Redmond’s preparing for rolling out extension support

Mar 10, 2016 05:45 GMT  ·  By

Microsoft has already promised to bring extension support in Edge browser and according to people close to the matter, the launch is expected to take place in the Redstone Windows 10 update in mid-2016.

And since work on Redstone has already started, and insiders are getting preview builds as part of the fast ring, it was only a matter of time until Microsoft started pushing an early version of the extension support to users participating in the Insider program.

According to a report by WinBeta, Microsoft is now giving the final touches to a first implementation of extension support in Microsoft Edge, and a future Windows 10 Redstone build is expected to bring such a feature. It’s not yet clear which build will actually bring extensions to insiders, but build 14284 is reportedly the first internal version that includes them.

More information at BUILD

Microsoft is still trying to remain tight-lipped on all details regarding its extension support in Edge and aside from the confirmation that the company provided last year, little is known about this new feature.

But the upcoming BUILD developer conference taking place later this month is expected to bring us more information, as Microsoft probably plans to ship Windows 10 Redstone preview builds having this feature this month as well. This should give developers more time to look into extension support and get in touch directly with Microsoft at the event to work together on bringing Chrome extensions on Edge.

Furthermore, the BUILD conference gives developers approximately three months to port Chrome extensions to Edge, as the Redstone update is expected to see daylight in June.

That should be the moment when Windows 10 users running stable builds will get access to extensions too, so Microsoft hopes to use the 3-month period to create a decent collection of Edge extensions that would provide us with the most popular add-ons currently available for Firefox and Chrome.