Microsoft's future Edge browser will be based on the Chromium engine and, as expected, will support all Google Chrome extensions.
This information was recently confirmed by a Microsoft engineer in a Reddit discussion about the new browser coming as a preview in early 2019.
“It is our intention to support existing Chrome extensions,” explained Kyle Alden, Edge Project Manager.
The lack of extensions in Microsoft Edge was one of the biggest drawbacks in the existing version of the browser. Microsoft worked with developers to address this issue, and while core extensions have arrived in the Microsoft Store, users still don't have the same wide variety of downloads as Google Chrome.
What is not yet clear is how extensions will be offered to Microsoft Edge users when the transition to the Chromium engine takes place.
Alden says that PWA support will be offered, and these apps will be offered both in the Microsoft Store and directly through other channels. This could also happen in the case of extensions, although no confirmation was given on this matter.
“We expect to provide support for PWAs that install directly from the browser (similar to Chrome) in addition to the current Store. We’re not ready to get all the details out, but PWAs that behave like native apps are still an important start for us, so we’re looking at the right system integrations to get this right,” he said.
At the same time, the Microsoft Edge Project Manager also confirmed that existing UWP apps based on the current EdgeHTML engine will not disappear. They will continue to work as they do now and will remain available in the Microsoft Store.
"We expect to offer a new WebView that applications can choose to use based on the new rendering engine," he said.
An early version of the new Microsoft Edge browser is expected in the first months of 2019.
