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Microsoft building a completely new browser for Windows 10

by Mark Tyson on 30 December 2014, 10:05

Tags: Internet Explorer, PC

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Microsoft is said to be building an entirely new standalone web browser to ship alongside Internet Explorer as part of its Windows 10 push. This information comes from Mary J Foley of ZDNet, quoting multiple sources.

Codenamed Spartan, the report states that the new web browser is not Internet Explorer 12 and will not completely replace IE, but will instead be a light-weight browser that will be available for both desktop and mobile versions on Windows 10. Both IE11 and Spartan are expected to be incorporated in the upcoming PC Windows 10 release; however the presence of IE11 is said to be only for backward compatibility reasons.

Currently under development, the Spartan browser is believed to look more like the Chrome and Firefox browsers, currently the two most popular browsers, it is said to run faster than IE. It will continue to utilise the Chakra JavaScript engine and Trident rendering engine rather than switching to WebKit, whilst also rumoured to offer users more extensive customisations and support for extensions.

Less than a fortnight ago we heard about chief of Internet Explorer, Dean Hachamovitch, stepping down and moving on after 24 years at Microsoft. His move might have been precipitated by a new team at Microsoft taking up the in-house browser reins, working on the new Spartan browser.

The ZDNet report points out the possibility of the new browser being unveiled on 21 January, when Microsoft is set to officially show off new aspects and features as part of the latest preview release of Windows 10 – 'The Next Chapter'. It will be interesting to see how Microsoft makes Spartan a distinct and appealing offering as it has been trying to improve the reputation of it IE browser for years.

HEXUS Forums :: 27 Comments

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Posted by wasabi - Tue 30 Dec 2014 10:30
Lack of support for extensions is primarly what is killing IE for me. Will be interesting to see an IE browser with Ablock, Ghsotery et al, Euro cookie acceptance tweakers et al that are a must-have IMO
Posted by crossy - Tue 30 Dec 2014 10:39
It will be interesting to see how Microsoft makes Spartan a distinct and appealing offering as it has been trying to improve the reputation of it IE browser for years.
Well they could easily make it “appealing” by increasing performance and making sure it was fully standards compliant. And by “standards compliant” I mean to everyone else's standards, not come up with a new way and declare it a “defacto standard”. A mobile version of Spartan (with bookmark sync to the desktop) would go a long way to pleasing people too.

Allowing 3rd party extensions is a good start - there's a raft of security-related stuff that I'd like to be able to use. That said, I'm firmly cross-platform these days, so why would I want to use an IE replacement when Chrome and Firefox not only support Windows, but mobile and Linux too.
Posted by 1stRaven - Tue 30 Dec 2014 11:15
crossy
A mobile version of Spartan (with bookmark sync to the desktop) would go a long way to pleasing people too.

IE already does this. My bookmarks, open tabs etc all sync to my mobile quite happily.
Posted by crossy - Tue 30 Dec 2014 12:04
1stRaven
IE already does this. My bookmarks, open tabs etc all sync to my mobile quite happily.
And if you're not using Windows Phone? So Android/iOS without using some third party workaround.
Posted by Saracen - Tue 30 Dec 2014 13:07
crossy
Well they could easily make it “appealing” by increasing performance and making sure it was fully standards compliant. And by “standards compliant” I mean to everyone else's standards, not come up with a new way and declare it a “defacto standard”. A mobile version of Spartan (with bookmark sync to the desktop) would go a long way to pleasing people too.

Allowing 3rd party extensions is a good start - there's a raft of security-related stuff that I'd like to be able to use. That said, I'm firmly cross-platform these days, so why would I want to use an IE replacement when Chrome and Firefox not only support Windows, but mobile and Linux too.
That, TBH.

Assuming MS meet my other prerequisites with Win10, I'll take a look at ‘Spartan’, but it'll need to be very, very impressive, in oh-so-many ways, to surplant Firefox, Opera, etc. As for Chrome, I'd rather use IE. At least it doesn't come from Satan's Spawn, Google. ;) :D

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