Microsoft Edge Add-ons: A 2021 Lookbook

Happy New Year again, everyone! We hope 2022 is off to a great start for all of you!

Looking back, 2021 has been an eventful year for Microsoft Edge Add-ons. We were able to work on many aspects of the Edge Addons ecosystem, including the extensions catalog, extension user experience, developer publishing workflow and more.

Here is a peek into our 2021 journey:

Starting with our users, one of the key user asks was to get more extensions onto the Microsoft Edge Add-ons website. Between Build 2021 and New Year’s Eve 2022, Edge Add-ons site catalog grew by 2x, in terms of the size of our extension catalog. Thanks to the thousands of developers who helped us achieve this growth and continue to help us cater to our users better!

To give you a glimpse of our current extension catalog, we have curated below, a list of 2021’s top* extensions from the Microsoft Edge Add-ons site­­­­­­.

Top extensions from Enterprise developers:

1. Cisco Webex Extension - Microsoft Edge Addons
2. Grammarly for Microsoft Edge - Microsoft Edge Addons
3. Tampermonkey - Microsoft Edge Addons
4. Microsoft Editor: Spelling & Grammar Checker - Microsoft Edge Addons
5. Norton Password Manager - Microsoft Edge Addons

Top extensions from Individual developers:

1. Dark Reader - Microsoft Edge Addons
2. BetterTTV - Microsoft Edge Addons
3. Global Speed - Microsoft Edge Addons
4. Enhancer for YouTube™ - Microsoft Edge Addons
5. Violentmonkey - Microsoft Edge Addons

(*Based on total download count, excluding extensions from ad blockers, password managers and shopping assistant categories)

Apart from growing our catalog, we also added many developer-centric and user-focused enhancements to the Edge Add-ons ecosystem.

Here’s a quick recap of the product / ecosystem updates we made in 2021:

January:

[DEVELOPERS] Extension certification report link: An extension developer can view and download the extension certification report from their Partner Center dashboard, containing the result of the extension review and relevant details.

February:

[DEVELOPERS] Extension Store listing localization: Developers can choose a subset of languages instead of manually entering each language in the listing details on Partner Center & the ability to use the same marketing assets across all markets/marketplaces.

April:

[DEVELOPERS] Manifest v2 to v3: To reduce fragmentation of the web for all developers, and to create better web compatibility for our customers, we plan to support the Declarative Net Request API and other changes proposed as part of Manifest V3

[DEVELOPERS] Opportunity for developers to get their extension featured on the Microsoft Edge Add-ons home page

May:

[DEVELOPERS] Extension submission: Developers can track their extension submission review status from the Partner Center & view past updates, the status of submissions, and manage extensions on Partner Center.

[USERS] Themes: Launched new & custom themes to the Edge Add-ons site.

June:

[DEVELOPERS] Launch of Growth Campaign to help & support our Extension Developers to build & add to Edge Add-ons ...

[USERS] Launch of 4 week “Install-To-Win” Incentive Program for Extension users, where they had an opportuni...

July:

Listed the 7 highly user rated extensions on Microsoft Edge Add-ons website that enhance browsing ex...

"Install-To-Win" Sweepstake Week-2 Winners Announcement

[USERS] Consumers can see the active user count of an extension on the Edge Add-on store listing page.

[USERS] The updated extension menu on the address bar of Microsoft Edge allows users to hide & pin their extensions

August:

[DEVELOPERS] Launch of new feature to Add & Manage new users from an Organization to simplify the login method on...

[DEVELOPERS] Introduction of REST API to automate publishing & updation Microsoft Edge Add-ons

[DEVELOPERS] Sign into Microsoft Partner Center using GitHub credentials

September:

List of 10 most downloaded Microsoft Edge Add-ons during “Install-To-Win” Sweepstakes
August’s top trending Edge Add-ons

[DEVELOPERS] Extensions Analytics Dashboard: Extension developers can view their extension's usage, adoption, and in-market performance

October:

[DEVELOPERS] Launched a Community with Microsoft Learn Student Ambassadors, help them learn the process of building extensions

[DEVELOPERS] Featured a curated list of extensions developed by student developers

December:

[DEVELOPERS] Roadmap & Released Features documentation were launched to showcase the upcoming and live feature updates on Microsoft Edge Add-ons ecosystem.

[USERS] Each extension category is now powered by our AI recommendation engine to display popular and relevant extensions for each locale / country / geo-location.
Your feedback & testimonials are our motivation, as we continue to evolve our Edge Add-ons ecosystem in 2022 and beyond.

THANK YOU once again, for the fantastic year! We are grateful to each of you for the continuous feedback & contribution to the Edge extension ecosystem.

You can keep in touch with us at #EdgeExtensions here. If you have any questions or feedback on Microsoft Edge Add-ons, please share them here.

View 2021’s recap for Microsoft Edge for developers here.

We look forward to yet another exciting journey in 2022.

Cheers!