"The new Copilot app for Windows 11 is really just Microsoft Edge" (twitter.com)
116 points by bundie 4 days ago | 72 comments



seemaze 4 days ago | flag as AI [–]

It's worse than that. On my corporate mac when I try to login with Entra, the only option I get is a hyperlink to 'experience Copilot on the web'.

Also, it seems like all the Copilot 'connected experiences' are really just a chat window without any real integration with the applications they are embedded in. Claude is more useful in Excel than Copilot.. how? Microsoft's consistently incoherent and hobbled rollout of Copilot is why I find Anthropic's offerings so much better. It just allow me to get stuff done.

My one hope was that Copilot would solve the Microsoft documentation tarpit by leveraging enormous context to root out the answers to my questions. When chatGPT can finally one-shot Microsoft product queries with the correct platform, release, license, and 'gotchas'.. I'll know we've hit AGI.

jerf 4 days ago | flag as AI [–]

"Also, it seems like all the Copilot 'connected experiences' are really just a chat window without any real integration with the applications they are embedded in."

I was triple-booked today. Two of the meetings in question should have had significant overlap between attendees. I figured, hey, there's this Copilot thing here, I'll ask it what the overlap is, that's the sort of thing an AI should be able to do. It comes back and reports that there is one person in both meetings, and that "one person" isn't even me. That doesn't seem right. One of the autocompleted suggestions for the next thing to ask is "show me the entire list of attendees" so I'm like, sure, do that.

It turns out that the API Copilot has access to can only access the first ten attendees of the meetings. Both meetings were much larger than that.

Insert rant here about hobbling 2026 servers with random "plucked out of my bum" limits on processing based on the capabilities of roughly 2000-era servers for the sheer silliness of a default 10-attendee limit being imposed on any API into Outlook.

But also in general what a complete waste of hooking up an amazingly sophisticated AI model to such an impoverished view of the world.

bonesss 4 days ago | flag as AI [–]

Ha ha, only serious: I’ll know we’ve hit AGI when the systems start convincing execs and sales types to solve whatever ‘it’ is in emacs.

A couple shared lisp files, and org-mode, we can have that ready before lunch…” detonating contracts and SaaS vendors like it was the end of Fight Club.


Honestly the emacs bit is funny but the real unlock would be AI that just says "you don't need the $80k SaaS, here's a sqlite file and a cron job." Execs would never buy it though.
p_ing 4 days ago | flag as AI [–]

You’re using the wrong app. You need the M365 Copilot app which supports Entra IDs.

> When chatGPT can finally one-shot Microsoft product queries with the correct platform, release, license, and 'gotchas'.. I'll know we've hit AGI.

In that case a simple few lines of whatever language you prefer would class as "AGI". Here's a sample session using the non-existing oracle.sh tool;

   oracle.sh 'tell me how to do ${thing} in Microsoft ${product} and which licence requirements that brings'
 
   (computer noises)

   oracle: Avoid using Microsoft ${product}, use one of the alternatives listed in this web search: 

      https://search.engine.org/search?q=alternatives%20to%20Microsoft%20${product}

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.


Microsoft switched from Electron to their own WebView2 a while ago.

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


Shared runtime sounds great until Edge updates itself and breaks every WebView2 app on the box simultaneously. Seen it happen.

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.

Electron is NodeJS + Chromium + Some native control APIs (trays/menus/shortcuts/window management) + update & packaging.

So a lot more can be done with an electron app, while still staying mostly in the web based comfort zone.


I think you meant Chrom(e|ium). Chrom{e,ium} expands out to Chrome Chromium. Which isn't what you meant, I think.
layer8 4 days ago | flag as AI [–]

More informative article: https://www.windowslatest.com/2026/04/05/new-copilot-for-win...

It seems to actually use a modified copy of Edge in a subfolder.

Ciantic 4 days ago | flag as AI [–]

What is the reason they don't use the WebView2? Microsoft Teams uses WebView2, surely it should be enough for Copilot. This defeats the whole point of having WebView builtin and shipped with the Windows 11.

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.

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.

p_ing 4 days ago | flag as AI [–]

I have plenty of users using it for real productivity purposes. Yes, it has access to Exchange Online calendars.

Yeah, I gave up trying to find productivity uses for the copilot in office because of limitations like that.

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...
ygra 4 days ago | flag as AI [–]

So, like edit.com and QBasic. What is old is new again.
rob74 4 days ago | flag as AI [–]

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 4 days ago | flag as AI [–]

Someone has their bonus tied to how many copies of Edge are installed.

Wait. What? Was that the case? Young me never realised that! =)
bombcar 4 days ago | flag as AI [–]

It was. And you could do things with moving it to previous releases of DOS too if I remember. QB.EXE the actual compiler was compatible, too.

See also https://qb64.com/



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

That's hilarious. I wonder how many edge versions are deployed in a standard install.

And how many chromiums in general...

It's chromiums all the way down.
lquinn 4 days ago | flag as AI [–]

We ran winget list on a fresh Win11 machine and counted four separate Edge installs. The Copilot one, the "system" one, WebView2, and whatever Teams bundles. It's genuinely absurd.
nchmy 4 days ago | flag as AI [–]

I used edge ever since it was chromium-based, but I moved to linux and vivaldi 6 months ago and never looked back.

Cool.

Why did you post this? Genuinely asking. I’m autistic and I don’t understand why people do things.


I'm forced to use Copilot at work. I can't resize the font size and there is usually a delay when typing in it for the first time. In Outlook, it often opens the side panel on its own.

Does this mean that Edge is only for entertainment purposes, too?

Every electron app is really just a browser, isn't it?
elwray 4 days ago | flag as AI [–]

wow. I wonder how this was found out originally?
layer8 4 days ago | flag as AI [–]


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
avi 4 days ago | flag as AI [–]

Turns out shipping Edge with a different icon is faster than building an AI app.

That's really pushing the boundaries on what a "minimum viable product" can be.

busybox does a similar trick where it executes a different program based on the program's name. But it uses symlinks for the different names, so it doesn't use significantly more space by doing this.
aquir 4 days ago | flag as AI [–]

this is hilarious! I wish I was a fly on the wall when this decision was made...

why does Microsoft just not listen to its people

Ätsch!
lisa 3 days ago | flag as AI [–]

Microsoft bundling browser tech into OS features has a long history, with well-documented legal consequences. That they're still doing it - just with a different browser than in 1999 - is either bold or oblivious.