There"s been quite a bit of news about Microsoft"s Chromium-based Edge browser this week. There was a build from the stable channel that leaked, and then Microsoft announced that Edge Beta is finally available. You"ll find that the new Collections feature is available in the Canary branch, and you can now sign in with a work or school account.
But now, it"s time for this week"s Edge Dev build. Most of the new features are pretty minor, but Microsoft highlighted some existing features that were previously rolling out gradually, and are now available for everyone. For one thing, Tracking Prevention is now fully available, and so is password and form fill syncing.
This is certainly worth noting. Previously, the only way to get your stored passwords was to install the old browser you were using, and then install Edge. Now, you should just be able to install Edge on a new PC and you"ll be good to go.
Here are the new features listed for Edge build 78.0.249.1:
- Added a warning message when giving websites permission to access a device’s location if Windows 10’s global location permission is disabled.
- Added support for exiting full screen mode using the ESC key on Mac.
- Added the ability for websites to detect when they’re running on Windows in S mode.
And of course, there are a bunch of fixes. Here are the stability fixes:
- Fixed a crash during the first run experience.
- Fixed an issue where navigating to a new site in an IE mode tab sometimes crashes the browser.
- Fixed an issue where IE mode tabs crashed when opening certain URLs.
- Fixed an issue where using IE mode in InPrivate sometimes crashes the browser.
- Fixed an issue where an IE mode tab that’s frozen can sometimes freeze the entire browser.
- Fixed an issue where searching for apps on edge://apps sometimes causes the page to crash.
- Fixed an issue where some websites installed as apps won’t load on Mac.
- Fixed a crash when using media casting.
Here are the behavior fixes:
- Fixed an issue where searching in the address bar sometimes uses Bing despite a different search provider being selected.
- Fixed an issue where searches from the address bar sometimes bring back results from the wrong locale.
- Fixed an issue where right clicking on some browser UI is instead treated as a left click.
- Fixed an issue where the tooltip for the Stop button had a placeholder string in it ($1).
- Fixed an issue where browser syncing sometimes gets stuck in the “Initialization” state.
- Fixed an issue on Mac where the theme selection dropdown in Settings didn’t work.
- Changed the keyboard combination to open the More menu (…) on Mac.
- Fixed an issue where screenshots weren’t able to be sent alongside feedback.
- Fixed an issue where uninstalling websites that were installed as apps from the Start Menu doesn’t remove them from the edge://apps page.
- Fixed an issue where opening PDF files using Application Guard sometimes fails.
- Fixed an issue where IE mode tabs would sometimes prevent the window they’re in from being closed.
- Fixed an issue where IE mode tabs sometimes don’t have their content sized properly when the tab first loads.
- Fixed an issue where using Read Aloud sometimes causes webpage content to move unexpectedly.
- Fixed an issue where the link to manage favorites opens in the current tab instead of a new one.
- Changed management policies to apply to all installed channels on Mac instead of targeting individual channels.
As you can see, the new Edge browser is really coming along, especially since it"s now available through the Beta branch, which is updated every six weeks. Of course, there are still some key features missing, such as the ability to sync history and extensions, and native ARM64 support.