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The article also talks about MS Edge not being crossplatfom. Well.. that's about to change [1]. There's a beta for Linux, macOS, Android & iOS. What surprised me most about all this is that MS even provides the Edge for retired versions of their own OS (Windows 7 & Server 2008). I'm very impressed by that.

For Windows you don't have to include the WebView2 installer, your installer, can basically include a "stub", the evergreen bootstrapper [2], that then goes out to the internet and grabs the latest version.

edit: The great thing about WebView2 is that Microsoft keeps their control up to date. (At least on Windows, not sure what that is going to be on other platforms, time will tell)

[1] https://www.microsoftedgeinsider.com/en-us/download/?platfor...

[2] https://developer.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-edge/webview...




Just to add, the Evergreen option also doesn't require multiple installs if multiple programs are using it. The client machine just needs a single install that all programs will share [1]. Further, if the client also has Microsoft Edge installed and up-to-date, Edge and WebView2 will be hard-linked allowing them to share the same libraries and processes, further reducing the performance, memory, and storage footprints.

[1]: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-edge/webview2/con...


I'm hoping that it improves performance ;)

Thanks for expanding on that part. It's really nice how Microsoft deals with these updates.


>I'm very impressed by that.

Why? Chrome supports those platforms. There's no reason for Edge to not.


MS does not normally provide support for retired versions of their platforms. They have no direct financial incentives to do so.


Edge may become crossplatform, but it's still just a skin on top of Chromium.




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