Just like clockwork, Microsoft has released a new Edge build to Dev channel users, bumping up the version to 90.0.789.1. While this is the second Edge 90 build being released for Dev users, it is still light on features, with the build today readying improvements to the right-click context menu for PDFs and adding a management policy for governing how Office files are opened in Edge. Other than that, there are a bunch of fixes to address reliability issues and changed behavior.
Additionally, the company has also reminded users of the impending end of support for Edge Legacy and has also linked to a post on what steps are to be taken by those that use kiosk mode. The firm has also detailed the new password management features brought by Microsoft Authenticator on mobile and on Chrome via the Microsoft Autofill extension.
With that out of the way, here is what’s new with today’s Dev channel release:
- Added options for a simplified right-click menu for PDFs. Note that actual changes to the right-click menu are still being rolled out, so these settings may not be functional yet.
- Added management policies for Quick View Office Files Enabled, which controls whether or not Office files can be opened directly in Edge instead of being downloaded, and for Application Guard Favorites Sync Enabled to control whether or not Application Guard windows should have access to the same set of Favorites as non-Application Guard windows. Note that updates to administrative templates or documentation may not have occurred yet.
As mentioned in the release notes, the simplified right-click menu in PDFs is still rolling out gradually, so the settings to enable it might not be functional for most users for now. It is not clear what the exact changes are either, so users will have to wait for the completion of the rollout.
As usual, there are fixes to improve the reliability of the browser. Here is the complete list:
- Fixed a hang on shutdown that may prevent Edge from opening correctly.
- Fixed an issue on Mac running on ARM where all tabs immediately crash as soon as they’re opened.
- Fixed a crash when refreshing a page.
- Fixed a crash when exiting fullscreen.
- Fixed a crash when interacting with the Shopping popup.
- Fixed a crash when dragging and dropping Favorites.
- Fixed a crash when using Family Safety.
- Fixed a crash when navigating in an IE mode tab.
- Fixed a crash when dragging and dropping something into a Collection.
- Fixed a crash when removing shortcuts for PWAs or websites installed as apps.
- Fixed a crash when uninstalling a PWA or a website installed as an app.
- Fixed an issue where uninstalling a PWA or app installed as a website while it’s still running can hang or crash the browser.
- Fixed an issue where opening a PDF with Information Protection sometimes crashes the browser.
- Fixed an issue where using Web Capture when the F12 Dev Tools are open crashes the tab.
- Fixed a hang when starting Read Aloud from the PDF toolbar.
And here is a long list of fixes to address changed behavior, including a bunch of fixes aimed at Progressive Web Apps (PWAs):
- Fixed an issue with vertical tabs where pinned tabs are always expanded when the vertical tabs pane is expanded.
- Fixed an issue where AV1 video sometimes becomes corrupted or drops frames.
- Fixed an issue where links from outside applications sometimes open in a brand new browser profile instead of one of the existing ones.
- Fixed an issue where Edge Taskbar shortcuts sometimes disappear.
- Fixed an issue where shortcuts to PWAs or websites installed as apps sometimes don’t work.
- Fixed an issue where desktop shortcuts are sometimes created for PWAs or websites installed as apps when they shouldn’t be.
- Fixed an issue where desktop shortcuts to PWAs or websites installed as apps are deleted or no longer work.
- Fixed an issue where icons for certain PWAs or websites installed as apps are too small when pinned to the Start menu.
- Fixed an issue where the ability to pin a PWA or website installed as an app to the start menu or desktop by right-clicking its entry in edge://apps is missing.
- Fixed an issue where uninstalling a PWA or website installed as an app from the Start Menu sometimes doesn’t remove its entry from edge://apps.
- Fixed an issue where pending download items sometimes aren’t initially visible in the Downloads popup menu.
- Improved the appearance of the Favorites and History menus on small screens.
- Fixed an issue when searching for History using the History menu and no results are returned.
- Fixed an issue where Settings sometimes shows inaccurate sizes when viewing cookies and site data.
- Fixed an issue where links copied from within webpages that are supposed to be formatted with the title of the page aren’t.
- Fixed an issue where using Web Capture can sometimes cause scrolling issues.
- Fixed an issue where the management policy for New Tab Page Hide Default Top Sites doesn’t work.
- Fixed an issue where the management policy for Kiosk Address Bar Editing Enabled does the opposite of what it says it does.
Lastly, there are the known issues that users should be aware of when installing the latest Dev channel build. The list includes a few items that are being tracked for a while now, such as the duplication in favorites and the like:
- 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 is the case always, the update should be installed in the background without any user intervention. However, you can always head into Settings and hit 'About Microsoft Edge' to force the browser to check for an update.
As for users in the Beta channel, the company released Edge version 89 to users in that channel last week, bringing features like sync data reset, PDF and autofill improvements, and more. As for Edge for Linux users, there is no word on when that version will receive features like history sync.
