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Window: external property

Deprecated: This feature is no longer recommended. Though some browsers might still support it, it may have already been removed from the relevant web standards, may be in the process of being dropped, or may only be kept for compatibility purposes. Avoid using it, and update existing code if possible; see the compatibility table at the bottom of this page to guide your decision. Be aware that this feature may cease to work at any time.

The external property of the Window API returns an instance of the External interface, which was intended to contain functions related to adding external search providers to the browser. However, this is now deprecated, and the contained methods are now dummy functions that do nothing as per spec.

Instance methods

The External object has the following methods:

Method Description
AddSearchProvider(descriptionURL) Dummy function; does nothing. See Autodiscovery of search plugins.
IsSearchProviderInstalled() Dummy function; does nothing.

Specifications

Specification
HTML Standard
# external

Browser compatibility

Desktop Mobile
Chrome Edge Firefox Internet Explorer Opera Safari WebView Android Chrome Android Firefox for Android Opera Android Safari on IOS Samsung Internet
external 1 12
2From Firefox 78 AddSearchProvider() does nothing, as the specification requires.
1–102
4 15 No 4.4.3 18
4From Firefox for Android 79 AddSearchProvider() does nothing, as the specification requires.
4–102
14 No 1.0

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https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Window/external