Chrome.
Likewise, developers have every right to be skeptical that this time things will be different. Older people who remember how difficult it was to code for Internet Explorer compatibility will probably want to avoid this kind of mess. Those who have not enthusiastically seen any of Microsoft's previous two efforts will no doubt look a little sideways at Redmond.
What can really help Microsoft are the practices Google uses to promote its advertising and privacy policies. In theory, Microsoft could offer a browser that is almost a perfect strand of Chrome without violating (so much) privacy.
But remember that Microsoft tried it once with the completely unsuccessful ad campaign "Do not get Scroogled."
Maybe this time it will be different. Maybe Google may not react, maybe it will fall asleep… Or maybe there are too many eager consumers ready to help Microsoft achieve its goals.
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That is, we who believe that in the near future, google, microsoft and facebook will become one, are we risk takers? ;)