Right on track with past releases, Microsoft has announced that it's releasing this week's build of the Chromium-based Edge browser to Insiders in the Dev channel. This time we're getting version number 79.0.308.1, and there's a pretty major new feature that lets users sync open tabs across devices. You can find tabs from other devices in the ellipsis menu, under History, though it should be noted it doesn't seem to support mobile versions of Edge yet. Syncing is also now supported for work and school accounts on macOS.
There are a handful of other changes, including PDF annotations, an improved sign-in experience, new profile pictures, and more icons in context menus. Here's the full list of new features:
- Added initial annotation features to PDFs.
- Added support for using a pen/stylus to move and resize windows.
- Improved the browser sign-in experience and added new profile icons.
- Added an error dialog for when the browser is in a state where it can’t be signed into (for example, when running as an Administrator).
- Added a link to the Microsoft Privacy Dashboard from within Settings.
- Added text indicating if a window is InPrivate or Guest to the tooltip that appears when hovering over the Taskbar icon.
- Added the ability to edit the names of items in Collections.
- Added more links to documentation from within the F12 Dev Tools.
- Added more icons to certain places in the browser such as context menus.
Of course, this release also comes with a handful of smaller changes that improve the reliability and behavior of the browser. For reliability, this release fixes a number of crashes that may occur when signing into the browser, printing a PDF, or using an IE mode tab. Here's the full list of fixes for reliability:
- Fixed a crash when signing into the browser.
- Fixed an issue where trying to print a PDF crashes the tab.
- Fixed an issue where navigating within an IE tab sometimes causes a browser crash.
- Fixed a hang when using IE mode tabs.
- Fixed an issue where clicking on the prompt to restart Edge to apply an update causes a hang on Mac.
- Fixed an issue where Edge would randomly crash.
- Fixed an issue where Application Guard windows fail to open with no indication as to why.
- Fixed an issue where Application Guard windows fail to navigate to websites.
- Fixed a crash when using Application Guard.
- Fixed an issue where checking for Edge updates results in the following error: “We couldn't create that component (error code 3: 0x80080005 -- system level)”.
- Fixed an issue where users can’t click on certain browser UI while the print dialog is open.
- Fixed an issue where logging into the browser fails because the Sign In button isn’t functional.
- Fixed an issue where sync doesn’t work, and users unexpectedly had to sign into the browser again in order to restore sync.
- Fixed an issue where syncing doesn’t work after a user signs into the browser and tries to customize which types of data to sync.
- Fixed an issue where protected video like on Netflix doesn’t work on ARM devices.
As for improved behavior, the list of changes is pretty huge, which seems to be a common thing with recent releases. Changes include a fix for broken icons in different parts of the operating system, and the removal of UI elements for sync options that haven't been enabled yet. Here's the full list:
- Temporarily removed the “Block” autoplay media blocking option due to certain websites not being blocked properly. This can be re-enabled with a flag.
- Temporarily removed the UI for sync options that haven't been implemented yet, so they don’t appear constantly disabled.
- Fixed an issue where Edge icons on the Taskbar, Desktop, Task Manager, etc. are incorrect or missing.
- Fixed an issue where video playback on certain sites like Xfinity would appear blocky or scrambled. Note that there is still an active bug with similar behavior.
- Fixed an issue where adding a new folder to Favorites from the Favorites management page isn’t possible because the Save button is disabled.
- Fixed an issue where Flash doesn’t work on certain webpages in Application Guard windows.
- Fixed an issue where feedback screenshots appear all black.
- Fixed an issue where importing settings from Chrome causes webpage text to be smaller than normal.
- Fixed an issue where Reading View doesn’t properly support right-to-left languages.
- Fixed an issue where zooming doesn’t work in Reading View on Mac.
- Fixed an issue where some buttons appeared circular when they’re hovered over instead of square/rectangular.
- Fixed an issue where tooltips sometimes don’t draw their entire border properly.
- Fixed an issue where signing into the browser with an account that has no picture doesn’t properly set the browser’s profile picture to the default avatar if a profile picture was previously set for the profile.
- Fixed an issue where copy/paste doesn’t work in Collections.
- Fixed an issue where adding the current webpage to a Collection fails.
- Fixed an issue where the Tab key has unexpected behavior in certain areas of a Collection.
- Fixed an issue where Collections exported to Word have extra artifacts added to the documents.
- Fixed an issue where reordering items in Collections via the keyboard doesn’t work properly.
- Fixed an issue where downloads blocked by SmartScreen don’t have the button to delete them straight from the Downloads shelf.
- Fixed an issue where changing which content is shown on the new tab page sometimes causes the wrong favicon to be shown on the tab.
- Fixed an issue where “Your organization has turned off sync” messages appear when they shouldn’t be.
- Fixed an issue where the number of InPrivate windows currently open isn’t displayed next to the InPrivate indicator in the toolbar.
- Fixed an issue where the arrow keys sometimes don’t work in PDF documents.
- Fixed an issue where the search engine imported from the existing version of Edge isn’t set as the default search engine after import.
- Fixed an issue where the feedback dialog window control buttons appear to be blurry.
- Fixed an issue where Windows Firewall prompts appear inside Application Guard windows.
- Fixed an issue where the user’s name when signed into the browser has “Profile 1” appended to it.
- Fixed an issue where the first run experience greets users as “Profile 1” instead of their name.
- Fixed an issue where the first run experience sometimes appears on top of web page content instead of on a new tab.
- Fixed an issue where the F12 Dev Tools on Mac sometimes doesn’t use the proper theme.
- Fixed an issue where the F12 Dev Tools feedback smiley face doesn’t render properly in light theme.
- Fixed an issue where two “Initiator” tabs are visible in the F12 Dev Tools Network pane.
The new version should be available to everyone sooner rather than later, though it doesn't seem to have gone live just yet. You can check for updates on your device to see if it shows up, or wait for it to install automatically.
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