Google's web app plans collide with Apple's iPhone, Safari rules.

There will still be differences among browsers, but the community group plans to ensure a common core of abilities. Standardization should align browsers to reduce developers' difficulties. But differences among browsers mean it's less likely that an extension developer will support other browsers. Google's Chrome is the most widely used browser in the world.

One extension lets users replace photos of Donald Trump with cats. The bits of software can block ads, integrate with password managers, strip out code that tracks you on the internet and find coupons as you put items into your shopping cart.

There's not yet a public timeline for publishing a draft of the standard or building it into browsers.Įxtensions are crucial to browsers on PCs.

'We aim to identify common ground, bring into closer alignment, and chart a course for future evolution,' community group members said of their goals. The group also hopes to make it easier for developers to write extensions because a shared standard will help bridge differences between browsers. The forum, the WebExtensions Community Group, gives engineers a place to build a unified and more secure core foundation for extensions. On Friday, the teams unveiled a discussion and development forum at the World Wide Web Consortium, or W3C, dedicated to developing standards for extensions. That should mean your extensions will work better and come with a better security foundation to protect you from malware. The teams behind the Google Chrome, Apple Safari, Mozilla Firefox and Microsoft Edge browsers have banded together to improve extensions, the add-ons you can download to customize the software.

Microsoft edge extensions replacement