Microsoft Says the New Microsoft Edge Will Support All Google Chrome Extensions

CyberTech

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Microsoft’s future Edge browser will be based on the Chromium engine, and just as expected, it will support all Google Chrome extensions.

This information has recently been confirmed by a Microsoft engineer in a reddit discussion over the new browser coming as a preview in early 2019.

“It's our intention to support existing Chrome extensions,” Kyle Alden, Edge Project Manager, explained.

The lack of extensions in Microsoft Edge was one of the biggest drawbacks in the existing version of the browser. Microsoft worked together with developers to resolve this problem, and while the essentials extensions arrived in the Microsoft Store, users still aren’t provided with the same wide variety of downloads as on Google Chrome.

What is not yet clear is how extensions will be offered to Microsoft Edge users once the switch to the Chromium engine takes place.

UWP apps to remain in the Store:
Alden says PWA support will also be offered and these apps will be offered both in the Microsoft Store and directly through other channels. This could happen in the case of extensions as well, though no confirmation was offered in this regard.

“We expect to provide support for PWAs to be installed directly from the browser (much like with Chrome) in addition to the current Store approach. We're not ready to go into all the details yet but PWAs behaving like native apps is still an important principle for us so we'll be looking into the right system integrations to get that right,” he said.

At the same time, the Microsoft Edge Project Manager also confirmed that the existing UWP apps which rely on the current EdgeHTML engine wouldn’t go away. They would continue to work as they do right now and remain available in the Microsoft Store.

“We don't plan to shim under those with a different engine. We do expect to offer a new WebView that apps can choose to use based on the new rendering engine,” he said.

An early version of the new Microsoft Edge browser is expected in the first months of 2019. An ETA as to when the final browser could be ready isn’t available just yet.
 
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Despite some Microsoft support, most developers do not like the lack of complete documentation. It makes things too inefficient.

The Microsoft Store and universal app ecosystem is dying a slow death. I would not be surprised one bit if a future move is to offer Android on Windows.
 

SHvFl

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For me it's good news if edge stops relying on IE components and they 200% remove IE. If they do that they will be my second browser for sure in place of firefox.

Despite some Microsoft support, most developers do not like the lack of complete documentation. It makes things too inefficient.

The Microsoft Store and universal app ecosystem is dying a slow death. I would not be surprised one bit if a future move is to offer Android on Windows.
Windows really needs a proper store. Android is not a bad idea but i can only see the number of infections going up and up the day it's added. For me it will be excellent news though as a few android apps are magnificent.
 

Vasudev

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For me it's good news if edge stops relying on IE components and they 200% remove IE. If they do that they will be my second browser for sure in place of firefox.


Windows really needs a proper store. Android is not a bad idea but i can only see the number of infections going up and up the day it's added. For me it will be excellent news though as a few android apps are magnificent.
None of my custom ISOs have IE11 preinstalled.
 

Cortex

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I've always found Edge to be clunky esp. if you use bookmarks etc. I have tried it several times & given up on it. I'm not sure if MS can improve on the likes of Opera & Vivaldi, my feeling is MS will mess it all up, again.
 

kev216

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I'll not use Edge until they finally add a simple option in the settings to disable smooth scrolling.
Proper mouse gestures support is also something I currently miss.
 

Moonhorse

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Edge/ ie share of browser market is around 3% and google dominating probably with 60%. Usercount with chromedge gonna go up alot, wich is good move from ms

But it must really hurt the edge devs, since they failed another product ; edgeHTML
 

Gandalf_The_Grey

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Great news. I hope they will succeed in making a good, secure and up to date version of Chromium. Can finally say goodbye to Google Chrome on Windows then. Less 3rd party is always better...
 

tonibalas

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In my opinion the drawback of Edge was that there hasn't been a version for Windows 7.
Just by that MS excludes 40 to 50 % of Windows users which they could offer valuable feedback and help the developers create a good alternative to Chrome.
Ok Edge was created to use the safe mechanisms of W10 but since you are paying all those developers you should take advantage
of the other windows users too.
Just my opinion.
 

Gandalf_The_Grey

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In my opinion the drawback of Edge was that there hasn't been a version for Windows 7.
Just by that MS excludes 40 to 50 % of Windows users which they could offer valuable feedback and help the developers create a good alternative to Chrome.
Ok Edge was created to use the safe mechanisms of W10 but since you are paying all those developers you should take advantage
of the other windows users too.
Just my opinion.
It seems that they will support all supported versions of Windows. So I think there will be support for Windows 7.
From: Microsoft Edge: Making the web better through more open source collaboration - Windows Experience Blog
2. Microsoft Edge will now be delivered and updated for all supported versions of Windows and on a more frequent cadence. We also expect this work to enable us to bring Microsoft Edge to other platforms like macOS. Improving the web-platform experience for both end users and developers requires that the web platform and the browser be consistently available to as many devices as possible. To accomplish this, we will evolve the browser code more broadly, so that our distribution model offers an updated Microsoft Edge experience + platform across all supported versions of Windows, while still maintaining the benefits of the browser’s close integration with Windows.
 

tonibalas

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@Gandalf_The_Grey now it's logical that the browser will support other versions of Windows since chromium is doing that already.
In my opinion though they missed the chance of building their own good browser by excluding windows 7 and 8.1 users.
And doing that the lost any chance of competing Chrome.
For me Edge will be another Chrome fork and that's even worse for MS.
 

Gandalf_The_Grey

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@Gandalf_The_Grey now it's logical that the browser will support other versions of Windows since chromium is doing that already.
In my opinion though they missed the chance of building their own good browser by excluding windows 7 and 8.1 users.
And doing that the lost any chance of competing Chrome.
For me Edge will be another Chrome fork and that's even worse for MS.
Yeah, they missed their chance (again).
But now it's a builtin Chrome fork. So more people will use it. If it works good there is no need for other browsers on your system. They will be contributing to the Chromium project. So instead of trying to beat Google (and fail) they now have influence on how Chromium will evolve.
So maybe not all is lost.... I'm an optimist :D
 

plat

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Edge was sorta growing on me but OK. We would still have to get our adblockers and other extensions at that MS Store, right? Anyone successfully running Chromium in Sandboxie currently? Otherwise, sticking with Firefox-- with Sbie, it's a virtually flawless combination at present.
 

Gandalf_The_Grey

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Personally I don't like Firefox anymore since Quantum and went for Google Chrome.
Tried a lot of alternatives but for now I still prefer Chrome.
So if Edge on Chromium will work as great as Chrome for me there will be no need to install Chrome again.
A little less Google is always better.
 

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