Several pundits criticized Google for warning Edge users to switch to Chrome if they wanted to use Chrome extensions "securely". "In Chrome, a plugin can be remotely disabled by the Chrome team if it's considered unsafe for whatever reason," notes PC World. "Google lacks the ability to remotely disable the same plugin within Edge, prompting Google to recommend switching to Chrome, a source close to Google said."

Though PC World notes that Google isn't giving the same warning to Opera users...

Yet now when you try to add Chrome Extensions to Edge, Microsoft also gives you a warning of its own -- that extensions installed from sources other than the Microsoft Store "are unverified [by Microsoft], and may affect browser performance." And while Google.com is still displaying an ad for Chrome to web surfers using Edge, now if you search for "Chrome web store" on Bing, the first result is an ad ("promoted by Microsoft") for Microsoft's own Edge browser.

ZDNet's Chris Matyszczyk asked both Google and Microsoft for a comment: [N]othing from Google. But suddenly, a confirmation from Microsoft that it wouldn't offer official comment. My sniffings around Google suggest the company may have been taken aback by the positive public reaction to Edge... My nasal probings around Redmond offer the reasoning that, well, Microsoft hasn't tested or verified extensions that arrive from places other than they Microsoft Edge add-ons website. Why, they're far too busy to do that. And, well, it's the Chrome web store. Who knows what you'll find over there? Oh, and Edge gives you more control over your data, so there.

Could it be, then, that Google is being vacuously childish and trying to scare people into resisting the lures of Microsoft's browser handiwork? Could it also be that Microsoft is doing something rather similar in either retaliation or merely homage to the brutally competitive instincts of social activist Bill Gates?

Could it be that both of these companies should pause to examine their consciences, go sit in a corner and embrace their customers' needs and choices a touch more fully?

In Microsoft's Chromium-based Edge browser, Chrome's extensions "work as good as they work on Chrome browsers," argues the MS Power User blog.

But guess what happens when you use Edge to visit Chrome's "Web Store" for downloading extensions? According to Google, internet users should use Google Chrome instead of Microsoft Edge if they want to use browser extensions securely. On visiting the Chrome web store on Microsoft Edge, you'll be displayed a banner with a yellow background color saying "Google recommends switching to Chrome to use extensions securely" at the top of the page.
A later article points out that Opera visitors don't receive that same warning -- and that's just the beginning: While Google doesn't show anything on Opera or Chrome, when you access Google.com, Drive and Docs on Edge, the websites show a pop-up asking you to switch to Chrome... Google went as far as saying Chrome helps you hide ads and protect from malware...

[W]e can't really blame them for doing it. Google and Microsoft have a history of fighting over their own software. Microsoft has pushed users towards Edge on Windows 10 in the past and in a way Google seems to be returning the favour

Microsoft has published a roadmap for the new Microsoft Edge. The roadmap includes features that are currently planned, in discussion, under review, and not planned. It gives an insight into the new Microsoft Edge's development because you can see where Microsoft is trying to take the browser. From a report: Here are a few notable features Microsoft plans to roll out to the new Microsoft Edge:
1. Enable sync of installed browser extensions between devices
2. Enable sync of browsing history between devices
3. Make Edge available on Linux
4. Support read aloud of PDF files
5. Add the ability to ink on web pages

"Lazy Loading" would augment HTML's <img> tag (and <iframe> tag) with two new attributes -- "eager" (to load immediately) and "lazy" (to load only when it becomes relevant in the viewport).

Felix Arntz, a developer programs engineer at Google (and a WordPress core committer) notes the updates in the HTML specification for the lazy loading attributes, adding that it's "already supported by several browsers, including Chrome and Edge" and also the Android browser and Opera.

And lazy loading can now also be toggled on for Firefox 75 Nightly users, reports Neowin, though it's disabled by default: It's not clear if it will be enabled by the time Firefox 75 reaches the stable branch but according to comments on the Bugzilla thread, it's in high demand. Previously, websites could employ lazy loading by using JavaScript but now lazy loading syntax is supported directly in the web browser.

The implementation in Firefox comes after Google added the feature to its browser.
Google's Arntz has also written a post describing a proposal to begin lazy-loading images by default in Wordpress. The proposed solution is available as a feature plugin WP Lazy Loading in the plugin repository. The plugin is being developed on GitHub. Your testing and feedback will be much appreciated.

The "Suggested" section on the Windows 10 Start Menu used to just promote its own apps, reports MSPowerUser. But for some users (who haven't disable Microsoft's "Suggestions"), that menu is now showing a new kind of ad listing: The listing displays "Still using Firefox? Microsoft Edge is here", to all users of the former -- even with the latter already installed.

The ad provides a link to download the chromium-based browser.

Undoubtedly, the suggestions won't end here. Microsoft is reportedly planning to sprawl similar ads out to Wordpad, to encourage users to download official Office apps.
The Windows Latest blog points out that Microsoft's "Suggestions" can be "permanently disabled with a few tweaks unlike the Chrome ads in Google search results."

The Verge argues that the browser wars "are back, but it's different this time."
The mobile web is broken and unfettered tracking and data sharing have made visiting websites feel toxic, but since the ecosystem of websites and ad companies can't fix it through collective action, it falls on browser makers to use technological innovations to limit that surveillance, however each company that makes a browser is taking a different approach to creating those innovations, and everybody distrusts everybody else to act in the best interest of the web instead of the best interest of their employers' profits... I've been avoiding getting into the precise details of the proposals out there to fix the tracking problem because things are changing so quickly across so many different tracks... Until then, know that there are two important things to know.

First: there are new browser technologies and limits coming that could radically change how ads work and could make it easier for you to protect your privacy no matter what browser you use. Since this is the web, it'll take time, but everybody seems committed. Second: the way many of us think about a Browser War is in terms of marketshare -- and that is the wrong metric this time. There is a browser war, but it won't be won or lost based on who can convince the most people to switch to their browser. Because most people can't or won't switch on the platform that matters: mobile.

In 2020, the desktop is a minor skirmish compared to browsers on phones. On phones, many people aren't really free to choose their browser. That's literally true on the iPhone, which Apple locks down so apps can only use its web rendering technology. And it's for-intents-and-purposes true on Android, where the vast majority of browsers just use Chromium. Yes, there is an Android browser ballot happening in Europe, but it's much too early to know what its effects will be....

The new Browser Wars aren't about who makes the fastest or best browser, they're about whose services you want and whose data policies you trust.

An anonymous reader writes: It's been some 18 months since VentureBeat's last browser benchmark battle. What better time to get the latest results than the start of a new year? Over the past year and a half, Google Chrome has continued to dominate market share, Mozilla Firefox has doubled down on privacy, Microsoft Edge has embraced Chromium, and Brave launched out of beta.

You can click on the individual test to see the results:
SunSpider: Edge wins!
Octane: Chrome wins!
Kraken: Firefox wins!
JetStream: Edge wins!
MotionMark: Edge wins!
Speedometer: Edge wins!
Basemark: Brave wins!
WebXPRT: Firefox wins!

The Chromium version of Edge did a lot better given that the stable release only arrived this week. We were expecting improvements, but not so many outright wins. That said, browser performance was solid across all four contestants -- each browser won at least one test. Performance of course shouldn't be your only consideration when picking your preferred app for consuming internet content. As long as you're using a browser that receives regular updates (and all four of these meet that criteria), you can expect performance to be solid. There is certainly room for improvement, but Chrome, Firefox, and now Edge, as well as Brave, are all quite capable.

Microsoft today launched its new Edge browser based on Google's Chromium open source project. You can download Chromium Edge now for Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 10, and macOS directly from microsoft.com/edge in more than 90 languages. From a report: Business features aside, there's also support for Chrome-based extensions, 4K streaming, Dolby audio, inking in PDF, and privacy tools. For the last one, it's worth noting that tracking prevention is on by default and offers three levels of control, like Firefox's tracking protection. Chrome extension support is probably the most important feature for most users. By default, extensions that have been ported over to Edge can be downloaded from the Microsoft Store. Chromium Edge also has an option to "Allow extensions from other stores" to get Chrome extensions from the Chrome Web Store. There are still a few features missing from Chromium Edge, most notably history sync and extension sync. Microsoft is working on these and some other inking functionality that it still wants to port from legacy Edge, as Microsoft is calling it. Microsoft also claims that Chromium Edge is "twice as fast as legacy Edge." Curiously, the team isn't making any claims against other browsers -- at least not yet.

Microsoft is replacing its Edge browser with the updated, Chromium-based version on January 15. Windows 10 users will be automatically transitioned over. From a report: We already knew this was coming because Microsoft announced the new Edge's launch date last month, but it wasn't clear that users would be pushed to the new version. Thankfully it will look mostly the same as the existing Edge browser, with all the same proprietary Microsoft features, except for a slightly more Chrome-esque look. Since the new Chromium Edge will be based off the same browser as Google Chrome, Edge will now support all the same extensions. Last month developers were invited to port their Chrome extensions over to the Microsoft Store, with the company saying that most extensions could be transferred over without any additional work. Edge is the default browser for all 900 million Windows 10 users, so there's obviously an incentive there to port extensions.

In 2018 an associate technology editor at Fast Company's Co.Design wrote an article titled "Why I'm switching from Chrome to Firefox and you should too."

Today shanen shared a similar article from Digital Trends. Their writer announces that after years of experimenting with both browsers, they've also finally switched from Chrome to Mozilla Firefox -- "and you should too." The biggest draw for me was, of course, the fact that Mozilla Firefox can finally go toe-to-toe with Google Chrome on the performance front, and often manages to edge it out as well... Today, in addition to being fast, Firefox is resource-efficient, unlike most of its peers. I don't have to think twice before firing up yet another tab. It's rare that I'm forced to close an existing tab to make room for a new one. On Firefox, my 2015 MacBook Pro's fans don't blast past my noise-canceling headphones, which happened fairly regularly on Chrome as it pushed my laptop's fans to their helicopter-like limits to keep things running. This rare balance of efficiency and performance is the result of the countless under-the-hood upgrades Firefox has rolled out in the last couple of years...

Its Enhanced Tracking Protection framework keeps your identity safe by blocking trackers and cookies that otherwise follow you around the internet and collect sensitive information you probably didn't even know you were giving up. On top of that, Firefox can warn if a website is covertly mining cryptocurrency in the background. Most of these protections kick in by default and you have an exhaustive set of options to customize them the way you want. Firefox also lets you look into just how invasive a website is. It actively updates your personal privacy report so you can check how many trackers it has shut overall and for a specific website...

What really clinched the switch to Mozilla Firefox was the fact that it's the only cross-platform browser that's not running Google's open-source Chromium platform. Microsoft's Edge, Brave, Opera, Vivaldi -- each of these browsers run on Chromium, accelerating Google's dominance over the web even when you're not directly using a Chrome user. Firefox, on the other hand, is powered by Mozilla's in-house Gecko engine that's not dependent on Chromium in any way. It may not seem like as vital of a trait as I make it sound, but it truly is, even though Chromium is open-source. Google oversees a huge chunk of the web, including ads, browser, and search, and this supremacy has allowed the company to pretty much run a monopoly and set its own rules for the open internet...

Mozilla as a company has, despite a rocky journey, often taken bold stances in complex situations. In the Cambridge Analytica aftermath, Mozilla announced it would no longer run Facebook advertisements, cutting off direct marketing to over 2 billion users. In a world of tech companies taking frail, facile shots at protecting user privacy and barely delivering on their commitments, Mozilla is a breath of fresh air and you no longer have to live with any compromises to support it.

Following in Mozilla's footsteps, Google announced today plans to hide notification popup prompts inside Chrome starting next month, February 2020. ZDNet reports: According to a blog post published today, Google plans to roll out a "quieter notification permission UI that reduces the interruptiveness of notification permission requests." The change is scheduled for Google Chrome 80, scheduled for release on February 4, next month.

Starting with Chrome 80 next month, Google's browser will also block most notification popups by default, and show an icon in the URL bar, similar to Firefox. When Chrome 80 launches next month, a new option will be added in the Chrome settings section that allows users to enroll in the new "quieter notification UI." Users can enable this option as soon as Chrome 80 is released, or they can wait for Google to enable it by default as the feature rolls out to the wider Chrome userbase in the following weeks. According to Google, the new feature works by hiding notification requests for Chrome users who regularly dismiss notification prompts. Furthermore, Chrome will also automatically block notification prompts on sites where users rarely accept notifications.

An anonymous reader quotes the Detroit Free Press: The mysterious, greenish-yellow liquid that ran onto a Michigan highway on Friday came from a closed electroplating business whose owner is serving a year in federal prison for operating an unlicensed hazardous waste storage facility...

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency was called to investigate and determined the liquid likely was groundwater contaminated with hexavalent chromium, according to The Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy (EGLE)... State officials said the liquid was entering a storm sewer on I-696... Crews spent Friday night vacuuming the sewers and eventually started on the basement at Electro-Plating Services, where green liquid was found in the basement pit.

Workers were installing a pump in the basement pit to keep water levels down and "prevent more offsite migration," EGLE said.
More than 5,000 containers of hazardous chemicals had already been removed from the site, according to the article.

But state investigators have determined that there's no imminent risk to the public.

Microsoft's new Chromium-based Edge browser is now open to developers to submit extensions. The updated version of Edge is set to launch on January 15. From a report: Microsoft says that if a developer has already created an extension for Google Chrome, there shouldn't be any additional work to port it over to Edge Chromium. The browser will be the new default delivered to all 900 million Windows 10 users, so developers should have no reason not to port their extensions over.

Android Authority argues that the new Microsoft Chromium Edge browser "is full of neat tricks" and "packs more features than Firefox": The final major feature is called Apps. Essentially, Apps allows you to download and install web pages and web apps for use without the Edge browser. Previously, you had to find these dedicated web apps via the Microsoft Store, but now Edge handles downloading and managing web apps all in the browser. For example, you can download the Twitter web app via Edge just by visiting the Twitter website and clicking "install this site as an app" from the settings menu. Once installed, you can run the webpage as an app directly from your desktop, taskbar, or start menu like any other piece of software. It's like saving links only better, as some web apps can run offline too. Alternatively, you can install the Android Authority webpage and run it as an app to catch up with the latest news without having to boot up Edge each time. It's pretty neat and something that I intend to use more often.

Overall, Edge offers everything you'll want in a web browser and more. Microsoft finally feels on the cutting edge of the internet.
The browser does have a smaller range of supported extensions, but you can also manually install Chrome extensions, according to the article. It adds that Microsoft Edge Chromium "typically uses just 70 to 75 percent of the RAM required by Chrome [and] is even more lightweight than Firefox."

And while acknowledging that Microsoft's Windows 10 "has its share" of telemetry issues, the article adds that "at no point during my couple of weeks with Edge have I noticed it thrashing my hard drive.

"Chrome has a habit of scanning various files on my computer, despite opting out of all the available data sharing options. This isn't great for system performance and raises obvious security questions."

Chrome 79 is creating an issue with WebView (the Android component that allows apps to display content from the web), reports 9to5Google: On Friday morning, Android developers reliant on WebView and local storage began encountering an issue where their apps lost data after users updated to version 79 of WebView. Those affected took to Chromium's bug tracker, and have described the incident as a "catastrophe" and "major issue." To end users, it's as if apps were entirely reset and just downloaded for the first time. This includes saved data disappearing or being logged out. Given the level of system opacity, most will blame developers for a problem that's out of their hands.

By that afternoon, Google engineers responded and isolated the issue to "profile layout changes" where "local storage was missed off the list of files migrated." A member of the Chromium team apologized Saturday morning, with the Chrome/WebView rollout halted after 50% of devices already received the update. At the highest priority level (P0), Google is currently "working on a solution that minimizes the data loss, and that can be rolled out safely." The last guidance for a patch is 5-7 days.

A year ago, Microsoft seemed to be pushing full steam-ahead with Progressive Web Apps (PWAs). Since then, the company's PWA momentum -- at least publicly -- seemed to have waned. However, this week, a couple of different teams at Microsoft have started talking about their PWA plans. From a report: Google has been the main champion of PWAs, which are basically web sites and/or apps that behave like native apps. But other vendors have jumped on the PWA bandwagon, as well, in recent years. Microsoft has been working to make PWA support part of its overall Windows 10 and Edge browser stories. Microsoft is turning its Outlook.com and Outlook on the Web applications into PWAs, as noted by Thurrott.com. Thurrott.com's Paul Thurrott noted that Outlook on the Web is displaying a PWA "Install" button in the Brave browser address bar. That same Install option is visible to some using the Canary version of the Chromium-based Edge browser, he reported on November 25. Outlook.com also now has an Install prompt available in the Brave address bar, he reported today, November 26, which means Outlook.com also is on its way to becoming a PWA.

"Microsoft is bringing Edge to Linux, for all the Microsoft fans running Linux," jokes the headline at the Inquirer. ("We can just imagine the amount of bunting and party poppers that the Linux community has just ordered. After all, why wouldn't you want a browser from the company that you joined Linux to get away from?") And the headline at Liliputting quips that the Edge browser "is coming to Linux (whether you want it or not)," calling the move "the latest evidence that Microsoft's relationship to Linux has changed a lot in recent years.

But TechRadar had an even more sardonic headline. "Hell freezes over as Microsoft Edge comes to Linux." One other thing to consider is that the introduction of Edge to Linux is something of a thorny subject in that the folks who choose a Linux distro often do so to break away from the chains of Microsoft and Windows (or indeed Apple). So certainly some of the more fervent open source types out there may not welcome a Microsoft browser with open arms, and doubtless it will be regarded with suspicion in some quarters. No matter how much Microsoft has been banging the open source drum in many different ways in recent times.

That said, there will doubtless be Linux users who are curious, and may want to pick up a mainstream alternative to Firefox on Linux which, when compared to Chrome -- with its famous memory hogging antics -- makes a far preferable choice in some respects. Edge will also do streaming better (by default Chrome limits you to 720p when you're trying to watch a spot of Netflix). All the testing feedback about Edge has been pretty positive in the main thus far, too, so maybe that will persuade even doubters to at least consider it.

One thing's for sure: it will certainly be interesting to see the reaction Microsoft's browser gets when it is deployed to Linux.
Edge may face a rocky reception. "I am not feeling a tingling all over at the thought of Edge coming to Linux," posted one commenter on Beta News. "It's not really necessary to bring Linux down to the level of Windows 10."

But how do Slashdot's readers feel? What's your reaction to the news that Microsoft's Edge browser is coming to Linux?

An anonymous reader quotes TechCrunch: Two security researchers have been crowned the top hackers in this year's Pwn2Own hacking contest after developing and testing several high profile exploits, including an attack against an Amazon Echo. Amat Cama and Richard Zhu, who make up Team Fluoroacetate, scored $60,000 in bug bounties for their integer overflow exploit against the latest Amazon Echo Show 5, an Alexa-powered smart display.

The researchers found that the device uses an older version of Chromium, Google's open-source browser projects, which had been forked some time during its development. The bug allowed them to take "full control" of the device if connected to a malicious Wi-Fi hotspot, said Brian Gorenc, director of Trend Micro's Zero Day Initiative, which put on the Pwn2Own contest...

When reached, Amazon said it was "investigating this research and will be taking appropriate steps to protect our devices based on our investigation," but did not say what measures it would take to fix the vulnerabilities -- or when.
The same researchers also compromised Sony and Samsung smart TVs, and the Xiaomi Mi9 smartphone, according to ZDNet, which also reports that "Nobody wanted a piece of the Facebook Portal, and nor did they want to hack Google's Home assistant.

"Security researchers chose to go after the easier targets, like routers and smart TVs, known for running weaker firmware than what you'd usually find on a smart speaker or home automation hub."

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Mozilla is urging Congress to reject the broadband industry's lobbying campaign against encrypted DNS in Firefox and Chrome. The Internet providers' fight against this privacy feature raises questions about how they use broadband customers' Web-browsing data, Mozilla wrote in a letter sent today to the chairs and ranking members of three House of Representatives committees. Mozilla also said that Internet providers have been giving inaccurate information to lawmakers and urged Congress to "publicly probe current ISP data collection and use policies." DNS over HTTPS helps keep eavesdroppers from seeing what DNS lookups your browser is making. This can make it more difficult for ISPs or other third parties to monitor what websites you visit.

"Unsurprisingly, our work on DoH [DNS over HTTPS] has prompted a campaign to forestall these privacy and security protections, as demonstrated by the recent letter to Congress from major telecommunications associations. That letter contained a number of factual inaccuracies," Mozilla Senior Director of Trust and Security Marshall Erwin wrote. This part of Erwin's letter referred to an Ars article in which we examined the ISPs' claims, which center largely around Google's plans for Chrome. The broadband industry claimed that Google plans to automatically switch Chrome users to its own DNS service, but that's not what Google says it is doing. Google's publicly announced plan is to "check if the user's current DNS provider is among a list of DoH-compatible providers, and upgrade to the equivalent DoH service from the same provider." If the user-selected DNS service is not on that list, Chrome would make no changes for that user.

Microsoft today announced that its new Edge browser based on Google's Chromium open source project has hit release candidate status. From a report: Additionally, the company shared that Chromium Edge will hit general availability in more than 90 languages on January 15, 2020. Microsoft also detailed some new features around Microsoft Search in Bing. While the two announcements might seem disjointed at first, Microsoft is trying to position Edge and Bing as "the browser and search engine for business." [...] Now that Chromium Edge is at the release candidate stage, Microsoft is sharing a little more about how it plans to differentiate the new browser from the many other Chromium-based options. As with its decision to build its own Android phone, Microsoft is tapping Google to give business users unique features on popular consumer platforms.

Whether it's hardware or software, Microsoft is obsessed with selling productivity. So that's what Chromium Edge appears destined to be: a business browser. Businesses mainly use Windows, though some also have Macs floating around so Chromium Edge is not just a Windows 10 affair. Microsoft knows the existing version of Edge isn't appealing because it isn't keeping up with the web. But the company also knows Chromium Edge will not convert most existing Chrome users, so it's focusing on the business use case. To do so, Microsoft plans to give Chromium Edge some extra privacy tools and access to corporate information that exists on company intranets. "The irony is that it is easier to find an obscure piece of information on the much larger internet than it is to find a simple document on your company's intranet -- such as a paystub portal, a pet at work policy, or the office location of a fellow employee," Microsoft CVP Yusuf Mehdi laments.