Microsoft Edge, anyone?

Probably a godsend if you're a web dev. No more rebooting or running a second PC/VM for compatibility checking.

It has a slightly better privacy policy compared to google chrome while fully supporting progressive web apps on Linux. Edge is also very much so more efficient in terms of system resource utilization. It also has high quality native built in translation which I need. All of this means I use Edge as my PWA browser.

Chromium lacks native translation support. Firefox PWA support is not good. Edge was the least bad option for me. 🤷‍♀️

In my opinion no proprietary browser is worth using.

Chrome isn't better in any way than Edge, as both don't respect it's users privacy and decisions (dark patterns, etc).

I use Edge daily for work. Everything it Office 365 and there is of course no Outlook client or Word or whatever on Linux. So I use the web version for everything. So I might as well have Edge to do the Microsoft since surely MS must make sure their stuff works on their own browser, right? (right??).

I also use the PWA version of Teams since the native client doesn't really work well and since somewhat recently is also "officially" unsupported.

Anyway, it keeps the MS stuff separate from my normal browsing with Firefox and I've disabled JavaScript in Edge for all non-MS stuff. It works pretty well. Took me some battles to get rid of the Bing sidebar but they finally made that an option you can set.

I use Edge on Linux as my user agent in Firefox on Windows just so I can give some engineers a laugh.

I always use edge whenever I'm making a public presentation with a computer I use. Simply because I never use it. Then autocomplete won't embarrass me if we look something up.

I set it up with my work profile for Office 365 stuff.

I've given up the hope that Office will ever come to Linux, so instead I'm just trying to use the web version more.

I don't use it as its proprietary and spyware

I always thought it was hilariously pointless, does that count?

Nah it's proprietary garbage. If it weren't proprietary it would be an option (although in that case a "deMicrosofted" version would be better). there are free Chromium browsers and free browsers that aren't chromium, this one offers nothing of interest.

Yo I'll install this bs right now if it allows me to watch Netflix into such in 4k. Anyone tried that?

Edit: Nope that's not a thing

FUCK NETFLIX DISNEY AMAZON AND ALL THE OTHERS

I currently use Edge for mostly one thing, its "Read aloud" feature.

Because you can use some of the Azure neural voices its currently the best, free, easily accessible text-to-speech available.

It can even do PDFs quite well. Really helps when I'm too unable to focus for reading long texts but can still listen well enough (ADHD).

No... I don't want to use a browser made by Microsoft. They will turn it to shit as soon as they can get away with it, and I'm happy with Firefox.

I have it on Steam Deck since it can be launched with a CLI argument to force a 1280x800 window.

Vivaldi pretends to be Edge when visiting Bing to unlock GPT-4, and prefer that to Edge on my other devices. (Secondary to Firefox, ofc)

Installed to use bingGpt. Never use it. But somethis it get some updates.

I use it on snap!

(J/k, I don't)

I'll say this, I never used edge before, but it's comparable with a bunch of my work sites so I was kind of forced into using it. It's actually pretty great. Better overall than stock chrome, though I prefer brave or Firefox for non work related stuff.

Once I started using Edge, I was surprised by how well it worked.

I actually trust Microsoft far more than I trust Google. I use Outlook as my main email provider and Edge for when I need something that rejects Firefox.

Besides trust, Edge just feels snappier on Linux than Chrome. Chrome is so bloaty theses days.

I use it for my university email, which is an outlook account. Edge is the only browser that doesn't constantly log me out.

Yes, because I am forced to use M$ Teams.

and it doesn't work in firefox

How most comments are either "I use X anyways" or "Edge seems to be a decent browser"

It is not. Has no tracking protection at all and itself tracks you a hell lot.

Its just a browser, no need to be tracked, for what in reverse? The same with Chrome, I dont get it?

Here is some actual MITM traffic analysis. Use Firefox Translate to translate.

https://www.kuketz-blog.de/microsoft-edge-datensendeverhalten-desktop-version-browser-check-teil4/

I use Edge daily--trying to use mostly non-proprietary software, but when I need to annotate a PDF, Edge just works. It's no drawboard PDF, but it's free and runs on Linux!

I think of myself as a Firefox user but I probably use Edge on Linux more than any other browser.

It runs the video conferencing apps I need to use better than anything else. Firefox does not work at all with some of them.

Obviously, it works well with Outlook and Office 365. I use a number of LMS systems and they all work well with it as well.

Once you start using it, it is just a great browser though honestly. Before I know it, I have opened a bunch of tabs in Edge and there is no reason to open anything else.

Just wait until Microsoft releases a .deb of Windows Terminal.

I use edge on Ubuntu via the snap.

It lets me use a very specific website that doesn't work in Firefox.

It also lets me play Xbox cloud games on Linux.

Otherwise it's Firefox soon the way.

Yes. I'm mostly developing a website, and testing on another browser is necessary every now and then. But that is my only use reason.

My main browser used to be firefox till tw9 weeks qgo, but it started to be buggy so it's LibreWolf now.

It has a really good implementation of vertical tabs. Vivaldi and Firefox are somewhat close, but they're not nearly as polished.

I can't really blame people for using Edge since I using VSCode daily 😞

Yep, I use for Xbox cloud gaming on steam deck.

I use it as the only browser for work. I don't have choices, because Teams and Outlook with all its' functionality works well only in their own browser, edge...

I even write some userscript to improve it because it's broken.. :/

As a browser it’s fine, but Microsoft asking me to use it every 0.001 seconds really turns me off it.

But the only reason for Edge ever to exist was to download Firefox.

I've used it just to access Bing Chat, which has become my go to AI chatbot for a couple of reasons: 1) you theoretically get access to gpt 4 without paying 20 dollars a month, 2) it cites it's sources, and 3) it can create images via DALLE from within the chat (which is handy, you can chat with the AI to help you think of an image prompt, the just say "ok make an image based on that description"). Other then that, i use Firefox at home. At work our choices are chrome or edge, so I use edge because of bing chat and I kind of like the layout better. It feels like choosing between buying something from Amazon or Walmart, which terrible corporation do I hate more in a given moment.

I am not judging anyone who uses Edge here, I can understnad the appeal of it. I just am sad that Linux doesn't have Microsoft like feature that there isn't a great alternative for Google + Bard, Microsoft GPT.

I want everything FOSS, but yeah, I will sleep now. I am too old for the new gen.

I used it once to use the in browser bug report thing to request that they support immersive WebXR on linux.

I use firefox and used email and most of my things on google, but after 2023, I had an abandoned outlook and start to use for Sync on Edge and etc

IDK, seems a decent browser, a lot need some corporate browser and microsoft going to cloud, at least it's better than going to windows entirely for a lot of people kekw

Although I am required to use windows machines for work normally and, since we dont have access to firefox, i normally use edge there, there are occasions on which I find it convenient to hop into a similar setup on my home linux machine to get to my work account. I will use edge for that - as well as outlook online etc.

For a work browser, I find it pretty useful. There is no way that I would want to use if for general purposes though.

Bullshit. Even the flatpak is not sandboxed very much. If you sandbox it totally then maybe. But I dont know.

As long as Vivaldi is available on Linux I don't see a need for it, same engine but better features.

@cujo
Hi,
no, Edge will be never use on my laptop

Ooh, thanks for pointing that out! I haven't used it, but now I will start installing it for every colleague's Linux user when I get the chance, just to mess with them. Might even change their bash's prompt to the DOS one.

(These edge installs of mine will probably account for half of all edge on Linux installs ever, btw)

I don’t use it for browsing but only for two use cases :

• Editing PDFs. Firefox does it, but stupidly if you reopen the file you can’t edit previous edits. Like you write something on the pdf, turn off your computer, a day later you want to edit the text, you can’t. But Edge remembers text blocks and you can edit even after you reopen the file. That’s why I use it
• Bing Chat

I tested it out bc I thought I'd need it to get teams running for school, but it turns out we're only using teams' video calls so Vivaldi works too. Edge is fine I guess? I dislike that it's chromium and I dislike microsoft but it's good to know edge works fine, in case I need it for some reason at some point. I still uninstalled it when I realized I didn't need it.

Normally, I use firefox for normal personal browsing and vivaldi for school (since some sites we use work much better on chromum, and it's nice to have that separation anyways).

In my opinion, the only proprietary browner (and remember that it is partially proprietary) worth even though it is proprietary is Vivaldi

CC BY-NC-SA 4.0

Usual MS garbage.

Yes, started using Edge on Linux few months ago exclusively for free GPT-4

I collect Microsoft points so Edge gives bonus every day & integrates with bing. It's also good for reading pdfs and epubs cause it has nice tts which does not sound like a retarded robot played through a tin can like the linux native one.

MS Edge Has a superior PDF editor with very good workflow for textboxes, pen input support. I use it just for editing/annotating PDFs.

I used to because they gave out free coupons for various things (like Amazon). The issue I had with it is that the right-click menu for Edge on Linux overrides the OS and that of a browser. It was annoying enough to go back to Firefox.

I use edge on linux every now and then. I keep two browsers to separate work and personal stuff and I use edge as my secondary browser (for personal stuff on the work OS, for work stuff on the personal OS). My main browser is Vivaldi.

My reasoning is that it has very good tab management features and I'd still rather use a Microsoft browser than an Opera browser. With just those two requirements there's not much else to use out there.

I hate Microsoft but I have to agree it has some really nice products. Personally for me, I just don't like edge because it's somewhat bloat. I mean, look, if you have a high powered machine, you will probably love it. But yeah, I like firefox best, I can't imagine leaving it. Just too addicted to the features, can't live without them.