Here are the latest noteworthy changes in the Microsoft Edge browser from the Canary channel, where developers push early updates every day. The most recent update adds a new flag for managing experimental appearance settings, plus it brings improvements for built-in search engines.
Flags are toggles you can turn on or off to modify, enable, or disable features that are not ready for the public. For example, blocking media autoplay on all websites in Edge requires switching on one of such experimental flags.
Microsoft Edge 102, which is currently available for testing in the Canary channel, now comes with a new experimental flag called "Show experimental appearance settings." It lets you preview early appearance settings in the browser. Unfortunately, it appears that the new flag does not offer much, and no new settings pop in Edge after enabling it.
The only new option in the appearance settings is the ability to let sidebar apps show notifications, but this toggle seems unrelated to experimental appearance settings managed by the flag.
Another improvement in the latest Edge Canary version is a better "Manage search engines". Edge users now can remove default search engines from the browser. Google introduced this feature in Chrome 99, and it has now arrived in Edge 102.
In case you missed it, here are other new features currently under testing in Edge Canary:
- The option to auto-save passwords without prompting the user
- The option to pause all extensions on all websites or automatically
- The option to save tab groups as bookmarks
- Link handling in progressive web apps
If you want to try early changes in Microsoft Edge Canary, download the browser from the official Microsoft Edge Insider website. Keep in mind that Edge Canary may be more buggy than the public release, so it is better to use it side-by-side with the Stable version.
Thank you, Leopeva64-2, for the tip!