Any time someone publishes a “The top n GNOME Shell extensions” article, there’s a fair chance that it will include the AlternateTab extension.

That is a bit sad to be honest. Not because it would be wrong for users to prefer a more traditional switcher, mind you, but because the actual functionality has been built-in for years — all the extension does is intercept one keyboard shortcut and pretend that it was a different keyboard shortcut.

So without further ado, this is how to set up the window switcher without using the extension:

But wait, if the extension doesn’t do anything really, why does it even exist?

Well, until very recently, the extension was still used in GNOME Classic, so that the same <Super>Tab> shortcut would bring up the default application switcher in the regular GNOME session and the window switcher in the Classic session.

In GNOME 3.30 this now works without the extension, which brings us to the extension’s future mentioned in the title. After the above explanation it shouldn’t come as a surprise that there is none — the extension will be retired for GNOME 3.32. If you are currently using it, please set up the built-in “Switch Windows” shortcut as outlined above, and enjoy having one less extension to worry about on updates…