Dev channel update to 97.0.1072.8 is live

Hello Insiders!  Today we’re releasing build 97.0.1072.8 to the Dev channel, and as we mentioned last week, this is the final build for Dev 97, give or take a few small patches.  However, due to the holidays, it will still be a couple of weeks before this moves to Beta.  Additionally, this is our last post for the year.  There will still be Dev releases in December, but there won’t be any accompanying release notes. 

In community news: 

• We’re excited to announce a partnership with ZIP that will let you use Edge for shopping and then split up the payments over a period of time.  You can read more about it here:  https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/articles/introducing-buy-now-pay-later-in-microsoft-edge/m-p/2967030. 
• We also have a new video about what’s new in Edge Dev Tools in Edge 94 in case you haven’t checked those out in a while:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S-g1E_W9wQQ. 
• Finally, in case you missed it before, Microsoft has launched a new Feedback portal for you to send us suggestions and have others upvote them.  Read more about it at https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/microsoft-365-blog/introducing-feedback-for-microsoft-365/ba-p/2747224. 

As for what’s new in the browser this week: 

Added features: 

• Enabled support for smart history searches in the address bar.  Previously, this was only available on the History management page. 
• Added a management policy to control if Internet Explorer Mode Tab In Edge Mode is Allowed, which lets sites on the IE mode list be temporarily opened in a non-IE mode tab for testing purposes.  Note that updates to documentation or administrative templates may not have occurred yet. 
• Enabled support for a management policy from Chromium to control CORS Non-Wildcard Request Headers Support. 
• Added an API to WebView2 apps to control playing media (Issue 41). 

Improved reliability: 

• Fixed an issue on Linux where certain Settings pages crash or are blank. 
• Fixed a crash on the new tab page. 
• Fixed a crash when certain popups open. 
• Fixed a crash when showing certain menus or popups. 
• Fixed a crash when interacting with certain popups. 
• Fixed an issue where interactions with desktop notifications sometimes fail. 

Changed behavior: 

• Fixed an issue where PDFs sometimes start seeing blank white pages after scrolling for a while. 
• Fixed an issue where certain types of text annotations in PDFs don’t work. 
• Fixed an issue where pinned tab groups aren’t restored when the browser is re-opened. 
• Fixed an issue where the mini context menu blocks UI on certain websites that have their own UI that appears upon selection. 
• Fixed an issue on mobile where certain sync settings don’t work. 
• Fixed an issue on mobile where website notifications don’t work. 
• Fixed an issue on mobile where saving payment card info to the browser sometimes fails. 
• Fixed an issue on mobile where importing data from other browsers sometimes fails. 

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 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. 

Thanks for sticking with us over the past year, and happy holidays!