Microsoft"s Chromium-based Edge browser has evolved quite a bit since the company first started testing the browser with Insiders, but one major feature that"s been lacking is support for ARM chipsets. After a few months of testing, support for ARM finally landed in the Canary channel a few weeks ago, and now, it"s also in the Dev channel.
Native ARM support is very important for browsers because they constantly generate code. Because x86 apps have to go through an emulation layer on ARM-powered devices, this process slows down the performance significantly. Currently, only Edge Legacy and Firefox support ARM devices natively, but the feature is slowly nearing general availability with the new version of Edge. Unfortunately, it won"t make it in time for the initial release on January 15.
In addition to ARM support, Microsoft also announced full support for Windows high contrast themes in Edge, which is now available in the Canary and Dev channels. If you use a high contrast theme on your Windows device for accessibility, Edge will now respect those settings more accurately. Finally, Microsoft has also added new options for the Immersive reader, which now offers 22 background colors.
The new features should be available if you download Edge Dev from the Insider website.