Dev channel update to 81.0.389.2 is live

[josh_bodner]

Hello Insiders, today we’re releasing build 81.0.389.2 to the Dev Channel.  It’s a smaller update this week since we’re focusing on our other channels, including our very first Stable channel update:  https://blogs.windows.com/msedgedev/2020/01/15/upgrading-new-microsoft-edge-79-chromium/!  As part of that, we also announced a fun opportunity coming up later today to talk directly to some members of our development team.  For details, see https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/discussions/updated-a-chance-to-talk-directly-with-microsoft-....  

Additionally, we’ve started a discussion about the future of the Fluent Design Language and how it’s utilized in Edge:  https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/discussions/discussion-updating-our-interface-with-fluent-tou....  As for the most noteworthy features and fixes this week: 

Added features: 

• Added the ability to hide the Collections button from the address bar.
• Added a “coming soon” message to all users who still have favorites sync disabled.
• Added a dialog to inform users when another program on the device installs an extension in Edge.
• Enabled integration of the Windows built-in spellchecker.
• Added a management policy to prevent the first run experience from running.

Improved reliability: 

• Re-enabled favorites sync for some users who hadn’t gotten it re-enabled last week.
• Fixed an issue where sorting favorites and then hitting undo sometimes causes the favorites to be deleted.
• Fixed an issue on Mac where the send feedback button sometimes crashes the browser.
• Fixed a crash when using accessibility software like screen readers.
• Fixed an issue where closing an IE mode tab sometimes crashes the browser.
• Fixed an issue where attempting to customize sync settings during the First Run Experience crashes the tab.
• Fixed an issue where watching DRM-protected video like on Netflix doesn’t play at the highest possible quality on certain devices with Nvidia graphics.

Changed behavior: 

• Improved Read Aloud performance.
• Fixed an issue where exporting a Collection to Excel results in the column headers being messed up.
• Fixed an issue where cancelling an edit on a Collections item doesn’t undo the changes to it.
• Fixed an issue where sites that are deleted from the Top Sites tiles on the New Tab Page sometimes return.
• Fixed an issue where the Share UI doesn’t appear when the Share button is clicked.
• Fixed an issue where the link in Settings to manage a browser profile’s associated account sometimes doesn’t work.
• Fixed an issue where linked clicked from other applications sometimes don’t open if Edge is already running and was launched with administrator privileges.
• Fixed an issue where Tracking Prevention sometimes causes content blocked notifications to the right of the address bar (cookies, for example) not to appear properly.
• Fixed an issue where the ink customization options when annotating feedback screenshots don’t work.
• Fixed an issue where the Grammar Tools color picker isn’t visible.
• Fixed an issue where the Cisco Webex extension doesn’t work properly.
• Fixed an issue where manually navigating to an extension’s page by typing their address into the address bar doesn’t work.
• Fixed an issue where editing settings from within an Application Guard window that causes the window to have to close and re-open leads to the window closing, but never re-opening.

Known issues: 

• 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. 
• 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.

For those using the Beta channel, we're also releasing the first update to major version 80 to it this week.  Thank you for all your feedback and bug finds that got us there! 

[#2]

Thank you, appreciate it :)

[#3]

I see it as a potential security problem and/or privacy leak (because of the required permissions/data access). Plus, I don't like how this extension works. It creates and invisible pinned tab and moves the "real" tab to the right. To me, the browser feels and looks crappy.

I'm using extensions to "integrate" other services to the browser (something like 1Password or raindrop.io), not to add basic functions or improve/add behavior that should have been there from the start.

[#4]

I see it as a potential security problem and/or privacy leak (because of the required permissions/data access). Plus, I don't like how this extension works. 

---

@stark makes sense, we've gotten quite a lot of feedback about the trustworthiness of extensions.  In fact, that's one of the main reasons we're creating our own extension store instead of just exclusively using Google's.  Anything that's in our store has been vetted by us for a base level of security and trustworthiness, and we hope to import a substantial portion of the existing extensions from Chrome's store into ours in the future (assuming they pass our vetting process).  

And I guess if you also have a particular problem with the way that extension functions, there are others you can try, although they most likely will operate similarly since there's no way for an extension to stop the last tab from closing and thus also taking down the window except by making sure it's actually not ever the last tab in the window (for example, https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/live-on/oficfgdfeoknbjfhommlpiekdapmnebh/, https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/keep-one-pinned-tab/nmcefdbkkkjndgafnlaikloffhdeknod).  

[#5]

That's really great to know. I think in the future Microsoft Edge extension store will be the most secure/trustworthy one, after that is Firefox and then is Chrome and others in 4th 5th place etc...

[#6]

@DatabaseJase 

[#7]

@josh_bodner I feel like we're going in circles. Again, I will not use an extension from Google's store to add some basic functionality to a modern browser.

[#8]

Google doesn't own those extensions though, so the name "Google" is irrelevant here.
each extension developer owns the extension they make. the developers can put their extensions on various places, Google extension store, Microsoft Add-on store, Windows store, Opera add-on store etc.

the point is, Edge is now using Chromium, which is the best platform right now in terms of extension development and extension availability. so why not use that potential.

[#9]

hızlı bir şekilde yapıyorum

[#10]

thank you for this suggestion.@HotCakeX 

[#11]

Anytime!

[#12]

@josh_bodner 

[#13]

güzel olmuş