The latest Edge Canary version started disabling Manifest V2-based extensions with the following message: “This extension is no longer supported. Microsoft Edge recommends that you remove it.” Although the browser turns off old extensions without asking, you can still make them work by clicking “Manage extension” and toggling it back (you will have to acknowledge another prompt).
At this point, it is not entirely clear what is going on. Google started phasing out Manifest V2 extensions in June 2024, and it has a clear roadmap for the process. Microsoft’s documentation, however, still says “TBD,” so the exact dates are not known yet. This leads to some speculating about the situation being one of “unexpected changes” coming from Chromium. Either way, sooner or later, Microsoft will ditch MV2-based extensions, so get ready as we wait for Microsoft to shine some light on its plans.
Another thing worth noting is that the change does not appear to be affecting Edge’s stable release or Beta/Dev Channels. For now, only Canary versions disable uBlock Origin and other MV2 extensions, leaving users a way to toggle them back on. Also, the uBlock Origin is still available in the Edge Add-ons store
Yet. I lived through the first browser war (Netscape Navigator vs Internet Explorer) and I’d estimate we’re right about the year 2000 ish. At that time both browsers were still active and reasonably well supported but it was clear that IE was going to win and somewhere in the IE6 / IE7 (2004 / 2006) time frame is when the real fuckery started. Since Edge started using Chromium in 2018(ish) we’re basically following the same schedule from two decades ago.
Sadly this is the same thing we said back then too and we (IT & the tech community) pushed hard to get people to leave IE and adopt Chrome.
Don’t forget Safari. On iOS it is the only usable browser currently with everything else just being a reskin of Safari. There are a lot of iOS users.
That is set to change but only in the European Union.
And I believe Mozilla isn’t planning on porting proper Firefox to iOS. Chromium is more likely to come over.
If Chromium manages to take much of the market share Safari has (like if Apple decides to ever make non-safari browsers a thing outside of the EU), it’s game over for browser engine diversity. Safari is currently in second place in market share behind Chrome, followed by another Chromium browser, Edge. Firefox is so low, it’s a rounding error.