Expected release timeline of WebExtensions in stable version

Applications
1

I have read articles from about 1 year ago saying that WebExtensions are now (i.e. a year ago) available in the nightly build of Epiphany for Gnome 43. As of November 2023, I don’t have them in Epiphany 45.1, stable version, so I am assuming it has not been merged yet. Is there an expected time when it will be?

The reason I ask is that I am setting up a laptop for my 11 year old son that is using Chromebook hardware and the total storage available is 16 GB for everything including operating system. I prefer to avoid flatpaks as they tend to be expansive in the dependency sizes, and I prefer to run stable versions of software for kids, so I am looking to make a decision as to whether to just wait for it to be merged into the stable branch or whether I should experiment further.

Epiphany is already excellent but extensions could push it over the edge towards perfect for the use case.

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Hi, the WebExtensions support is already in the stable version. You will need to enable it using gsettings set org.gnome.Epiphany.web:/org/gnome/epiphany/web/ enable-webextensions true. (For the flatpak version, enter the flatpak sandbox with flatpak run --command=bash org.gnome.Epiphany and then run that gsettings command.)

The WebExtension support is currently suitable for developers who want to make particular extensions work. Arbitrary extensions are not going to work, which is why the feature is disabled by default. The WebExtensions support is not being actively developed so I wouldn’t hold your breath waiting for it to improve. The good news is some extensions that use only a few APIs already do work.