Microsoft releases the first Edge 90 build for the Dev channel

As promised last week, Microsoft has released the first Edge 90 build to the Dev channel. The release brings the version up to 90.0.782.0 and brings with it a few new features, along with the set of usual bug fixes and improvements. With major version 90 now in the Dev channel, Beta channel users can look forward to Edge 89 which will be released sometime this week.

Firstly, the company detailed a few recently announced improvements being made to the browser such as the new Collections and Downloads improvements, and improvements to inking. Along with those changes that are rolling out to the Canary and Dev channels, the first Edge 90 build is light on features. There are a few management policy additions, along with the addition of the Collection menu in the ellipsis menu in InPrivate mode.

Here is the complete list of features being added:

Improved on smoothness and latency when inking PDFs. For more details, click here: https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/articles/inking-experience-improvements-in-edge/m-p/2098598.

Added the Collections item to the … menu in InPrivate windows since Collections are now supported in InPrivate.

Improved the Cookies In Use dialog to show more information about a given cookie.

Added a management policy to manage the Smart Actions Block List, which prevents certain context menu actions from being available, and for Windows Hello For HTTP Auth Enabled to control whether or not the basic credential prompt appears for NTLM or Negotiate. Note that updates to administrative templates or documentation may not be available yet.

Enabled support for the management policy from Chromium to configure the Managed Configuration Per Origin for websites installed as apps.

As is always the case, there are a bunch of fixes to improve the reliability of the browser. Here is the complete list:

Fixed an issue where multiple EdgeUpdate processes may be seen running at the same time in Windows Task Manager.

Fixed a crash when copying a URL from the address bar.

Fixed a crash when opening a new tab.

Fixed a crash when using the new Favorites or History popup.

Fixed a crash when using Find On Page.

Fixed a crash when using speech recognition.

Fixed a crash when sharing a Collection.

Fixed a crash when using search engine shortcuts to search for something from the address bar.

Fixed an issue where certain popups from IE mode tabs can become hidden, blocking all interaction with the window.

Fixed an issue where opening Edge via certain shortcuts causes manual updates to fail.

And here is the complete list of fixes being made to address changed behavior:

Fixed an issue where setting Autoplay settings to Block causes Read Aloud online voices to fail.

Fixed an issue where newly-opened tabs are blank.

Fixed an issue where certain trackpads cause scrolling to happen too fast.

Disabled ShyUI in PWAs and websites installed as apps.

Fixed an issue where opening a PWA or website installed as an app sometimes results in two windows being opened: the regular app window but with no content, and a generic browser popup window with the content.

Fixed an issue where switching profiles in a PWA sometimes fails.

Fixed an issue where the Favorites or History menus sometimes appear in the wrong place on screen.

Fixed an issue where searching for a Setting sometimes doesn’t work.

Fixed an issue where there are sometimes duplicate Edge shortcuts on the Taskbar.

Fixed an issue where Immersive Reader shows up as eligible on certain websites it shouldn’t.

Fixed an issue where certain websites installed as apps have too big of an icon when their tile is pinned to the Start menu.

Fixed an issue where websites installed as apps are missing the … icon on their … menu button.

Fixed an issue where the save button when editing a Collection item is invisible.

Obsoleted the management policy for Stricter Mixed Content Treatment Enabled. Note that this policy hasn’t been functional since version 85.

Lastly, there is the list of known issues that testers are to be aware of when downloading the build:

Certain extensions such as the Microsoft Editor extension don’t work on Linux. As soon as they’re installed, they crash and are disabled. We’re currently investigating.

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. This issue should be reduced now that automatic deduplication has been introduced into Insider channels. However, we’ve also seen duplication happen when running the manual deduplicator on multiple machines before either machine has a chance to fully sync its changes, so while we wait for the automatic deduplication to make it to Stable, make sure to leave plenty of time in between runs of the deduplicator.

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.

As usual, the latest Edge Dev build should be downloaded and installed in the background. However, you can head into the settings and click on About Microsoft Edge to force the browser to check for updates and pull the release for download. Those running Beta channel builds might want to keep an eye out for the first Edge 89 build soon.

The company also recently published a new ‘What’s New’ page for the Edge browser with a detailed roadmap of features for the firm’s Chromium-based offering. According to that list, one of the features expected to make it to version 90 includes font rendering improvements.