Microsoft Edge moves to version 88 in the Dev channel

Today, Microsoft released Edge 88.0.673.0 to the Dev channel. It's the first Edge 88 build to show up in the branch, and the news comes shortly following the release of Edge 87 to the Beta channel.

As usual, there's not a whole lot that's new. One thing that's been added is the ability to take a screenshot of a webpage and then add ink to it. This is actually a notable change, since the ability to mark up webpages was one of the key features of the original Edge browser.

Here's the full list of new features:

Added the ability to take a screenshot of a webpage and add ink to it.

Added extra error information to tabs when they crash due to sandbox conflict.

Improved Single Sign-On support on Mac.

Added a management policy to control the Edge Shopping Assistant. Note that updates to documentation and administrative templates haven’t been made yet.

Added a management policy to configure how URLs are copied from Edge. Note that updates to documentation and administrative templates haven’t happened yet.

Added a management policy to prevent the automatic redirection of incompatible websites from Internet Explorer to Edge. Note that this policy specifically prevents the installation of a component in Internet Explorer required for redirection to occur, and updates to documentation and administrative templates haven’t happened yet.

Added a management policy to control the automatic redirection of incompatible websites from Internet Explorer to Edge. Note that this redirection is enabled by default, and updates to documentation and administrative templates haven’t happened yet.

Added a management policy to hide the informational dialog that’s shown the first time an automatic redirection from an incompatible website in Internet Explorer to Edge occurs. Note that hiding this popup also disables the automatic import of user data from Internet Explorer to Edge and updates to documentation and administrative templates haven’t happened yet.

Deprecated the management policy to allow WebDriver to Override Incompatible Policies.

As always, there are a bunch of fixes and known issues. Here's what got fixed for improved reliability:

Fixed an issue where the prompt to restore tabs isn’t shown when Edge is automatically closed due to the device restarting or turning off.

Fixed an issue where attaching a file while submitting feedback sometimes crashes the browser.

Fixed a crash when closing the browser.

Fixed a crash when installing a website as an app.

Fixed a hang when opening the browser.

Fixed a hang when closing the browser.

Fixed a hang when disabling an extension.

Fixed a hang when opening a website installed as an app.

Here's what got fixed for changed behavior:

Fixed an issue where clearing hosted app data when closing the browser also clears cookies.

Fixed an issue where “default.log” files are sometimes created in various user-visible locations on a device.

Fixed an issue where folders in the Favorites menu don’t remember that they were previously open.

Fixed an issue where websites installed as apps sometimes use icons that are too big on the Start menu.

Fixed an issue where form fields in some PDFs can’t be filled in.

Fixed an issue where dropdowns on webpages sometimes can’t be used or closed.

Fixed an issue where dragging a link into the tab band to open a new tab doesn’t work in fullscreen because Shy UI doesn’t appear. Note that this has only been fixed for mouse users, and a fix for touch users is still needed.

Fixed an issue where sites that are supposed to open in IE mode sometimes open in regular tabs.

Fixed an issue where dialogs in IE mode tabs would sometimes prevent other Edge windows from being usable.

Fixed an issue where opening an IE mode tab sometimes causes full Internet Explorer to open.

Finally, here's the list of known issues:

Users of certain ad blocking extensions may experience playback errors on Youtube. As a workaround, temporarily disabling the extension should allow playback to proceed. See https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/articles/known-issue-adblock-causing-errors-on-youtube/m-p/14... for more details.

Some users are still running into an issue where all tabs and extensions immediately crash with a STATUS_INVALID_IMAGE_HASH error. The most common cause of this error is outdated security or antivirus software from vendors like Symantec, and in those cases, updating that software will fix it.

Users of the Kaspersky Internet Suite who have the associated extension installed may sometimes see webpages like Gmail fail to load. This failure is due to the main Kaspersky software being out of date, and is thus fixed by making sure the latest version is installed.

Some users are seeing favorites get duplicated after we made some previous fixes in that area. The most common way this is triggered is by installing the Stable channel of Edge and then signing into it with an account that has already signed into Edge before. Fixing this should be easier now that the deduplicator tool is available. However, we’ve also seen duplication happen when running the deduplicator on multiple machines before either machine has a chance to fully sync its changes, so while we wait for some of the fixes we’ve made to come to Stable, make sure to leave plenty of time in between runs of the deduplicator.

After an initial fix for it recently, some users are still experiencing Edge windows becoming all black. Opening the Browser Task Manager (keyboard shortcut is shift + esc) and killing the GPU process usually fixes it. Note that this only appears to affect users with certain hardware and is most easily triggered by resizing an Edge window. For users with discrete GPUs, updating graphics drivers may help.

Some users are seeing “wobbling” behavior when scrolling using trackpad gestures or touchscreens, where scrolling in one dimension also causes the page to subtly scroll back and forth in the other. Note that this only affects certain websites and seems to be worse on certain devices. This is most likely related to our ongoing work to bring scrolling back to parity with Edge Legacy’s behavior, so if this behavior is undesirable, you can temporarily turn it off by disabling the edge://flags/#edge-experimental-scrolling flag.

There are some issues where users with multiple audio output devices sometimes don’t get any sound from Edge. In one case, Edge becomes muted in the Windows Volume Mixer and unmuting it fixes it. In another, restarting the browser fixes it.

As always, you can manually update your browser by going to Settings -> About Microsoft Edge, or you can just wait until it's updated on its own at some point.