Microsoft Edge Add-ons: A 2021 Lookbook

Your change to the extensions button in the toolbar with its dropdown menu completely ruined Edge usability for me. I was just at the point of deciding to move to Edge as my browser, when you made that change and killed it. I look back in every now and then to see if you've done anything to fix the issue I repeatedly raised (and got quite a few likes for each time, so it's not just me) but you've done NOTHING to restore the extensions UI to even vague usability.

I have around 30 extensions installed (would be more, but your wrecking the UI for using a lot of extensions stopped me from completing the migration). The toolbar has room for around 10 extension tool buttons when leaving the address bar long enough for use. BEFORE the change, all the extension buttons NOT selected to be on the toolbar were in a menu at the top of the MORE... menu dropdown. 6 tool buttons pre line, sized and spaced just as in the toolbar. NO repeats of the ones visible in the toolbar cluttering it up, all just a small move of the pointer away, and able to be re-ordered just like the ones in the toolbar to e.g. put the ones most regularly used at the top. This made it VERY quick and easy to access every extension button to left and right click them.

You killed that, lamely following Google.

Now instead there's just the extensions button dropdown UI which has all 30, the 10 already visible in the toolbar cluttering up the list, making the not-in-the-toolbar ones I want harder to find; only ONE per line so I not only have to move MUCH further than the max. 4 lines as was before, but I actually have to scroll down to find the majority: and they are only ordered alphabetically by name - with many extensions having funny names I can't always remember the first letter of - and unable to be re-ordered.

The extensions toolbar button and its dropdown are fine for MANAGING extensions, but it is far, far too clumsy a UI for actually USING extensions for users with 20 or 30+ extensions.

I can't use desktop Edge any more, which also means I won't use Android EDGE either on my phone as I need browsers on laptop and phone that work together. You have completely KILLED it for me when you tore up the previously great UI for using a lot more extensions than fit on the toolbar.

If you ever want me to consider using Edge again you need to provide a usable UI for USING lots more extensions than fit on the toolbar. Best, for me, would be to restore the area at the top of the more ... menu as was - able to be turned off or on, and with the current extensions button also as an option. Or have an extra 'toolbar overflow' button and its dropdown menu which the user can pin more extension buttons on (and re-order) as with Firefox. Or at the very least, allow the extensions in the extensions toolbar button dropdown to be re-ordered by the user, which would still leave it cumbersome and clumsy but just about useable.

And I've sent this via feedback and in the Canary/Dev tech community threads many, many times since the extensions button first appeared and the old UI disappeared in Canary. NOTHING has been done. I conclude you consider the proportion of users who want to use lots of extensions so small we are not worth the effort and are therefore not part of you targeted userbase. Frankly I'm soon going to stop even the occasional check back in and re-installation of Edge just long enough to check for progress on this one issue.