Microsoft Edge users will no longer be warned about security issues when installing extensions from the Chrome Web Store.
Previously, upon looking to install an extension, Google had its store give the following warning to users of Chromium-powered Edge: “Google recommends switching to Chrome to use extensions securely.”
- I’m sick of Chrome eating all my RAM – it's time to ditch it...
- Microsoft Edge review: the new version has a lot to offer
- We’ve picked out the best web browsers of 2020
However, as Techdows spotted, that warning has been removed, and now you simply get a message informing you that it’s possible to add extensions from the Chrome Web Store to Microsoft Edge.
While the warning could be easily ignored before, and that’s doubtless exactly what the more tech-savvy browsers of the web did, less knowledgeable types might have found the message worrying, and potentially off-putting.
So, why has Google had a change of heart here? That’s not clear. In fact, it isn’t clear why the warning was issued in the first place, because there aren’t any obvious issues around security and installing Chrome extensions in Edge. And Google certainly didn’t explain what it felt any potential problems were – the warning was just delivered with no further explanation.
Notably, this warning wasn’t present on other Chromium-powered browsers, such as Opera.
As we’ve observed in the past, it simply felt like a scare tactic to keep people from potentially switching to Edge, and reinforced the notion that the new version of Microsoft’s browser feels like a threat to Google.
Browser wars
This isn’t the first time Google has taken such pot-shots at Edge, either. When Microsoft’s browser was still in development, there were various glitches, warnings, and problems with Google’s services such as the online word processor Google Docs, and the messaging service Google Meet (and more besides).
Although this isn’t a one-way street: Microsoft is hardly guilt-free when it comes to attempting to push its own services against rival tech giants in the past – remember when Windows 10 experimented with a warning against switching away from Edge to Chrome or Firefox?
In short, none of this sort of jockeying for market share is anything new, and it’s hardly surprising that there’s been no explanation from Google as to the reason why the warning has suddenly disappeared (or indeed why it was there in the first place).
Google Chrome is still by far the most dominant browser, but nobody got anywhere resting on their laurels, and it would seem that the generally positive reception to the revamped Microsoft Edge has Google on, er, edge.
- Surf the web on one of our best laptops of 2020
Via Windows Central
