Dev channel update to 91.0.825.0 is live

[josh_bodner]

Hello Insiders!  Today we’re releasing build 91.0.825.0 to the Dev channel.  As you can see, this is the first build from version 91, which also means that version 90 is coming to Beta this week!  As such, here’s everything we’re excited to talk about this week: 

• Take our survey!  Once again, it's time for the quarterly survey, which can be found here:  https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/surveys/quarterly-survey-march-2021/m-p/2197376.  
• We’re moving faster!  Starting later this year, our lower-level releases like Stable will be moving to a 4-week release cadence, with an optional 8-week cycle for enterprises.  Read the announcement here:  https://blogs.windows.com/msedgedev/2021/03/12/new-release-cycles-microsoft-edge-extended-stable/. 
• For Mac users, we’re very happy to start rolling out our improved updater:  https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/articles/new-update-experience-for-mac-available-in-edge-cana....  For right now, this is only available in Canary as an opt-in feature, but it will eventually make its way to all Mac channels. 

In product news:

Added features: 

• Added the ability to read Wikipedia pages in Immersive Reader with support for their built-in Table of Contents.  Note that this is still being rolled out; for more details, click here:  https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/articles/make-reading-wikipedia-content-easier-and-more-acces.... 
• Finished rolling out on-demand password generation from the context menu. 
• Improved Read Aloud to skip extraneous content on some webpages.
• Added a management policy to control if New Tab Page Quick Links are Enabled.  Note that updates to documentation or administrative templates may not be available yet. 
• Enabled the Chromium management policy to control Fetch Keepalive Duration On Shutdown. 

Improved reliability: 

• Fixed a crash on launch. 
• Fixed a crash when searching from the context menu. 
• Fixed an issue where the Browser Task Manager sometimes crashes the browser. 
• Fixed an issue where Edge doesn’t launch on devices that have certain VMware software installed.  For more information, see https://community.carbonblack.com/t5/Knowledge-Base/Carbon-Black-Cloud-MS-Edge-Failure-to-launch-aft.... 
• Fixed an issue where pinning the Web Widget sometimes crashes it. 

Changed behavior: 

• Fixed an issue where Edge sometimes launches to a new profile if the shortcut used to launch it doesn’t specify what profile to use, causing users to think their data is gone even though it’s not. 
• Fixed an issue on Linux where push notifications from websites don’t work. 
• Fixed an issue where smooth scrolling doesn’t work on certain devices.  Note that this fix reverts back to prior scroll behavior, which will likely regress recently fixed behavior for other users.  Work in this area is ongoing to provide a flag to enable on-demand switching between old and new behavior in order to provide all users with a way to ensure correct device-agnostic scrolling behavior. 
• Fixed an issue where certain permission request prompts from websites are blank or missing text. 
• Fixed an issue where the button to switch to an existing tab when an address is typed in the address bar that matches the address of an existing tab sometimes doesn’t appear at certain window sizes. 
• Fixed an issue where duplicate Edge shortcuts sometimes appear on the Start menu. 
• Fixed an issue where PWAs or websites installed as apps that are open in one Edge channel are sometimes unexpectedly closed when another Edge channel installs an update. 
• Fixed an issue where the context menu option to translate a page doesn’t do anything if the page is already translated. 
• Fixed an issue where browser themes sometimes cause the window control buttons to disappear. 
• Fixed an issue where the dialog for manually importing browser data sometimes doesn’t go away. 
• Fixed an issue where IE mode tabs sometimes aren’t scaled or zoomed properly. 
• Fixed an issue where certain websites can’t be selected when using the Pinning Wizard. 
• Fixed an issue where Smart Copy sometimes doesn’t copy all selected content if some of the selected area is scrolled offscreen. 
• Fixed an issue where keyboard shortcuts to switch tabs in Kiosk mode sometimes don’t work. 
• Fixed an issue where the window title for the Web Widget Taskbar icon is blank. 
• Fixed an issue where certain buttons in the Web Widget sometimes aren’t visible. 

Known issues: 

• 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 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 still seeing favorites get duplicated.  This issue should be reduced now that automatic deduplication has been introduced into Insider channels, but we’re still rolling that out in Stable.  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 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 always, thank you for everything, we couldn’t do it without you!

[#2]

@josh_bodner When is the sync option coming to Linux? Why are other features given higher priorities than sync? I don't see sync in the roadmap and I am starting to doubt if it will ever make it's way to Linux. Life is so hard working without content sync on browsers.

[#3]

[Mod Edit: Please do not post in a disruptive style. See community guidelines.]

@josh_bodner 

Tab Hover Card Images now gone from Dev ... but back in Canary, so hopefully coming back to Dev next week.

But nothing's been done about the extension toolbar buttons situation, so I can still neither use nor recommend Edge.

Two parts:

1 The new Extensions button: (a) should match Favourites, History, Downloads buttons, and have a 3-dot menu at top with 'Open Extensions page' in that menu, not the Manage Extensions at the bottom: (b) turning off the Extensions button in Appearances should NOT make all hidden-in-toolbar extension buttons visible (it is REALLY REALLY annoying that if I turn it off to test or by mistake, when I turn it on again I have to go and set SEVENTEEN extension buttons back to hidden one by one every freakin' time) - it should leave them hidden or at the very least remember and restore the previous state on turning the button on again in Appearances; (c) turning off the Extensions button in Appearances should TURN THE BUTTON OFF like with the Favourites, History and Downloads buttons; (d) as it is supposed to be a lightweight extension manager, it should have a disable/enable extension option as well, not just jump from visible/hidden to uninstall. (Not that I actually need any of that as I'm unlikely to use the button if you sort out 2 below, and won't be using Edge at all if you don't sort out 2, but inconsistent and incomplete design irritates me.)

2 The extension to the toolbar needs to COME BACK. By that I mean something like the previous area at the top of the main More menu that acted as additional strips of toolbar, each strip 6 buttons long. The new Extensions button and its pane/dropdown menu is NOT a replacement for that at all. I need some UI element that on a click shows me MORE toolbar with the (in my case) 17 extension buttons that aren't on the main toolbar, all at hand, all visible at one go, each taking up only the space they would take up on the toolbar, reacting to mouseover, left click, right click just as they would in the main toolbar, NOT also including the buttons that are visible on the main toolbar, and able to be re-ordered as on the main toolbar. As was at the top of the main More menu is fine. As was but in a separate dropdown from a new toolbar overflow button is also fine. And there is no reason why you cannot have BOTH the new extensions manager button AND the old extended toolbar area.

Unless and until I get a good UI for my extra (currently - likely to go up) 17 extensions button that there isn't room for on the main toolbar I will not be able to use Edge for anything but checking updates to see if you've fixed this - certainly not any browsing. And the Extensions button and its drop-down are NOT in any way a solution to this. They're a lightweight extensions manager - improve or delete, I really don't care. But I MUST have a UI that effectively extends the toolbar for more extension buttons like there WAS but you've ripped out. Put it, or something very like it, back.

[#4]

This build has re-enabled the tab hover cards/details and can now no longer be disabled from flags, even though they still don't work properly!

When I hover over a tab the card flashes on screen and 99% of the time doesn't display properly 😞 

GIF Showing behaviour 

[#5]

You know, I really wish you'd make installers for older versions available. That short period AFTER the new download UI but BEFORE the addition of the Extensions button with removal of the extended toolbar area at the top of the More menu ... Edge was, for the first and only time since I started testing Dev and Canary back in 2019, quite usable. If I could reinstall a version from that period I might spend some time browsing with it. But you've totally wrecked the usability with the loss of the toolbar extension area.

[#6]

@josh_bodner Is there any benefit in sending a ticket saying a bug was fixed, or is the lack of complaint enough?

[#7]

@KibosJ 

Spoiler

---

@KibosJ wrote:

This build has re-enabled the tab hover cards/details and can now no longer be disabled from flags, even though they still don't work properly!

When I hover over a tab the card flashes on screen and 99% of the time doesn't display properly 😞 

GIF Showing behaviour 

---

it can be disabled, please refer to my comment here:

https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/discussions/tab-hover-cards-have-gone/m-p/2197623/highlight/t...

[#8]

@HotCakeX

Thanks 🙂

[#9]

Anytime 😉

[#10]

Right now the beta channel has the new download UI but not the new extensions menu.

[#11]

Dude...you've copied and pasted this issue with the extension button 2-3 times already in the boards. I'm pretty certain they've looked at it and know what's up. It's in testing - I for one abhor it but you have to let them finish their testing and get feedback from others. I'm pretty sure there's a majority who thinks this new feature is not good at all.

They do listen to feedback - they've emailed me and a couple of people who've sent problems about scrolling in the stable, dev, and canary channels and how it's now fixed.

If you can't really stand the extension button - use the stable, beta channel and Firefox for now. My usage of Firefox has increased and I'm starting to like it more than Edge at the moment.

[#12]

Yes, maybe the microsoft team dont want this featrue enable on linux.So use firefox is the better way.

[#13]

Could we please get an official reaction from Microsoft on what your feedback is, and your plans are, regarding the implementation of the new Extensions-button? It has gotten a very high number of unfavorable reactions from the community, so a response from MSFT would be much appreciated.

[#14]

Thanks for the flag #edge-vertical-tabs-hide-titlebar. Now it looks better in vertical tabs

[#15]

I've been wondering the same; we've also been on a Dev-only channel for months. I'd have figured we'd be on the Beta channel by this point.

[#16]

I can't find the roadmap. Sorry to bother everyone here, but does anybody update on when Edge on linux will have profile and sign in options?

[#17]

Not when it comes to Touch and Windows 10's Tablet Mode, they don't. They've been actively ignoring Feedback on it.

[#18]

@VishnuP314 "Sorry to bother everyone here, but does anybody update on when Edge on linux will have profile and sign in options?"

@Gekkouga "When is the sync option coming to Linux? Why are other features given higher priorities than sync? I don't see sync in the roadmap and I am starting to doubt if it will ever make it's way to Linux."

Nobody outside Microsoft knows and nobody inside Microsoft has been talking so far. 

Microsoft made this announcement on October 20:  "Some end-user features and services may not yet be fully enabled. In particular, our initial release supports local accounts only, and does not support signing in to Microsoft Edge via a Microsoft Account or AAD account, or features which require signing in (such as syncing your settings, favorites, etc.). These features will be available in a future preview."

Since then, dead silence on Microsoft's part, despite repeated questions in this Community and elsewhere.  Maybe yours will be the questions that actually get a response.  Hope so.

[#19]

@eduardobragaxz mentioning here that it's fixed is perfect!

[#20]

@Paul_VC this was just V1 of the extensions menu; we always planned on iterating on it like we do with everything else.  In particular, we're working on incorporating all this feedback before we expand the extensions menu rollout to Beta.