Edge Dev 81.0.403.1 Released, Here’s What’s New

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Microsoft is releasing an update to the Dev channel. Version 81.0.403.1 of the browser includes a couple of new features added to Developer Tools, along with general improvements.

The change log for Edge Dev 81.0.403.1 comes with the following highlights.

Added features:

  • Enabled the 3D viewer tool in the F12 Developer Tools.
  • Enabled localization of the F12 Dev tools so they will match the language the rest of the browser is using.
  • Enabled the link on the … menu to the Extensions management page in Application Guard windows now that extensions have been enabled.

Improved reliability:

  • Fixed an issue where navigating to certain websites causes a browser crash.
  • Fixed an issue where websites that use Windows’ credential prompt in order to log in sometimes cause a browser crash.
  • Fixed an issue where using Collections sometimes causes a browser crash when closing a window.
  • Fixed an issue where certain DRM-protected video doesn’t play on Windows Insider builds.
  • Fixed an issue where certain DRM-protected video doesn’t play on certain devices.

Changed behavior:

  • Temporarily hid the Global Media Controls button that was inherited from Chromium.
  • Improved the white flashes that sometimes occur in Dark Theme when loading internal webpages like Favorites, History, etc.
  • Fixed an issue where Spellcheck is sometimes not enabled by default.
  • Fixed an issue where editing favorites on the Favorites management page sometimes causes folders to unexpectedly close or open.
  • Improved Browser Task Manager’s persistence of column widths.
  • Fixed an issue where there were two context menu entries to move a tab to a new window.
  • Fixed an issue where attempting to translate a page into the same language it’s already in causes the Translate popup not to show the current language correctly.
  • Fixed an issue where the Done or Next button sometimes doesn’t appear during the First Run Experience.
  • Fixed an issue where parts of Collections are inappropriately hidden when the browser’s zoom level is set to greater than 100%.
  • Fixed an issue where pressing Shift+Tab when editing text in a Collection unexpectedly exits text editing mode.
  • Fixed an issue where pasting text into a Collection sometimes shows black on dark text when using Dark Theme.
  • Fixed text formatting issues when pasting text into a Collection.
  • Fixed an issue where the option to Read Aloud is shown in places where it can’t be used.
  • Fixed an issue where the list of voices available in Read Aloud sometimes isn’t correct.
  • Fixed an issue where Read Aloud sometimes doesn’t read long phrases properly when using certain voices.
  • Fixed an issue on Mac where websites installed as apps still have a too-tall title bar.

Known issues:

  • The dialog to install a website as an app sometimes doesn’t appear.
  • Users of certain security software packages will see all tabs fail to load with the error STATUS_ACCESS_VIOLATION. The only way to prevent this behavior is to uninstall that software.
  • After an initial fix for it recently, some users are still experiencing Edge windows becoming all black. UI popups like menus are not affected and opening the Browser Task Manager (keyboard shortcut is shift + esc) and killing the GPU process fixes it.  Note that some of these fixes don’t yet exist in the Stable channel, and the issue only appears to affect users with certain hardware.
  • Some users are still not seeing Collections being enabled by default on Canary and Dev. For users who want to try Collections, enabling the flag at edge://flags/#edge-collections should still work to turn on the feature.
  • 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.
  • At certain zoom levels, there is a noticeable line between the browser UI and the web contents.

Microsoft recently released the first stable version of Microsoft Edge Chromium to the public. Surprisingly, Microsoft Edge is still supporting a number of aging Windows versions, including Windows 7, which has recently reached its end of support. Check out Windows Versions Supported by Microsoft Edge Chromium.

Interested users can download MSI installers for deployment and customization.

For pre-release versions, Microsoft is currently using three channels to deliver updates to Edge Insiders. The Canary channel receives updates daily (except Saturday and Sunday), the Dev channel is getting updates weekly, and the Beta channel is updated every 6 weeks. Microsoft is going to support Edge Chromium on Windows 7, 8.1 and 10, alongside macOS, Linux (coming in the future) and mobile apps on iOS and Android.

Actual Edge versions

The actual versions of Edge Chromium at the moment of this writing are as follows:

You will find many Edge tricks and features covered in the following post:

Hands-on with the new Chromium-based Microsoft Edge

Also, see the following updates.

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Author: Sergey Tkachenko

Sergey Tkachenko is a software developer who started Winaero back in 2011. On this blog, Sergey is writing about everything connected to Microsoft, Windows and popular software. Follow him on Telegram, Twitter, and YouTube.

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