Microsoft Edge Is Supporting A Bunch Of Web Technologies To Entice Developers

Microsoft’s Edge browser needs all the help it can get if it wants to remain relevant in a market where Chrome and Firefox dominates the scene. After sourcing feedback from developers, the company has revealed that it is adding support for a number of web technologies on Edge. Here are the details.

Microsoft really wants Edge to be taken serious but it is facing stiff competition from Chrome and Firefox. Both of those browsers have a ton of features that make Edge look basic.

Microsoft knows that for Edge to succeed, it needs to have a thriving developer ecosystem. To that end, Microsoft has started to incorporate support for the following technologies for Edge developers:

    ES2016 Modules

  • Fetch API (a component technology of Service Worker; our initial implementation will focus on XHR-style scenarios)
  • Web Notifications (integrated with the Windows 10 Action Center)
  • Beacon API
  • WOFF 2.0
  • High Resolution Time Level 2
  • Future ECMAScript proposals — Array.prototype.includes, String.prototype.padStart, String.prototype.padEnd, Object.values, Object.entries
  • JS pipeline improvements for future WebAssembly work

Microsoft will also be focusing on improving Edge’s accessibility system by:

  • Modernising its accessibility system to support HTML5 and CSS3 on Windows 10.
  • Enabling HTML and Core Accessibility API mappings.
  • Providing Accessible Name and Description computation and API mappings.
  • Adding accessible HTML5 controls and new semantic elements.
  • Improving high contrast support.
  • Modernising caret browsing and new input modalities.
  • Improving visual impairment readability, focus, and selection.
  • Bringing out developer tools for building and testing accessible sites.

Microsoft has teased that it will be bringing out some advanced security functions for Edge in the near future. The company vaguely addressed the topic of extensions on Microsoft Edge as well. Currently, Edge does not support extensions, which is a major drawback for the company’s ambitions to entice developers over to its browser. Microsoft has reaffirmed its plans to support browsers extensions but has not provided a timeframe on when that will happen.

The struggle is real for Microsoft Edge, which recently came under fire after it was discovered that its InPrivate browsing mode was still tracking what websites users were visiting.

[Via Microsoft Windows blog]


The Cheapest NBN 50 Plans

Here are the cheapest plans available for Australia’s most popular NBN speed tier.

At Lifehacker, we independently select and write about stuff we love and think you'll like too. We have affiliate and advertising partnerships, which means we may collect a share of sales or other compensation from the links on this page. BTW – prices are accurate and items in stock at the time of posting.

Comments