Chrome extensions may soon work in Safari – Knowligent
Chrome extensions may soon work in Safari

Chrome extensions may soon work in Safari

HomeHow to, TechChrome extensions may soon work in Safari

Soon you’ll be able to use all those cool Chrome browser extensions in Safari, Edge, and Firefox. Plus, you’ll be able to enjoy the few Safari extensions in all browsers.

How to get Google Chrome extensions in Safari?

Apple, Google, Microsoft, and Mozilla have come together to create a common platform for browser extensions. The idea is that a single extension can work in any web browser, rather than being limited to, say, Chrome. For Chrome users, this means little — if there’s an extension you want, chances are it’s exclusive to Chrome anyway. But for Safari users, this is big news — especially since extensions are gaining support in Safari on the iPad in iOS 15.

“I think Apple benefits the most from that interoperability, since most browser plugins are already designed to work in Chrome or Firefox, or both,” Adam Hudnall of 3D printing and prototyping company Recursive Dynamics told Lifewire via email.

Last year, Apple opened Safari extensions to use the same technologies that Chrome extensions use: JavaScript, HTML, and CSS, aka standard web technologies. In theory, developers could get their extensions to run on Safari with little to no additional work. In practice, even that was too much hassle. Chrome has about 65% of the browser market share. Safari is a close second, but still only has a paltry 18% share.