windows 10 and the Edge

… noticeable progress in some areas.

From 23.june.2016 onwards I have given windows 10 a run-through on one of my laptops. Although I'm far from impressed by what this Operating System offers, or its looks, it haven't caused me any major problems so far.
Fact is: windows 10 runs quite well.

windows 10 apparently isn't as memory-hungry as the OS (win7) it replaced, so most programs seem to run smoother for longer. That most of the original crapware on my laptop was removed as part of the installation procedure for the new OS, also freed up memory and made software run more efficient on the memory-limited laptop I for the time being do most of my day-to-day work on.

That everything in my opinion looks like crap on windows 10, is a minor issue and one I can easily live with as long as things work well behind the surface. All my regular software programs seem to run as well as I can possibly ask for, and that's what matters around here.

the Edge…

Microsoft's new Edge browser (version 13.10586), with its slow and unstable rendering, is a disappointment. The AppleWebKit engine shows little in the form of improvements in performance over the old Trident engine, and new bugs and weaknesses start to show up.

Almost immediately I found two genuine rendering bugs in Edge (12 13) that affect my own websites. As I find time to go deeper into my sites with this browser I expect to find more bugs.

Clearly early days in the development of the Edge browser, so I am not all that surprised to find bugs and weaknesses in it. Something very familiar about these first bugs I found though – reminds me too much of the days when we were debugging IE6/7.
Maybe Microsoft is trying to reinvent old IE6…

What's really wrong with the Edge browser is anybody's guess at this time, as IE11 has started to show the same rendering instabilities on this windows 10 installation at my end. The bug-triggering conditions are standard HTML/CSS and object combinations that all browsers have supported the last 10+ years, and all non-Microsoft browsers are rendering as expected.

As Microsoft's browsers have always relied heavily on the Operating System for rendering, it is kind of logical that all their latest browsers will fail in the same way on the same OS under the same conditions. Not that there is much logic in software bugs, but at least there is some consistency here.

I am of course not going to make any changes on my sites that affect the designs, just because Edge fails. It is the browser-developers' job to fix bugs in their software – not mine.

As it stands now MS Edge isn't worth having on my laptop for anything but testing, but that's OK since I don't need it for surfing.

waited a while…

I haven't been in a hurry to install windows 10, as historically all new Operating Systems have had some “teething problems” that I did not want to deal with this time.
As reports started to be favorable, and the “free installation” time-window was nearing its closure, I saw no reason to wait any longer.

The installation process went without a hitch. Once up and running I only had to correct a few settings, and turn off some apps and functions I had no interest in.

Despite my disappointments over Microsoft's weak browsers, my conclusion so far is that the windows 10 Home OS is working reasonably well on my Samsung laptop. Think I'll keep it.

sincerely georg; sign

Hageland 25.jun.2016
last rev: 26.jun.2016

comments…

I thought the “tile everything” trend was behind us by now, but the Microsoft people don't seem to think it is. At least the graphics isn't overloaded with useless effects.

I'm not so hung up in details that I will bother to present my various likes and dislikes related to windows 10's interface. It is usable, and that's all I have to say about it at this time.

Started writing this piece only two days after installing windows 10, and I have a few more programs to test on it. Cannot rely entirely on other users' reports.

I am 100% sure that I will find some serious flaws in this Operating System as I start pushing it. Hopefully other users have, or will, find them too, so they will be fixed in future updates.

relevant links…

personal preferences…

The newly installed windows 10 will challenge my personal preferences, and possibly change some of them. However, there is no automatic switchover process at play here.

I have always been open for new ways of getting a job done, and am no stranger to go for new jobs to replace the old jobs altogether.

At the same time, to change something only for the sake of changing is rarely ever concidered, and nothing becomes more useful to me by its novelty alone.

What popularity stuff and methods may hold among others, doesn't matter much to me either. Any and all new has to beat the old on merits, and merits alone.

Only after I have gone through and evaluated everything myself, will choices be made about what new stuff and methods that will be integrated with the old and what will be ditched. The final mix doesn't have to make sense to anyone but me, and I refuse to answer to anyone but myself in such matters.

I'm in the process of hiding or deactivating unnecessary shortcuts and options in my windows 10 installation, and as I am a creature of habits there is a lot to ditch.
I don't play computer games, and I prefer to have what little news, weather forecasts, movies and other distractions I may seek to be selected and served my ways.

One thing is clear: the Edge browser doesn't offer anything of value, so the shortcut to it can go. That Edge has irritating bugs is one thing, but even without those that browser simply isn't worth firing up.

For instance: I prefer not to use the Bing nor the Google search engine, and Edge comes set up with Bing. Rather than going through a cumbersome procedure to switch default search engine on Edge, I “default” to use of another browser for all my searching and surfing – one that is already set up to match my preferences.
That's what I call an optimal solution…