Microsoft Edge Gains Extension Support And Pinned Tabs In Latest Preview Build
by Brett Howse on March 17, 2016 11:40 PM EST- Posted in
- Software
- Microsoft
- Browsers
- Microsoft Edge
This, well, this has been a long time coming. Windows 10 launched officially on July 29, 2015, and with it came the new web browser to replace Internet Explorer, which was named Edge. If you go back to our Windows 10 Review, Edge brought some nice features with it, but it was really lacking in functionality at the same time. From not being able to right click and save a file (that’s fixed now) to having no ability to sync across devices (sort of fixed), Edge was an improvement over Internet Explorer and a step back at the same time. For most people, the one big issue that was missing was extension support. Internet Explorer used a plug-in model, and that was deprecated with Edge, but until today there have only been mentions of Extensions coming to Edge.
After much waiting, that finally changes today. Microsoft has taken the wraps off of the feature, bringing it to the Windows Insiders in a new build which came out late today. As with most new feature additions in Windows 10, the update to Edge is made available to those in the Fast Ring first, and over time it will be deployed to the other rings, and then to all users.
The Extensions were shown off at Build in 2015, so the actual coding part is known. Edge extensions are very similar to Google Chrome extensions, so developers will be able to quickly port their extensions over for Edge. At the moment there are only three extensions, but expect this to increase quickly. Microsoft specifically calls out upcoming support for popular extensions such as AdBlock, AdBlock Plus, Amazon, LastPass, and Evernote. As an avid user of LastPass myself, not having it has made using Edge quite cumbersome so I look forward to the day that this arrives.
For this initial build, extensions have to be sideloaded by downloading them from the site and then installing them, but as was laid out at Build last year, extensions will be added to the Windows Store to make it easier to safely install and remove extensions as needed.
Additionally, Edge is also adding support for Pinned Tabs, which keep tabs always open and on the very left of the tab bar whenever the browser is opened. Simply right click the tab bar when on a page, and you can pin it to the side. The site title bar will be just the favicon for the site, to save space on the bar.
Finally, Edge in this preview build now has Paste and Go support from the context menu. I’ve heard people requesting this so I think it’s a pretty popular request.
The Fast Ring has certainly become “faster” lately, with more builds coming out than ever before. Up to this point, the new feature additions have been small as Microsoft changed core support inside of Windows 10, but with the new Redstone release set for the next couple of months, expect more features to be added in the upcoming builds.
Source: Windows Blog
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close - Monday, March 21, 2016 - link
An update for a car is usually an expensive recall. An update for your software is just a click away. Maybe a reboot. Do you have any idea how many new features service packs brought for XP over the years? Things that were supposed to be there from the start. And in case you're wondering MacOS is in the same situation - adding features with updates, fixing things that were promised but didn't work.Also, too keep up with your analogy, I *never* got a free car to go along with my old one. And nobody is forcing you to use Windows 10 now, you can wait until it's fully baked and buy it then ;).
Just because you don't like MS or Windows it's no reason to act like a mule.
Alexvrb - Monday, March 21, 2016 - link
Not even close. Heck I used to be critical of MS back in the 9x days and early XP (pre-SP1) days. But that was a long time ago, and quite a few people are still quite heavy-handed when they critique MS while they give a pass to other companies. In particular when I see posts that blow my mind I get sarcastic. It probably stems from the fact that there are many haters that literally find something to complain about no matter what MS does. If they do nothing, they complain. If they fix the problem, they complain.damianrobertjones - Friday, March 18, 2016 - link
Isn't Android a constant Beta?thetuna - Friday, March 18, 2016 - link
Adblock, finally!Now I might actually use edge more than accidentally.
damianrobertjones - Friday, March 18, 2016 - link
Hosts file... protect all browsersnathanddrews - Friday, March 18, 2016 - link
... and mark it "read only"... then check it periodically. I've had Windows 10 circumvent my hosts file and replace it with a new one on more than one occasion. Eventually not even the hosts file will be effective.damianrobertjones - Friday, March 18, 2016 - link
Windows 10 shouldn't do that and it hasn't for me at least. I have UAC at the max so you need double permission to write.Gothmoth - Friday, March 18, 2016 - link
host file ignores IP´s.. it is only usefull for mapping URL too IP´s.only morons think the hostfile is a safe approach.
hakime - Friday, March 18, 2016 - link
"Additionally, Edge is also adding support for Pinned Tabs, which keep tabs always open and on the very left of the tab bar whenever the browser is opened"Well nice Safari ripoff off, great Microsoft innovation. The author should at least have mentioned where Microsoft took the feature from, instead of making it sound as a novel idea.
Duckeenie - Friday, March 18, 2016 - link
Are you a corporate body? Because consumers generally want to see their favourite features implemented regardless of who owns the patent.In addition, and I'm open to correction on this, but Safari being based on Webkit makes it likely that Apple didn't invent pinned tabs either.