Neowin has learned a bit more about these extensions and how Microsoft plans to make its browser attractive for developers. Spartan will be able to use Chrome extensions and, while we are not sure if they will work 100% natively, the way extensions have been implemented is nearly identical to that of Chrome which will make it a simple process for developers to make their extensions work on Spartan.
Interesting. I’m not a heavy extensions users – FlashBlock and AdBlock – but I know many people are.
Good move. Easier for extension developers, easier for users. FWIW it may hurt Firefox, which has its own extension mechanism. Unlikely a goal, more like a nice (for Microsoft) side effect.
I would imagine Chrome would be Spartan’s “enemy”, not Firefox.
Any open browser would.
Although I agree in part, Firefox can be ‘bought’ as their revenues are so dependant on search engines. If Microsoft wished, they could outbid google/yahoo and bring FF under their effective sphere of influence. Question is, would it be worth it?
Not really. Times have changed since the browser wars of old, and Mozilla is essentially a neutral platform… MS seem to have given up on trying to control the HTML platform, because they’ve realised that they can’t win that fight. However, they *are* concerned about Google trying to do the same thing, because Google is in a much better position to succeed.
From that perspective, it’s Chrome users that worry them. It would be nice for MS if they’d all use IE/Spartan, but if that’s not going to happen, they can live with a fully open platform. In this world, the existence of Firefox is a good thing… an ally against a Google-dominated web.
And before anyone says anything – I’m not claiming that MS are good guys. But they’re a company that’s in a different position from the MS of ten or twenty years ago, and they’ve been forced to change their tactics to adapt to what other players are doing.
If it’s got a flash block and ad block extension, that’s really all I need. If it doesn’t, no way I’m going anywhere near it.
That’s really cool.
Now, all I need to know about is tab management. Chrome has NOTHING that works nearly as well for large amounts of tabs as Firefox’s Tab Groups.
this could be interesting and google should be concerned about MS pulling an embrace and extend on their chrome extensions. This may also impact chromeos as well.
That was my first thought. Are they back to their old tricks? Embrace, extend, __________.
It will be quite amusing (and embarrassing for Google) if IE on all its platforms (including mobile) can run Chrome extensions before Android Chrome can!
I’m still amazed that Android Chrome doesn’t have extensions – there’s probably more mobile users of Chrome than there are desktops ones now. Android Firefox has had extensions for quite some time now, so that’s my preferred browser on that platform.