Microsoft Edge browser extensions also work in Chrome

By admin On Mar 16, 2016

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Extensions made for Microsoft’s Edge browser appear to work in Google’s Chrome browser with just a simple change. This makes it clear that it will not be very difficult for developers to develop for both platforms.

The possibility was discovered by Bavo Luysterborg after a landing page for Edge Extensions went live for the official announcement. This allowed Luysterborg to download and try a number of extension modules. For now, the modules are .exe files that extract the necessary files for sideloading at Edge into the Download folder. For now, the extensions don’t work in Edge or Edge insider builds. It has been known for some time that Edge will get an extension system. Microsoft also announced that it would be easy to port Chrome and Firefox extensions to Edge.

Luysterborg tried to load the extension modules in Chrome and it turned out that the files are almost 100 percent compatible. The three extensions Luysterborg discovered by accident were Microsoft Translator, Reddit Enhancement Suite, and Mouse Gestures. First he tried to run Translator. After running the exe file and looking at the extracted files, it looked almost exactly like what a knowledgeable person would see with a Chrome extension: a manifest.json, an options page, a background page, and a _locales- folder.

Then he loaded the directory in Chrome with Load unpacked extension on Chrome’s extension page, after which he got an error message. After adding manifest_version:2 to manifest it almost seemed to work. But directories with empty message.json files also throw an error. After deleting all directories with empty files, except _localesen, the error messages, except for two specific Edge keys, were a thing of the past.

Mouse Gestures, on the other hand, did not work properly in Chrome. The Reddit suite eventually does. The findings do not guarantee that the platforms are also compatible the other way around, although Luysterborg suspects that they are, as only very little code needs to be modified.