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Microsoft's New Edge Web Browser – How to Create Edge Extensions?

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Re: Microsoft's New Edge Web Browser – How to Create Edge Extensions?

#2

Post by Encosia »

I think bringing a sane extension model to Edge is a bigger deal than any of the other improvements that Edge is making over IE11.

For a couple years now, I would have instantly switched to IE on my touch enabled Windows machines if there were equivalent versions of my Chrome extensions available for IE. Overall performance, especially during touch scrolling and zooming, and memory footprint has long been dramatically better in IE than any other Windows browser (though Chrome seems to be trying to close that gap a bit lately).

If converting a complex extension like RES was really "easy to convert" with "only a few changes", that's going to be a very interesting development.

Re: Microsoft's New Edge Web Browser – How to Create Edge Extensions?

#3

Post by WorldWideWayne »

I feel like all of the changes Microsoft is making are not going to matter if they keep trying to build a walled garden. There's just no way that I'm investing any significant amount of time into technology that binds users to a one single app store.

Re: Microsoft's New Edge Web Browser – How to Create Edge Extensions?

#4

Post by Delmania »

WorldWideWayne wrote: post #3

I feel like all of the changes Microsoft is making are not going to matter if they keep trying to build a walled garden. There's just no way that I'm investing any significant amount of time into technology that binds users to a one single app store.

I'm having a hard time parsing this comment in light of Apple and Google, which essentially do the same thing. The article mentions the extensions are similar to Chrome, so it's possible that someone will build a translation layer that will take underlying code and build the application specific bindings.

Thanks to Xamarin, you can build an application for any platform using C#, and even more, .NET is running pretty much everywhere now. So, I'm confused as to what technology you are referring to?

Re: Microsoft's New Edge Web Browser – How to Create Edge Extensions?

#8

Post by bad_user »

> There are “no plans” to make the browser (or its core engine) open source but Edge proudly incorporates open-source code

I'm tired of this trend. In my opinion saying you're using some piece of open-source library for XPath does not exonerate you from releasing a browser that isn't open-source in a market that has Firefox and Chromium. I'll bet they aren't going to release Edge for Linux either.

Microsoft has been copying Apple lately but Apple is the wrong model for Microsoft to copy.

Re: Microsoft's New Edge Web Browser – How to Create Edge Extensions?

#9

Post by WorldWideWayne »

Delmania wrote: post #4
WorldWideWayne wrote: post #3

I feel like all of the changes Microsoft is making are not going to matter if they keep trying to build a walled garden. There's just no way that I'm investing any significant amount of time into technology that binds users to a one single app store.

I'm having a hard time parsing this comment in light of Apple and Google, which essentially do the same thing. The article mentions the extensions are similar to Chrome, so it's possible that someone will build a translation layer that will take underlying code and build the application specific bindings. Thanks to Xamarin, you can build an application for any platform using C#, and even more, .NET is running pretty…

So, because Apple and (to a much lesser extent) Google lock down their platforms, I should be OK when Microsoft tries to do it too?

I don't use iOS for the same reason that I won't use any of Microsoft's newly walled-in tech and I don't use certain Google products for the same reason.

> what technology you are referring to?

I'm referring to Metro/Modern/Windows Store/Universal apps and Edge.

- On Windows if I want to distribute a Metro/Modern app, I have to go through Microsoft's store. At least Android allows non-Google app stores and side-loading with the flick of a switch.

- Metro/Modern apps are not allowed talk to desktop apps. Even Chrome extensions and apps aren't as locked down as Metro.

- It looks like they're considering applying the same restrictions to Edge. Edge apps might only be able to talk to Windows Store apps.

None of this is OK with me. I never wanted Microsoft to do anything like Apple because I honestly don't like the way they do anything.

> .NET is running pretty much everywhere now...

Xamarin isn't Microsoft and this is not relevant to my point but here is what I think about Xamarin.

Not yet. Not really. Relatively nobody is using Xamarin tools because they are too expensive compared to the free or low cost tools that are available for building straight iOS and Android apps (or even cross platform ones with Javascript).

Re: Microsoft's New Edge Web Browser – How to Create Edge Extensions?

#10

Post by piyush_soni »

bad_user wrote: post #8

> There are “no plans” to make the browser (or its core engine) open source but Edge proudly incorporates open-source code I'm tired of this trend. In my opinion saying you're using some piece of open-source library for XPath does not exonerate you from releasing a browser that isn't open-source in a market that has Firefox and Chromium. I'll bet they aren't going to release Edge for Linux either. Microsoft has been…

> I'll bet they aren't going to release Edge for Linux either.

I think they might, seeing the recent trends.

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