Why did I want to migrate?
First of all its very dangerous to keep all your data with one company, especially knowing fact that Google is data company and Microsoft is Software company. Though Google does sell software, but the architecture of company is to basically snoop around all your data, categorize it and monetize it.
So I always wanted to go away from Chrome and use as less as Google products as possible.
So what did stop me?
Well I am a developer and Chrome was and still is the best browser to debug JavaScript, and majority of our frontend was and still is always on JavaScript.
Finally Edge on Chromium
Since Edge is built on Chromium, (the engine behind Chrome browser), essentially all great features of JavaScript Engine and Debugger are already there in Edge. And you can do everything what you can do in Chrome.
Edge is nothing but exactly same browser with your private data being stored with Microsoft as opposed to Google.
I also feel that I am no longer being constantly watched, (I know about incognito but we don't use incognito all the time). I just didn't like how Google was learning what all I am browsing and finally on Google Mobile Search page, Google started displaying My Interesting Articles.
Though Microsoft is advertising about being fast and being more batter friendly, privacy was the biggest factor I wanted to migrate.
Google Blocking Third party cookies
This was the move that I hated the most, after Google collected and is still collecting all the data from internet, Google decided to do something that will affect everyone except Google itself. So Google wanted to make money by tracking users but didn't want anyone else to make money by doing same. (I am not advocating tracking, what I mean is, Law & Order should decide this and not the Google). This was the time I really wanted to come out of Google.
Whenever I open Task Manager and see Performance, I see constant data being sent to Google even if I have no tab open with any website related to Google.
Isn't Microsoft also tracking?
I don't have problem with that, because their primary focus is selling Software vs selling my private information. So Microsoft is tracking only to improve my user experience.
How is the development experience?
Great, no difference... everything is same,
-
edge://inspectinstead ofchrome://inspect -
edge://settingsinstead ofedge://settings
The only difference and pain is lack of all the Chrome extensions, but I am sure they will soon arrive on Edge store as soon as Microsoft fixes Edge Marketplace. Currently adding new extension to Microsoft Edge Store is pain, as their listed steps does not work, they want you to signup as partner and that I did, but after that the workflow does not work as mentioned in documentation.
But you can always load extensions from custom source for your own development, which is acceptable as of now.
Future
I am sure Microsoft will commit to provide timely updates, and keep Edge up and running. This is little concern as somehow Microsoft starts cross platform and ends up focusing only on Windows.
Future is bright, secure and Private !!
Top comments (13)
Awesome experience, thanks for sharing!
A good point that it's dangerous in terms of keeping all your data with one company, I completely agree. On top of that I would think that data which is placed not on my server is not my data...
As for me Chrome Debugger Tool is the best tool for JS debugging I have ever used. Nonetheless, I don't use Chrome anymore. Now Firefox is my main browser.
What about DuckDuckGo and even Firefox(currently I am using it) ?
I'm using Firefox Developer Edition and it has incredibly powerful developer tools. I think Firefox is more powerful than Chrome on that.
I think Firefox have better privacy policies as well.
Firefox is great, but as a secondary testing browser, its just that for development I am more comfortable with Chrome Developer tools.
Interesting. I would have chosen FF though - open source - anti-snooping, etc.
Have you ever tried Brave with Qwant for privacy. It's pretty accurate, I'm good with it for 6 month now.
Yes I did try Brave, but as mentioned in earlier comments, I am more comfortable storing my data in Microsoft data center. Also I feel there must be many browser and marketshare of browsers must be distributed equally instead of single monopoly.
I use Opera for a while because of the same reasons.
Yes Opera is good, I tried using it long time back, when they weren't using chromium, it was buggy so I never tried again.
Tails + TOR browser bundle is all you need.
TOR is gray area marketplace, I don't think I want to install anything related to TOR on my dev machines. I don't want to be anonymous, I just don't want to be spied on.
Yes I did, but I want to store all my cookies and history with Microsoft, I don't trust how Brave will make money and survive for free.