14 DAY TRIAL // Microsoft is moving its browser to the Chromium engine, and given the changes that Google might be planning to make to ad blockers, many believed that Microsoft Edge would be impacted as well.
After several other Chromium-based browser developers, like Vivaldi, have already confirmed they wouldn’t embrace Google’s changes, Microsoft says ad blocking would continue to represent a key feature of the new Edge.
In an AMA on reddit, the Microsoft Edge developing team emphasizes that users made it loud and clear that “adblock is super important to having a good experience on the web.”
As a result, what Microsoft plans to do is automatically block a series of ads in Microsoft Edge.
“We're a member of the Coalition for Better Ads. As part of that we plan to start enforcing these standards by blocking ads on sites which do not comply with CBA guidelines by default,” Kyle Pflug, Edge project manager, said.
“We're committed to a strong extension ecosystem, including ad blocking. We're still evaluating some of the latest changes here in Chromium, but we're committed to the customer scenario as a principle. To be clear, we will not artificially restrict ad blocking for business reasons related to advertising,” he continued.
Browser still in preview
Microsoft Edge is currently in preview stage on Windows and macOS, and Microsoft also plans to release a build for older Windows versions too.
Thanks to the migration to Chromium, Microsoft Edge users can install Chrome extensions from the Web Store, but at the same time, Microsoft also maintains its very own extension store. This particular store is offered as the recommended destination for extensions, albeit users can enable downloads from the Chrome Web Store too.
Microsoft Edge could also be released on Linux at some point in the future, but such a version is yet to be confirmed.