Getting my Edge on

[plonq]

If I can figure out my issue with the program I usually use for uploading images to Flickr, I may post some vacation pictures here.

In the meantime, one of the first things I did upon arriving back home from vacation (other than kissing the ground and vowing not to get behind the wheel of a car again for awhile) was to install the new Chromium-based version of the Edge browser.

I like the old version of Edge; I don't know why it's so trendy to hate on it because I've found it very fast and reliable, and a miser when it comes to draining the batter on my surface. That aside, MS has decided to abandon the old one and build a new version based on the Chromium engine.

I've been using Firefox almost exclusively of late, in part because I want to give Google a bit less information about me. They still have lots of ways to mine it, but I'm not going to actively assist them.

So far, this browser seems to fill all of the niches I need for a browser. It's fast and stable, and everything seems to render just fine. My one quibble with it was that there was very small number of extensions for it.

That changed this afternoon when I was doing some digging on one of Flickr's pages, and it had a cute little extension for Chrome. Without thinking, I clicked on it and I got a pop-up letting me know that Edge will accept extensions from the Chrome store. Well, this changes things. I've got it set up with all of my usual must have extensions now, and I can set to really testing it.

Comments

[frith]

After you've logged in to Flickr, go here: https://www.flickr.com/photos/upload/basic

[plonq]

I know how to use the web interface, but I had been using a small program called Flickr Uploadr because it lets me process a lot of things in advance of uploading, and it integrates nicely with Windows. It was working fine about a week ago, but the other night it was hanging on the last one percent every time I tried to upload images with it.

I'll try it again on the next batch of pictures to see if it's just a temporary glitch.

[frith]

I had an inkling that you'd know about the web interface, but you seemed to be faced with a roadblock, so I still had a small doubt. ^_^

[plonq]

No worries - I always appreciate offers of help.

I'm trying the program again this morning, and it's stalling for long periods and then ultimately failing. I suspect Flickr changed something in their API when they took it down for maintenance the other day.

I used the web interface to upload a couple of pictures on Friday, and it was way more flexible than I remember it being in the past. The only added thing the program gives me at this point is the added menu item in Windows where I can right-click on a picture and upload it to Flickr. Its main benefit was that it saved me some steps.

I'm adaptable and stuff, so I guess I can get used to the process requiring a couple of extra steps.

[aurifer]

It's trendy to hate on it because we live in the age of memes and it was cool to point out in 2005 how the new Firefox browser was bringing proper standards to the Web. After IE9 came out in 2009 I thought it might slowly fade away, but apparently people still feel the same way nine years later.

Every browser seems to have its pluses and minuses. Edge is the only one I found that lets you properly save filled-out PDFs. (Might have to hit Ctrl+Shift+S, though?) Meanwhile it's unable to save regular webpages, which is really annoying to me.

Edge and Firefox are the only ones that support Windows High-Contrast, which maybe I'll move away from now that dark themes are rolling out everywhere. Edge still renders background images in this mode, but Firefox removes all background images, which includes a lot of icons.

The extensions thing is neat! I'm going to have to look through that.

[plonq]

Other than it being faster, and a couple of curious quirks that I'll need to find my way around, Using the new Edge feels a lot like using Google's Chrome browser.

One of the quirks is that when I use the middle button to close a tab, the browser flips to the other screen. I have a little program running in the background that, among other things, lets me flip windows between the monitors by middle-clicking on their title bar.

It seems that Chrome/Firefox/et al would capture that event, interpret it as a "close tab" and be done with. Edge closes the tab and then passes the click event along.