 Hey everybody welcome back to the channel today. I'm going to be talking about Microsoft Edge now You might be wondering what's Microsoft Edge doing on a channel about Linux and the answer is that it has a Linux client So I thought I'd talk about it. The question I have to ask today is why would you use it and I'm not the type of sort who goes out and says all proprietary Software is bad. I don't think that that's true. I use a lot of proprietary software. I use Todoist and I use notion all the time those things are proprietary. I use them. I enjoy using them I don't feel guilty because I haven't found an open source alternative to them So my opposition to Microsoft Edge isn't because it's done by Microsoft It's not done because it's proprietary garbage. It's not any of those things My opposition comes is because I'm confused as to why it exists and I'll talk about that now So let's go ahead and jump in shall we? Okay, so this is Microsoft Edge now. This is the dev channel released. This was the most recent version and I've been using it off and on now for I don't know maybe a week or so and My overwhelming conclusion after having used it for so long is that It's good, but I don't know why you'd use it If you're gonna use something use based on chromium, I guess chromium You should just use chromium or use Google Chrome or use brick I mean, I would say use brave, but brave at least as open source and has some unique features going for it Chromium seems to have been Defend with all the them taking all the Google stuff out of it and Google Chrome is well I mean, it's Google Chrome right for Microsoft Edge. What exactly is the draw? And you can say that it has some neat features So it has something called collections that you can go through and like save stuff for later It's kind of like a pocket alternative from what I've been able to experience I haven't actually signed in so it's not as useful as it probably would be if I signed into a Microsoft account It has these vertical tabs here along the side, but this is just tree tab That's all this is is tree tab means it's precisely what you can get in Firefox and Chrome with an extension So the only difference here is that it comes built in. You don't have to have an extension The extensions themselves like the extension store itself I guess I should say is not as expansive as Chrome or Firefox. So so you don't you don't have access to all the Extensions you'd have if you used one of the main browsers Now granted you can use the Chromium web store on this as well I believe I don't know whether or not you have to go through an extra step in order to do so I didn't explore that, you know far So I don't know so I kept asking myself as I Used the browser over the past week Why would you use it? What does this give you that? Using Chromium doesn't or using Google Chrome doesn't or using Firefox doesn't Why would you use it? And the only answer to that question I can Give is that if you're entrenched in the Microsoft ecosystem So you use office all the time you use Skype you use teams all these things Then edge makes a lot of sense because there's a lot of integration into Microsoft services supposedly I'm Not entrenched in the Microsoft's ecosystem. So I have no clue but there are advantages to using it if you use teams and stuff and That's the only reason I can see I guess if you maybe if you use Edge on the mobile on Android or something around iOS Then maybe it's a good thing to have it on the desktop as well because you can sync them back and forth Why you couldn't just do that in Chrome or whatever or in better yet in Firefox I'm not sure so the other thing I was thinking about is that really the reason why this exists is that is because Microsoft needed a competitor to Google Chrome and No one was using Edge before adopted the Chromium web engine blink or whatever. It's called so they just decided to take Chromium and fork it basically and Create their own version of it. That's the reason why it exists Why they can have done us all a favor and fork Firefox that would have been so much better I mean, I don't know if they would have had success with it because they seem to have had success with this new Chromium based version of Edge. A lot of people seem to like it. I personally think it's Kind of ugly and it's just so flat I mean there's just I think granted this may look like this just because I'm in a window manager and Not in like a you know a desktop environment, but there's just so much empty space here now I could That changes if I go through and move the tabs up here, but then it just looks like Chrome. I mean it looks I mean If you're going to do something different at least do something different, I mean, this is just Google Chrome. I mean it has some extra features like RSS Parsing or something and it has the collections thing and has the vertical tabs, but overall it's just Google Chrome with Microsoft bits enabled so instead of having a Google account that you sign in to sync stuff you sign in with your Microsoft account That's literally all it is and I don't get it Maybe it's because I'm a Firefox user and I would prefer to have seen you know Firefox have a chance at being mainstream Being supported by Microsoft or whatever but for the most part I Think that the reason why I just don't get it is because like it is just so much a clone of what we already have Supposedly there are some privacy benefits, but The whole question of privacy really between Google Chrome and Microsoft Edge really comes down to which major International corporation you trust most with your data and the answer that should be neither of them I mean technically Google's way worse at taking data and using it for profit than Microsoft is but Microsoft's not that much better. They still run their own ad business. They still run their own browser and Search engine and stuff. So it sounds if they're the Paragon of virtue and and privacy that Google is not they're basically the same so You can't argue that Microsoft Edge here is like The privacy browser is just not I mean, is it a little bit better in privacy? I don't know. Maybe I Have if there's just a general feeling whether or not it's a true feeling or not There's a feeling that Microsoft is less willing or excuse me that Microsoft is more willing to Put privacy focus first then Google is Whether I said whether or not that's a true feeling. I don't know. It's just maybe so the question is should you use Microsoft Edge and the answer that question is if you were working in a Corporate environment that is entrenched in the Microsoft ecosystem, which most of them are I Guess a lot of them are moving over towards Google's ecosystem. But if you work in that situation Then you're probably just gonna use Edge because that's what your corporate Overlords have said to do there's nothing wrong with using Edge on Linux if you want to use Edge on Linux But I think that there are better options Mainly if you're just gonna use if you if you're looking for a chromium based browser Just use Chrome you're gonna get all the benefits of What you need from Chrome from Chrome better than you'll get from Microsoft really sets the way it feels and I mean I Couldn't notice a significant speed difference in any of the browsers that I tried so they're all fast enough So I mean the benefits appear to be who do you or I guess the Question appears to be who do you trust more to run your browser? Microsoft or Google and I Would answer that question with I don't trust either of them. I'm gonna use Firefox I don't really trust Firefox either, but I trust them more than Google and Microsoft. So More of the story Use Firefox Anyways, thanks for watching. You can follow us on Twitter at the Linux cast You can follow us on Facebook at the Linux cast you can support us on patreon patreon.com slash Linux cast with that in mind I would like to thank our current patrons Devon Zach Marcus American camp. Thanks for your support. Thanks everybody for watching I'll see you next time