Chrome Extensions – Billionaire365

Microsoft Edge To Support Chrome Extensions, The Company Announced

Microsoft has not provided much detail on Edge’s transition to Chromium, announced last week, but the company has now confirmed that it intends to add support for Chrome extensions in Microsoft Edge browser.

The shortage of extensions for Microsoft Edge has become one of the many obstacles in the adoption of Edge Internet browser by Windows 10 users. Microsoft Edge was designed as a modern replacement for Internet Explorer and is the default browser in Windows 10. However, it failed before Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, and even Opera.

Microsoft Edge To Support Chrome Extensions, The Company Announced

But following Microsoft’s announcement of the transition from Edge to Chromium, the publisher revealed that it could close the gap by supporting Chrome extensions in its Microsoft Edge browser. “We intend to support existing Chrome extensions,” wrote Kyle Pflug, Microsoft Edge project manager, on Reddit in response to users and developers looking for answers about this change.

Pflug did not specify how Microsoft plans to support the extensions, but, as Ed Bott noted, Microsoft would aim to allow all existing Chrome extensions to work without modification on the new Edge browser. However, developers will still need to pack the extensions for the Microsoft Store.

Microsoft Would Continue Support For EdgeHTML-based PWA and UWP

Pflug also answered Windows application developers looking for answers on what the change would mean for UWP (Universal Windows Platform) and PWA (Progressive Web Apps) applications if Microsoft abandoned the EdgeHTML navigation engine. Both application categories depend on EdgeHTML and may require revision if Microsoft ceases them completely.

Pflug states that existing UWP and PWA applications in the Microsoft Store will continue to use EdgeHTML and Microsoft’s Chakra JavaScript engine “without interruption.” Microsoft does not plan to add an interpretation layer to allow existing applications to run on the new rendering engine.

However, Microsoft plans to “offer a new WebView that applications can choose to use on the new rendering engine,” says the Redmond firm’s spokesperson. Microsoft also plans to allow PWAs to be installed on Edge from the Web, rather than limiting installations to the Microsoft Store as is currently the case for PWAs.

Anna Galvez

Chrome Cleanup Tool Gets Force-Installed Extension Removal Feature

Google plans to release an update of its Chrome cleanup tool to help users with the force-installed extension removal. That change was found in the source code of Chrome, where is visible that an update of the Chrome Cleanup utilities will now allow users to delete the extensions that have been installed on the computer without the user’s consent.

In case you didn’t know, Google Chrome has a cleanup tool that is currently only available for Windows computers. You can find it in the Settings section, under the “Advanced Settings -> Reset and clean up -> Clean up computer” section. Alternatively, you can access Chrome Cleanup Tool by typing chrome://settings/cleanup in the address bar.

Currently, if you access this function, Chrome scans your computer for malware and malicious software, but in the future, Google will implement the new force-installed extension removal feature that will allow the browser to automatically detect and remove those extensions that have been installed by force on the computer, without the user’s consent.

Chrome Cleanup Tool Gets Force-Installed Extension Removal Feature

These force-installed extensions are those that Chrome automatically installs without consulting the user due to the policies configured by administrators in Windows. These guidelines are used by administrators to prepare the browser with the extensions that are commonly used in the organization, and, for this reason, they are installed without the user validating the respective operation.

However, cybercriminals can also make use of these policies to install and launch malicious Chrome extensions without the permission of the user. Also, these types of extensions have the added disadvantage that they cannot be easily removed, as it is necessary to modify the registry to remove them.

For all these reasons, Google’s idea of including force-installed extension removal in the Chrome Cleanup tool is a smart way to tackle those malicious Chrome extensions.

Anna Galvez