Microsoft releases the first Edge 94 build for the Dev channel with a few new features

With Edge 93 now headed to the Beta channel, Microsoft today released the first Edge 94 build for the Dev channel. Considering that this is the first of the many builds that will be released to users in the Dev channel, there aren’t many major features. Edge 94 will also be the first version where the firm provides a new Extended Stable release for users that focus on receiving fewer updates, such as business customers.

As for today’s build, the company is adding a second row of sites to the Top Sites view on the New Tab page. The small yet useful addition allows users to set up more sites for quick access on the new tab page. The build also bring a new spellcheck experience for Mac users. Apart from these, there are a bunch of policy additions and a few other minor features. Here is the complete list of new features:

• Added a second row of Top Sites on the New Tab Page.
• Enabled the new Spellcheck experience on Mac.
• Added management policies (note that updates to documentation and administrative templates may not have happened yet):
  • To control if WAM Auth on versions Below Win 10 RS3 is Enabled.
  • To control the Primary Password Setting, which controls if device authentication is required before autofilling a password in a webpage.
  • To control if the Password Generator is Enabled.
  • To control if Transparent Ad Providers are Enabled, which controls the blocking of certain trackers with Tracking Prevention.
  • To control if the setting to Open Microsoft Links In Edge is Enabled.
• Improved the sign-in dialog when signing into the browser.
• Added support for full-page screenshots and InPrivate authentication via Face ID on iOS.

As is always the case with such builds, there are a few bug fixes. The firm categorized them between fixes to improve reliability and changes that address reliability issues. The list is comparatively short this time owing to the release being the first build for a major version. Here are the fixes that are aimed at improving the reliability of the browser:

• Fixed a crash on launch.
• Fixed an issue where PWAs or websites installed as apps sometimes crash after an OS upgrade.
• Fixed an issue on Mac where a webpage crash can sometimes also cause a browser crash.
• Fixed an issue where interacting with PDFs sometimes causes the browser to freeze or crash.
• Fixed a crash when playing videos.

And here are the fixes that address changed behavior:

• Fixed an issue where pinned tabs are sometimes duplicated after restoring the previous session.
• Fixed an issue where the Import Browser Data popup in Settings sometimes doesn’t appear or work.
• Fixed an issue where themes sometimes become broken or uninstalled after the browser updates.
• Fixed an issue where printing a PDF multiple times sometimes fails.
• Fixed an issue where Office files sometimes fail to download with a SERVER_FORBIDDEN error.
• Fixed an issue where some passwords in Password Settings don’t have an option to change them.
• Fixed an issue where WebView2 applications fail to open on Windows 11.
• Fixed an issue where WebView2 applications sometimes fail to authenticate with an ERR_SSL_CLIENT_AUTH_CERT_NEEDED error.
• Fixed an issue with vertical tabs where all tabs sometimes become invisible.
• Fixed an issue where Favorites in Application Guard windows sometimes are corrupted.
• Fixed an issue where User Initiated Autofill doesn’t work in multi-line text boxes.
• Fixed an issue where MHT files sometimes don’t open properly.
• Fixed an issue where spellcheck suggestions sometimes don’t appear.
• Fixed an issue on Linux where SmartCopy doesn’t appear to work because the buttons that appear to copy captured content don’t work.

And lastly, there is the list of known issues that the firm maintains. You might find some that have been on the list for a number of versions now, with some of them having workaround listed. The list, however, has become shorter, with problems with Microsoft Editor now seemingly fixed. Here is the complete 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 this help article 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 still seeing favorites get duplicated. This issue should be reduced now that automatic deduplication has been introduced into Insider channels, but we’re still rolling that out in Stable. 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 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.

Users can head to the About Microsoft Edge settings page to check for updates and pull the update if it is available. However, since these releases are staggered, not all users will be able to see the update at once, but it will be made available sooner rather than later.