Discussion
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BoredPositron: That's hilarious. I wonder how many edge versions are deployed in a standard install.
kstrauser: Is that like MS’s version of an Electron app? Aren’t most Electron apps just Chrom{e,ium} plus some JS to run inside it?Asking seriously, not snarkily. That’s my understanding but maybe I’m wrong about it.
elwray: wow. I wonder how this was found out originally?
throwuxiytayq: https://xcancel.com/i/status/2041112541909205001vastly improved link to annoy that one musk ass kisser and help everyone else
illusive4080: Chill, not everything has to be political on HN
nekusar: As we've found in recent years, the whole tech sphere is highly fucking radioactively political. Including that human identity tracker masquerading as "child safety" by the scooby doo enemy of Meta/Facebook.So yes, its political. One hundred fucking percent political.And yes, I'll judge you if you post links to that nazi bar called Shitter.And this bubble chart is who you support when you link to shitter: https://www.natesilver.net/p/social-media-has-become-a-freak...
snitch182: First thought: 'i wonder what the app is made from'. Followed by looking at the exe in a hex editor... Oh that looks like edge .. renaming the file and the rest is HN history
fortran77: Every electron app is really just a browser, isn't it?
heliumtera: Any webpage you see is really just chromium. All new product you see from today startups are really just post request to the cheapest inference provider
zamadatix: One of the comments led to an article which really goes into the details of what exactly is packaged here https://www.windowslatest.com/2026/04/05/new-copilot-for-win...
JanneVee: If I was to speculate, this is the result of "rank n' yank" where the performative productivity is more important than actual productivity. If true it says something about why AI is pushed hard by Microsoft, it make performative productivity much more easier.
layer8: See https://www.windowslatest.com/2026/04/05/new-copilot-for-win....
ygra: So, like edit.com and QBasic. What is old is new again.
rob74: Except that was done to save disk space (according to https://jeffpar.github.io/kbarchive/kb/063/Q63777/, "When EDIT.COM is executed in MS-DOS versions 5.0 and later, it invokes QBASIC.EXE with the /EDITOR switch", whereas this installs a whole new copy of the Edge browser (850 MB) on a system where in 90+% of cases it's already installed...
rbanffy: Someone has their bonus tied to how many copies of Edge are installed.
steve1977: You cannot really use most Copilot products for actual productivity, even if you wanted to.Last time I checked, Copilot in Outlook did not have access to my calendar data.
FuriouslyAdrift: Microsoft switched from Electron to their own WebView2 a while ago.https://developer.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-edge/webview...
cogman10: Main difference, electron bundles all of chrome with every app. WebView2 can do that, but the recommended route is one that shares the runtime across multiple apps (what ms does). So you end up with just 1 webview2 on the system + your app specific code ultimately significantly shrinking the distribution size.
steve1977: MSHTML.dll reborn
Someone1234: Mostly, yes. But since they upstream Chromium, it is more likely to remain evergreen than MSHTML ever was.
