Microsoft kept quiet about the best part of moving Edge to Chromium

[gvv]

Microsoft published an extensive FAQ on their plans to move the Edge browser from EdgeHTML to Google’s Chromium rendering engine, but in the three thousand word article did not reveal the best benefit from the move to Chromium.

Posting on Reddit however, Kyle Alden, Project Manager for Edge, revealed that the new Edge will indeed provide support for Google Chrome Extensions, saying:

1. kylealden
   25 points1 day ago

   Some responses to your questions -

   • Existing UWP apps (including PWAs in the Store) will continue to use EdgeHTML/Chakra without interruption. 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.
   • 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.
   • It's our intention to support existing Chrome extensions.

More comments

Microsoft Edge: Making the web better through more open source collaboration

r/Windows10 • 509 points • 430 comments

It’s our intention to support existing Chrome extensions.

The posting also confirms that UWP developers need not worry about the move disrupting their applications, as the EdgeHTML rendering engine will remain the default for their application until they make the conscious move to the new Chromium Webview rendering engine.

This move will close the Extension “app gap” between Chrome and Edge, and will make it easier for users to move between the browsers, meaning Microsoft will have less excuse for not winning users over. Hopefully, Microsoft will now step up with a more usable browser that matches Chrome feature for feature.

Source: Mspoweruser.com