Microsoft Edge Dev 89.0.731.0 released with new features

Microsoft has released Edge 89.0.731.0 to the Dev channel. As usual, the release is notable for a few new features that were earlier available in the Canary builds. Also, it includes plenty of general fixes and improvements. Edge 89.0.731.0 is the last Dev build released in 2020.

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 and mobile apps on iOS and Android. Windows 7 users will receive updates until July 15, 2021.

The following change log is available for Edge 89.0.731.0.

What's new in Edge Dev 89.0.731.0

The following features are new to the Dev channel.

• Added an indicator to show when a tab has been muted because the underlying system audio has been muted.
• Added an option to Settings to disable downloading Edge updates over metered connections.  Note that this is currently only available on Windows 10.
• Added a Setting to disable the F12 entry point to the Dev Tools.
• Added support for forcing popup windows into new tabs instead in Kiosk mode.
• Enabled support for the management policies from Chromium to Enable Basic Auth Over HTTP, and that Target Blank Implies No Opener.

Besides the new features, there is also a number of reliability improvements.

• Fixed an issue where Edge can’t open.
• Fixed an issue where Edge doesn’t shut down properly or install updates if certain extensions are installed.
• Fixed an issue where searching from the new tab page sometimes crashes the browser.
• Fixed a crash when downloading files.
• Fixed a crash on Mac when checking for updates.
• Fixed an issue on Mac where closing a popup menu sometimes crashes the browser.
• Fixed an issue where playing Dolby Vision media on Netflix sometimes crashes with error D7361-1253.
• Fixed an issue where opening a page in Immersive Reader sometimes fails.
• Fixed an issue where the Pinning Wizard doesn’t open.

Microsoft also noted changes in browser behavior.

• Added a delay to the Shy UI between when the mouse leaves it and when it disappears.
• Fixed an issue where items can’t be added to Collections when using Immersive Reader.
• Fixed an issue where closing a tab sometimes causes a gap between the rest of the tabs and the new tab button.
• Fixed an issue on Mac where Edge sometimes takes over the screen when an update notification is shown.
• Fixed an issue where the option to always translate a page sometimes doesn’t work.
• Fixed an issue where selecting a password in the autofill flyout sometimes puts the wrong password in the field when multiple passwords are available.
• Fixed an issue where the Coupons prompt appears in the Address Bar, but no comparisons are shown in the flyout.
• Fixed an issue where text notes on PDFs sometimes can’t be dragged to another position.
• Fixed an issue where the profile picture in Settings is sometimes broken.
• Fixed an issue where opening the Favorites or history menu when their buttons are hidden from the toolbar sometimes causes the buttons to stay on the toolbar.
• Fixed an issue where Edge’s update status in Settings sometimes isn’t shown on Linux.
• Deprecated the management policy to Allow Popups During Page Unload.
• Obsoleted the management policies to Send Site Info To Improve Services and Enable Metrics Reporting as they have been replaced by the policies for Diagnostic Data and to Allow Telemetry, as well as to Force the Legacy Default Referrer Policy.

Finally, this build of Edge comes with a list of known issues. Here is how it looks.

• 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.