This is a bad news for Internet Explorer fans if any, according to a few sources from within Microsoft, it appears that the company is working on a new web browser — codenamed Spartan — that will debut with Windows 10. Spartan is “new” and “isn’t Internet Explorer”. Her post notes that it could be set free inside of the Windows 10 release schedule. In short, Microsoft may be building a speedy, simpler browser that maintains use of Internet Explorer’s rendering engine.
The new browser, which Mary Jo Foley says is codenamed Spartan within Microsoft, is not Internet Explorer 12 – the next version in line. Instead, it’s a new, light-weight browser that is different entirely and will ship alongside Internet Explorer 11 on Windows 10.
Reason for Building New Browser
Microsoft is tired of the old-nature feel of Internet Explorer. As internet Explorer has had a ribald history, growing from zero market share, to market-dominating heights, to slow decline in the face of Firefox, to faster decline in the face of Chrome, to a recent re-acceleration under a new, standards-based approach. Its life has been bitcoin’s late 2013 to date, but stretched out over several decades.
Spartan, is a new web browser, but it uses the same Trident rendering engine and Chakra JavaScript engine as Internet Explorer. The rest of the browser would be different, though It would have a different UI — something like Firefox or Chrome, with the tabs on top — and allow for extensions. Extensions could be very interesting, though we should wait and see what Microsoft’s implementation is before we get too excited. Microsoft would have to create a completely new front-end to allow for powerful, Firefox-like extensions — which would take a lot of work.
Spartan could be one of the new features that Microsoft is planning to show off at its Windows 10 preview event scheduled for just after CES on January 21.
Will Microsoft end up porting the Spartan browser to Android, iOS and/or any other non-Windows operating systems? I’m not sure. The IE team said a few months back that Microsoft had no plans to port IE to any non-Windows operating systems. But Spartan isn’t IE. And these days, Microsoft is porting much of its software and services to non-Windows variants. So I’d say there’s a chance that this could happen somewhere down the line
And Microsoft has not finalized a name for the new browser (Spartan is just the codename and won’t be the name attached when it ships).
The sources also say that this browser will set a competition to Google Chrome (Also Mozilla Firefox) browser which are the most widely used browser as of now by internet users. What do you think guys? Let us know your views in comments.