There has been a bit of a question mark regarding the inclusion of extension functionality coming to the Edge browser for Windows 10 Mobile. While other leading smartphone browsers do not offer extensions for their browsing experiences on mobile, Microsoft’s pitch of Continuum and the Windows 10 Mobile experience being on par with basic desktop workflows had many wondering if and when the company would bring it to phones.
Over the past year, Microsoft and various employees working on the Edge browser have made mention of extensions possibly showing up for mobile users and a leaked roadmap of its development seemed to indicate as much with the inclusion of the smartphone icon among supporting devices.
However, an update to the Edge extension roadmap has since removed the smartphone icon while keeping the remaining text and description the same.
While it’s unfortunate that the unconfirmed speculation of support for extensions for Edge on mobile is coming to an end, due to memory and battery constraints of a smartphone, the removal of the feature shouldn’t be all that shocking to most.
There are reasons iOS’ Safari and Android’s Chrome browser bake individual extension-like functionality into their browsers rather than enabling users to do so, with ad-blocking being among the most recognized.
Sure, Microsoft’s Edge browser on mobile may not be getting extensions as a feature, however, that doesn’t negate its ability to have extension-like additions engineered into its experience.
With that being said, it’ll be interesting to see how Microsoft positions Edge’s usefulness on mobile devices using Continuum without extensions.
