Microsoft has made good on its plans bring the Windows 10 Timeline feature to Google Chrome. A new Microsoft Web Activities extension in the Chrome Web Store means Timeline will now log a history of web activity in Chrome, allowing users to quickly go back and find sites they’ve visited.
The new Chrome extension for Timeline removes a major limitation on the Windows 10 feature’s usefulness.
Timeline keeps track of Windows 10 users’ activity history across devices and displays it in a series of windows in chronological order. Activity history in Office and Microsoft Edge worked in Timeline, but it didn’t produce a trail of a user’s web activity in Chrome or Firefox.
Since neither Google nor Mozilla had announced plans to support Timeline, Microsoft promised it would patch this up with new Timeline extensions for the browsers.
Timeline first appeared in the April 2018 Update and gained several improvements in the October 2018 Update, including Microsoft Launcher for Android support.
According to Microsoft, the Web Activities extension for Chrome has been a ‘top request’ by Windows Insiders who test preview builds of Windows 10.
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With the extension, users’ browsing history will appear across devices in Windows Timeline and the Microsoft Launcher app for Android. Users will need to sign into a Microsoft Account and from there they can pick a recently visited site and continue with what they were doing.
In the next phase of development, Microsoft engineers promise they’ll be looking to support more apps in Timeline.
“As we move into planning for future development, we are focusing on yet another Insider request: add support for more apps in Timeline. Browser support was especially high on our Insider’s wish list – which lead to the recent introduction of our Chrome extension. Now, Timeline can now bring together even more activities,” Microsoft’s Timeline engineers said.
Microsoft hasn’t provided any details about an equivalent extension to bring Timeline to Mozilla Firefox.
Third-party apps can support Timeline via Windows Timeline APIs, as Adobe’s Creative Cloud family has done.
Timeline keeps track of Windows 10 users’ activity history across devices and displays it in a series of windows in chronological order.
Image: Microsoft
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