When Mozilla — finally — introduced support for extensions in Firefox, years to late, but still, it unlocked a whole new world for users of the mobile open source browser.
Up until that time, no major browser supported extensions no mobile. While there were some dedicated projects that supported mobile extensions, all major browsers did not. Imagine having to browse the Web without a content blocker.
The next best thing were browsers with integrated ad blockers. Vivaldi, Opera, or Brave come to mind.
Now that Firefox supports extensions, Microsoft has also moved on that front and integrated support for extensions in Edge for mobile.
Like Mozilla’s offering initially, Microsoft is limiting available extensions right now. Unlike Mozilla, Microsoft is not offering a single content blocker at this point.
Extensions in Edge Stable for Mobile
Once you have upgraded Edge Stable to the latest version on Android, you gain access to extensions with a click on Menu > Extensions. There you find the list of supported extensions. Some good ones are available, including Tampermonkey, Dark Reader, or Bitwarden Password Manager. There is also a video downloader, cookie manager, and some other useful extensions.
What you do not get is a content blocker. Granted, with Google’s decision to stop Manifest V2 extensions from working in Chromium and Chrome, popular choices like uBlock Origin are no longer compatible. But the lite version is also nowhere to be found. The same is true for other content blockers.
Microsoft does not explain why that is the case, only that more extensions “are coming soon”. So, the good news is that Edge is getting support for a wider range of extensions. The bad news is that no extension of, probably, the most popular extension type is available.
Closing Words
Support for extensions is a welcome feature on mobile, as it gives users more options to customize their experience while using the browser. Content blockers are a must, and it is puzzling that Microsoft has not added a single one to the list of supported extensions at this stage.
So, for now at least, you might want to stick to Firefox, the one browser with excellente mobile extensions support. Or, at least a browser with a proper content blocker, like Brave.
Not an advert. Intent was to provide a possible lead for a future article. Posted here because the contact only allows 180 characters. Copy and pasted from their website
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Hope doing this is acceptable to Martin, please feel free to delete this comment if it violates your policy. Best wishes, ipnonymous
Why do you always fail to mention “AdBlock Browser” for android?
It’s made by the same people who make the worlds most popular browser extension, AdBlock Plus.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.adblockplus.browser&hl=en-US
“Microsoft Edge for Android”, well, you can stick that where the Sun don’t shine baby.