The Edge browser on mobile remains very much a niche player since Microsoft killed off its own mobile platform.
Even more so given that Edge on Android runs on Chromium, and WebKit on IOS. So, these are essentially ratings for a skin!
In a week when NASA flung a spacecraft into space to touch the Sun, Microsoft has brought darkness to Windows 10, given Skype Classic a mission extension, and continued its efforts to send SMB1 screaming into the heart of our nearest star. Windows Insiders: Dark Mode complete! Kind of... It was a bumper week for Windows …
It is more than just a skin, it is the integration with Edge on Windows - i.e. cross platform browsing experience
Given that the engine is different, that's sort of debatable. It inevitably means that some stuff is supported on one platform (for example WebP on Android but not on Windows or IOS) but not another so the shared "browsing experience" is basically tabs, passwords and bookmarks.
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Wrong song though. The first paragraph of the article was -
"In a week when NASA flung a spacecraft into space to touch the Sun, Microsoft has brought darkness to Windows 10, given Skype Classic a mission extension, and continued its efforts to send SMB1 screaming into the heart of our nearest star."
They should have used Pink Floyd's "Set the controls for the heart of the sun".
"Developers, who may have been reluctant to move to the Azure App Service, can wrap up their apps in containers and take advantage of the inherent isolation boundaries to do all sorts of naughty things that the Azure App Service might otherwise frown on. Microsoft gives the example of PDF generation components hitting graphics device interface APIs."
Ahh, so we're encouraging shitty programming by selling a service that can isolate the mess. Got it, now I finally understand what containers are all about!
yeah about that 'moving to Azure App Service' thing...
a) why code for ".Not" at _ALL_ ??? (I *never* have; it's bloatware on steroids, at its best)
b) with Micro-shaft spinning around in different technological directions from week to week [it seems], why trust them to actually SUPPORT it longer than the 'fad' period?
c) you are being LEVERAGED. The strong-arm tactics will come out, soon enough. Look what happens in Win-10-nic when you try to NOT use a 'windows logon'. Best to avoid it entirely. You'll thank me later.
icon, because, facepalm at Micro-shaft for doing this
Actually I may be confusing LAN Manager vs NT authentication. Win9x may have had nicer GUI, but Win9x/ME was still essentially win3.11 + Win32s and all the 32bit options and media stuff revamped. No security, no creation of named pipes, no VDM or WOW (used native x86 / DOS/win16) so CPU had to switch mode. Direct X was a kludge to allow easy porting of DOS games, originally no OpenGL (but it was on NT).
That's a natural response to the misunderstanding demonstrated by the article. MS isn't trying to get rid of XP and 2003 to get rid of SMB1: it's trying to get rid of SMB1 to get rid of XP and 2003.
XP and 2003 have unpatched networking vulnerabiliities.
Running SMB1 on recent server versions doesn't make sence because SMB1 is chatty and (when encryped and run on TCPIP, as on fully updated versions of Win98) , has poor latency. So the only reason to support SMB1 is for old MS and Samba servers, and that isn't a good reason. MS has no love for Win2K3 and Win98: they would have dropped SMB1 sooner but for the old Samba servers, and that is slowly coming to an end.
Bloody Cheek. It it had the desktop GUI/Customisation of XP / Vista / Win7 instead of locked into Win 2.0 on a Hercules card, then there would be no need. Win10 is a dumbed down garbage GUI, designed for monochrome laser reports, not usability. Breaking everything they learnt about GUI from Win 3.1 to Win7. Vista or XP you could make it like Win2K / Win98 / NT 4.0. Yes the "so called" artistic types might think that looks old fashioned, but it's PRODUCTIVE to know if a button is pressed or not. It's productive to instantly spot Tabs, Buttons, default button, links, menus, one off selectors, scroll bars etc rather than have to guess or hover on everything. These GUI designers should have to do real work, and on an 800 x 600 screen, yes "ribbons" and menus that hide less frequently used items, or automatically re-order by usage are ABSOLUTELY evil.
"Win10 is a dumbed down garbage GUI, designed for monochrome laser reports, not usability. Breaking everything they learnt about GUI from Win 3.1 to Win7. Vista or XP you could make it like Win2K / Win98 / NT 4.0."
Micro-shaft is WASTING THEIR TIME (and our patience!) by 'Majoring in the Minors' with their chosen "improvements" in the UI. See icon.
I would GREATLY prefer a 3D SKEUOMORPHIC THEME that doesn't have light blue on white as the default UI colors for the "The METRO" CRapps. How about a 'Windows 7' look? Or XP? Or 2K?
As for that light blue on bright white nonsense - here's some actual EVIDENCE of what I've been *SCREAMING* about for a while - it's VERY bad for your eyes!
What is it with Skype and MS? I mean, at this point I just vaguely assume they hate it and want us to hate it too.
How is it possible to take a fairly simple, established, concept, and produce an interface that's so confusing and so badly laid out that each time I use the damn thing, I find myself flailing around trying to spot how to send a text message or share a screen.
Recent versions are increasingly unreliable when it comes to relaying messages.
Is this seriously a product MS wants us to use?
my 94 y/o, housebound, slightly suffering from dementia and somewhat deaf father in law uses skype, via a headset to keep in touch with family members and friends - both at home and overseas.
It had a wonderful, simple user interface - couple of nice big buttons and a nice easy contact list. But each version that comes out wants to feck up this interface and make the thing so complicated. It gives all the computer-literate mebers of his family nightmares as we have to explain over and over again why it has suddenly changed and no longer works like it used to. It's like someone bring out a brand new remote control for his TV every few months, with all the useful buttons removed and everything else changed round.
By all means, bring out new vesrions and fill them with bling ridden shit, but don't force this onto those who are perfectly served by existing arrangements.
"By all means, bring out new vesrions and fill them with bling ridden shit, but don't force this onto those who are perfectly served by existing arrangements."
Unfortunately it is standard MS practice to 'evolve' everything whether it needs it or not, the free Outlook had a beta option for yonks, suddenly they just changed my email to the beta and called it the new shiny, apart from it not loading, not deleting old emails ( or should I say the old emails kept coming back after deletion). Now of course the new version is more cluttered less useful but we must have it.
I can't be arsed to change as so many contacts know this one including many who are no longer on my contact list, (Thanks MS).
It looks Nadella hates whatever was acquired before he gained the throne, and he's looking for ways to have users run away from the products so he can kill them blaming someone else. Or maybe he just put the wrong people managing the products - those thinking users are only a bunch of teenagers chatting via emojis. There was also the issue part of it was written in Delphi, and they had to move to a different platform and obviously selected one of the dreadful javascript frameworks so fashionable today.
It's incredible how much they wasted with Skype. I'm happy I refused some time ago to work on it...
"You neglected to mention Android or iOS, one or both of which are required to use this. So it is not really a replacement for Skype after all."
I guess you are talking about Signal, which has a desktop client that runs under Linux at least. I think it runs under Mac OS and Windows to. Though it just seems to be a skin around Chrome. So no, you don't need Android or iOS to run Signal.
I guess you are talking about Signal, which has a desktop client that runs under Linux at least. I think it runs under Mac OS and Windows to [sic].
That's true...if you also have it installed on an Android or iOS device (RTFM). So, if you don't (or can't) install it on your "smart phone", you can't use it. As such, it is not really a replacement for Skype after all, as Skype has no such requirement.
If the solution is "Not officially. Signal Desktop can be used without a smartphone if you enable development mode." - with some more caveats, it's really not really a solution, it's a workaround, but it still means it does require a smartphone, and it makes me think Signal too wants your phone number (a pretty unique identifier), and that makes it a nasty app just like all the others.
Signal is open-source not closed like Skype. Financially its backed by one of WhatsApp founders who left due to Privacy concerns (Zuck wants to pry open WhatsApp messages etc).
The Signal forums cover how to use a temporary / disposable SIM. Plus there are plans to change this to a more conventional email / login / password friendly system. But for sure, there's no 'trust forever' model on the net, so trust but verify everyday.
Signal is still the best option for now, as Telegram is looking ropey and most other options aren't free... I used Skype for a long time, but MS couldn't stop hitting the kill-switch, which made it hard to stay in touch with people who need help maintaining a PC or who don't see any benefit in upgrading to 64-Bit / Win10.
" it certainly wasn’t by number of downloads, but rather in terms of ranking."
It's so cute that they seem to think those rankings actually mean anything.
"Developers, who may have been reluctant to move to the Azure App Service, can wrap up their apps in containers and take advantage of the inherent isolation boundaries to do all sorts of naughty things that the Azure App Service might otherwise frown on"
If developers aren't interested in Azure, then why in the world would they want to wrap their apps up? This seems like the sort of thing more likely to be used by developers who are already interested in Azure, but can't afford the time or expense of actually modifying their applications.