Microsoft Adopts Google Technology for Edge Browser
In a notable development, last week Microsoft announced that its Edge browser now utilizes technology from Google. This marks a significant departure from the recent past, when the two companies were direct competitors in the browser market. Microsoft’s technology has given way to Google’s Chromium engine.
“The most notable change in the updated Edge is a shift in the underlying browsing engine – the part of the browser that translates webpage code into what you see on your screen,” explains tech writer David Nield. “While not immediately apparent to the end-user, its crucial to the browser’s core functionality.”
The Chromium engine, developed by Google, is open-source, allowing anyone to use it. It also forms the foundation of Google’s Chrome browser, which is the most popular web browser based on statistics from w3schools.com. Firefox is second, followed by Safari and Opera.
Google Gains Influence
This move represents a win for Google, granting it greater influence over web development, including the coding languages and technologies favored by developers. Microsoft states that its decision to adopt Google’s technology was made to enhance functionality for both commercial users and developers.
“We can create better web compatibility for our customers and less fragmentation of the web for all developers,” the company stated.
According to Nield, Microsoft aims to improve compatibility as many businesses were slow to adopt the initial version of Edge due to its incompatibility with older applications. “The challenge with introducing a new engine, as Microsoft attempted, is that web developers must account for time and resources when coding their pages,” Nield says. “If they are limited by time or resources, they will prioritize building sites that work correctly with the most common browsing engines, and until now, that hasn’t been Microsoft Edge.”
Addressing Internet Explorer Issues
The compatibility issue became more complex when Microsoft discontinued support for Internet Explorer upon the introduction of Windows 10 and Edge. Internet Explorer is not updated with web standards, but many businesses still rely on it for older web applications. Microsoft believes that the new Edge browser is the solution and is hoping that large corporations will switch to it to gain access to features that enable them to load legacy sites automatically.
The initial Edge browser was designed to address the compatibility issue, but its coupling with Windows 10 slowed its adoption within the enterprise market. Microsoft’s decision to separate it from Windows 10, although viewed with some skepticism by IT departments, should accelerate its replacement of Internet Explorer and other browsers.
Despite the concessions it has made to Google about the future of browser technology, Microsoft clearly hopes that the new browser’s security and compatibility benefits to users, including those who run Android and iOS, will pay off. Edge is already receiving high marks for its speed from some analysts.
“The minute I started to load a few web pages, one thing seemed clear: this was perceptibly faster,” says Chris Matyszczyk, a technology writer.
