Chrome Extensions are powerful tools that let you customize your browser experience to your liking. While these have historically only been available on the desktop, a recent update to the Kiwi Browser brings support for desktop extensions to Android.
What is Kiwi Browser?
Kiwi is an open-source browser for Android devices based on Chromium and the WebKit rendering engine. Since it uses the Chromium source, it has a very familiar look and feel, but it also packs its own features to make it unique and useful.
Right out of the box, it blocks intrusive ads by default, blocks pop-ups, and has protection against cryptojackers. It can also block site notifications, as well as block AMP pages for users who prefer to go directly to the site. Mostly, it’s a more privacy-focused version of Chrome with various speed improvements.
Since it’s just based on Chromium and not actually Chrome, however, you’ll lose out on things like account syncing between devices, which means you’ll have to manually bring your bookmarks and stuff like that to Kiwi if coming from Chrome.
All that aside, there’s one primary feature that’s relatively new to Kiwi that we’re going to focus on today: desktop extension support. We’re talking about all your favorite extensions from Chrome on the desktop, just on your phone. It’s pretty rad. Here’s how it works.
Let’s Talk About Chrome Extensions on Mobile
Before we get to the nitty-gritty, we should probably talk about why Google hasn’t brought Chrome extensions to Chrome on Android. To put it bluntly: because the experience basically sucks.
Chrome extensions are mostly (or entirely?) designed with the desktop in mind, so it’s no surprise that many of them don’t offer a lot of benefit on mobile. In fact, none of the extensions I use in Chrome desktop were worth a flip on mobile.
Your mileage will vary from extension to extension—some may work well, some may only partially function. Some may not work at all. The only way to really know is to test it out.
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