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Microsoft Working on Tool to Port Chrome Extensions to Edge
Earlier this week, Microsoft released a new Windows 10 build for Insiders that, among other things, brings support for extensions to Microsoft Edge. There aren't many extensions to play with currently, but a Microsoft engineer says the company is working on a tool to allow developers to bring their Chrome extensions to its store. "Lots of questions on this," tweeted Jacob Rossi. "Yes we're working on a porting tool to run Chrome extensions in Edge. Not yet finished and not all APIs supported."
Well all know the three E's. The first one starts with "Embrace". :-)
There ain't no such thing as proprietary standards only proprietary formats. Standards are by definition open.
Now I'll have to explain what extensions are to BOTH Edge users.
That's easier to do than working on their own Extension system that nobody will use anyway.
For Windows 10 users: if you want to get these test builds, go to Settings -> Update & security -> Windows Update -> Advanced options -> Get Insider Preview builds. I'm just putting this here as many might not be aware about this possibility.
just get everything popular on other system working on their own systems. android/iphone mobile applications -> windows phone. more of the same
Bookmarklets and/or userscripts pretty much cover everything missing from Chrome plugins.
Microsoft seems to be trying to co-opt every other platform to fill the empty user space that is Windows 10-exclusive. They're supposedly rigging a way for iOS apps to run on Windows 10 (aka "Islandwood"), and they had a plan for Android apps (aka "Astoria") to run on the platform but recently dropped it in favor of Xamarin.
Astoria enabled Android apps written in Java to run on Windows, sometimes with no modifications at all. Xamarin allows developers to share a large proportion of their code between Android, iOS, Windows, and beyond, but it requires that all that code must use .NET, and typically C#.
This seems a little desperate. In the short run, maybe more stuff makes its way into the Windows Store, and salesmen can say "Windows 10 does that!" for any reason you'd stick with another platform. But if the quickest way to develop for the broadest market is not to develop for Metro but instead target a different platform and port it later, wouldn't Metro (or Modern or Windows 10 mobile or Edge, whatever) always remain an afterthought, last to get ported and last to receive bug-fixes?
Microsoft appears to admit that apart from Win32, Windows 10 is a Johnny-come-real-real-lately, but isn't interested in doing the work to develop any killer apps on its own.
Take it easy, Charlie, I've got an Angle...
Anyone else remember the cancelled project Astoria to port Android apps to Windows 10? http://www.windowscentral.com/...
Microsoft announces it will port the Chrome browser to run inside their Edge browser.
Is Edge really still tied to the Windows build?
Serious question. Problem solved and they get to blame Google for security problems.
It's called vaporware. In fact Microsoft fans don't need those announcements to become real. They're just satisfied knowing they will (sometime) have the best applications of the world.
It ain't gonna work this time. It works only when you are the de-facto monopoly. And people have cottoned on to it.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
That fetid, closed format really needs to go.
For the most part, it is just bare-bones HTML, JS, CSS and media files.
The APIs are really the only complex part to port over, which will be easy enough since Chromes UTTER LACK of customization with regards to anything UI-based, besides an icon and menu items.
Not even a sidebar thanks to that dick Ben. We got those disgusting bubble windows instead of an actual sidebar. Yeah, up yours Ben.
However, the main problem is this extension model is basic and quite shitty to be honest.
Firefox is changing to this new system as well, and by doing so will basically kill off some major extensions because their features simply cannot be emulated in this more limited extension API. (not that it matters since the majority of developers left Firefox years ago because Mozilla do not understand the point of an API!)
Not only that, XUL is basically dead now. The only good thing Mozilla has made. CSS can go fuck itself. XUL is far superior for interface design.
he people are used by now to different browsers and platforms (mobile being one), it is not 1999 anymore when only obvious way to internet was through windows 98 and IE shortcut on desktop. The crowd that did that is relatively old, and minority...
So Microsoft has to be realistic and realize Edge is not going to have much market share. Ever. If they were trying to make healthy and safe browser with long-term plan, then be so. But this is not step in that direction. It more smells of defeat. And we all know how quick Microsoft is to abandon products.
And all of the viruses and trojans in the world too. In fact, Windows 10 comes preloaded with spyware and adware to help get you started and if that's not enough, it will randomly revert your settings and randomly reboot while you're in the middle of work too!
MS created tools to port Android apps to Window. Developers showed very little interest and MS abandoned the project. MS was trying to fill their empty app store in that case. Here, they are trying to gain from the large number of Chrome extensions and make up for the lack of interest in their own browser.
There is no reason to expect Chrome developers to be any more interested in helping MS than Android developers were. Some people just don't like being used.
I hope that Microsoft open sources Edge, and ports it to Linux and OS X. Although I don't use Windows, I do realize that Edge is a fine browser that's getting better and better. The only thing holding it back is that it only runs on Windows.
If it ran on the other major platform (OS X) and on minor platforms like Linux and FreeBSD, I could see it being the final nail in Firefox's coffin. In my opinion, Mozilla has repeatedly shown the user community that Mozilla doesn't give a damn about its users' wishes. That's why we've seen Firefox trashed, with one unwanted change after another, release after release, even after the community has begged Mozilla not to make these unwanted changes.
Users are fleeing Firefox like there's no tomorrow. The stats show that Firefox is likely around 7% of the browser market on all of the platforms it supports. The stats clearly show that they're going to Chrome and Edge.
This move wouldn't be without precedent. Microsoft is open sourcing much of .NET. It's porting SQL Server to Linux. IE itself used to run on non-Windows OSes.
Now is the time to free Edge. Doing so would push it as the main competitor to Chrome on all of the major platforms, finally burying the rotting corpse of Firefox and giving real options to web users.
It's funny when I see stories like this, Microsoft is lowering the bar for devs because there are very few true devs left. Mozilla Firefox and google chrome were both very good ideas, note the were, but both have too many holes, or am I wrong that viruses still are a big factor in computer use. Both browsers are bulky and resource hogs and being so popular, you figure they would not be a factor in remote execution. I deal with 1000's of remote users a year, and the one big weakness to the laymen user, their browsers.... IE has its faults'... No update plugins, same issues as Firefox and chrome, hello, google even has a malicious code removal tool for it's browser, but users I see using edge... Well get viruses mostly from downloading other things and installing it after kicking past the several warnings. I can do without ad block plus because the more users using it, the more ads designed to go around it and eventually, death of free Internet. Wake up and smell the roses, if everyone jumped on edge for a year not only do I think that it would greatly improve, but the more stable it would become, Firefox and chrome have been around for a long time so newbs who nothing other than them bash it, hackers who use it's vulnerabilities praise it, and those too ignorant to try something that may be better bash it. Use to be one of the fan boys for Google and chrome, then i Challenged myself, and well, will now never go back, hackers are getting smarter and vigilant, users are getting more ignorant and lazy, thank you Microsoft for sealing the gap.
Wouldn't be easier (and better) just to make Edge a Chromium browser?
Half of writing history is hiding the truth.