*UPDATED* Dev channel update to 88.0.705.9 is live

[josh_bodner]

Hello Insiders!  Today we’re releasing build 88.0.705.9 to the Dev channel.  This is the final build for version 88, and is what will be going out to Beta soon, give or take another small patch or two.  We’re also excited to announce the general availability of WebView2 for .NET as well as WebView2’s fixed distribution model:  https://blogs.windows.com/msedgedev/2020/11/20/announcing-general-availability-of-microsoft-edge-web....  As for what’s new and exciting in this build: 

Added features: 

• *UPDATED* Added the ability to view 2 PDF pages side-by-side.  Note that this did not make it into the original .9 release.  
• Improved the History menu to be able to have an icon next to the address bar, to show all the tabs available in recently closed windows, and to be pinnable as a side pane like the recently improved Favorites menu.  For more details, see https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/articles/improvements-to-history-in-microsoft-edge/td-p/18965.... 
• Added the ability for Edge to generate new passwords. 
• Added the ability to copy and edit passwords stored in the browser. 
• Add price comparison capabilities to the coupons flyout. 
• Added Picture in Picture support on Mac OS.  Support on other devices coming later.
• Finished rolling out the search Sidebar. 
• Enabled the creation of text notes in PDFs on non-Windows platforms.   
• Added a new management policy to Allow Vertical Tabs.  Note that updates to administrative templates or documentation may not be available yet. 
• Improved the layout of the Cookies and Site Permissions Settings. 
• Added a management policy on Mac OS to Override the Update Policy normally used on that OS.  Note that updates to administrative templates or documentation may not be available yet. 
• Enabled support for the management policies to Allow Legacy TLS Protocols in Web RTC, set a Printer Type Deny List, and change Intranet Redirect Behavior from Chromium. 

Improved reliability: 

• Fixed a crash on launch on Mac with the error message "AlertNotificationService cannot be opened because of a problem."
• Fixed a crash when navigating to different websites while certain extensions are installed. 
• Fixed a crash when using Pinterest suggestions in Collections. 
• Fixed an issue where clicking the … menu inside a collection sometimes crashes the Collections pane. 
• Fixed an issue where websites sometimes fail to sign in with an ERR_SSL_CLIENT_AUTH_CERT_NEEDED error after rebooting the device. 

Changed behavior: 

• Changed favorite folder flyouts from the Favorites Bar to no longer dismiss when opening a favorite in a new tab. 
• Fixed an issue where streaming music from Spotify when it’s installed as an app/PWA sometimes fails. 
• Fixed an issue where extension icons can’t be moved between the address bar and the … menu because the context menu option to do so is grayed out. 
• Fixed an issue where the search box on the new tab page sometimes doesn’t work after entering full screen mode. 
• Fixed an issue where autofill suggestions aren’t appearing on webpages where they should be. 
• Fixed an issue where annotations on a Web Capture sometimes get unintentionally erased. 
• Fixed an issue where certain Collections features aren’t accessible if the pane is zoomed beyond a certain level. 
• Fixed an issue where Text Notes in a read-only PDF aren’t accessible. 
• Obsoleted the management policies for Default Plugin Settings, Plugins Allowed For Urls, Plugins Blocked For Urls, and Run All Flash In Allow Mode due to the impending retirement of Flash. 

Known issues: 

• The new tab button sometimes is placed incorrectly after closing a tab.  It should still be functional. 
• 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. 
• After an initial fix for it recently, some users are still experiencing Edge windows becoming all black.  Opening the Browser Task Manager (keyboard shortcut is shift + esc) and killing the GPU process usually fixes it.  Note that this only appears to affect users with certain hardware and is most easily triggered by resizing an Edge window.  For users with discrete GPUs, updating graphics drivers may help. 
• 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. 
• 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. 

As always, we couldn’t do this without all your valuable input! 

[#2]

@josh_bodner I was waiting for Edge 89!!! Why is it still on 88?

[#3]

@josh_bodner Hi there,

The ability for Edge to generate passwords on websites just works on a handful of websites. For me, it never worked on any website other than Facebook. Any plans to expand it to other websites?

[#4]

@josh_bodner found a bug...

I've already sent feedback, hope your feedback team responds. Thank you!

[#5]

@Kam 

---

@Kam wrote:
 I was waiting for Edge 89!!! Why is it still on 88?

---

Holiday. it delayed everything 

[#6]

@HotCakeX Ok; sad to hear 😞

[#7]

Yup

[#8]

@HotCakeX And, speaking of the vertical ellipsis, did it come in from Canary, that time you posted about it?

[#9]

@Kam 

Spoiler

---

@Kam wrote:

@josh_bodner found a bug...

I've already sent feedback, hope your feedback team responds. Thank you!

---

That's already been fixed in upper stream. you know it because you can see it in Canary. so just wait till Edge dev reaches the same version as Canary. it always works like that.

[#10]

@Kam 

---

@Kam wrote:
@HotCakeXAnd, speaking of the vertical ellipsis, did it come in from Canary, that time you posted about it?

---

yes

[#11]

@josh_bodner 

Hi,

I've sent feedbacks about this before but this seemingly small thing hasn't been fixed yet.

so you've added History and Favorite buttons to the Edge toolbar and we can pin them to turn them into sidebar.

the problem is, after pinning them and then closing them, they revert back to the "unpinned" state next time we click on their icons.

this shouldn't be happening, the pinned/unpinned state needs to be remembered.

it was discussed in the forum before and people want the same thing too. I've done my share by sending feedback but I really think if a request or feedback makes sense, it shouldn't be required for lots of people to send it in order for Edge team to act upon it. because it keeps others waiting.

even if 1 or 2 persons send something as feedback, and you evaluate it and see it makes sense, it's not a radical change, then it should be enough in certain cases IMO.

also not everyone can send feedback to Microsoft as you know, for e.g. when their diagnostics and feedback data are controlled by their private organization.

example of feedbacks that make sense and are not radical:

1. making pinned/unpinned state of favorite/history/downloads(soon?) remembered and not lost after closing.
2. show the true default value or flags (enabled or disabled)

and as always thanks for the update!

[#12]

@josh_bodner 

• Added Picture in Picture support on Mac OS.  Support on other devices coming later.

How do you activate Picture in Picture on Mac OS?

[#13]

@sudokai edge://flags/#global-media-controls and edge://flags#global-media-controls-picture-in-picture

[#14]

I just wanted to voice my opinion that I'm not a fan of the vertical three dots. They looked much better horizontal. Thank you!

[#15]

@Lewk Stay tuned, it's a bug, was fixed in Edge 89 Canary.

[#16]

@josh_bodner The new cookies UI is worse in my opinion.  It requires more clicks and displays less info by default.  For example, here are a few of the entries I see with the the new UI.

As you can see, there is limited info displayed and no interaction is possible without the newly required click on the down arrow.  After expanding, I see the following which, while exposing the controls to interact with the hosts, takes far more screen space than the old UI so it both requires more clicks and is less efficient in space.

   In contrast, here is the old UI.  Fewer clicks and denser presentation.  The major flaw with the old UI is the lack or sorting.  The host name list should be sorted by public suffix then prefix, the sort order used for passwords on edge://settings/passwords.

   Please explain the supposed improvements of the new UI as more clicks and lower information density are both negative to me.

   On a related note, please promote edge://settings/content/cookies to its own entry in the settings categories separate from site permissions to which it is insignificant enough to occupy only a small fraction of the top of the page logically and physically isolated from the site permissions.  I admit that it may be me but I don't understand why these are combined at all, especially since the connection is reduced to something as tenuous as the single link below that results in two clicks required instead of one to get to the cookies page

   And on that subject, the header of edge://settings/content/cookies, "Cookies and data stored / Cookies and site data", is both redundant and inconsistent.  You could use "Cookies and stored data" but not all data to which it applies is stored (e.g. session data).  "Cookies and site data" is fine though you should make up your mind whether to use the term site or website as Edge uses both in its UI.

Rich

[#17]

A bug relating to changing Edge's design from Material Design to Fluent Design? Knowing the Edge team, they'll never fix it.

[#18]

@HotCakeX I'm actually not sure if the panes not remembering their pin state is intended or a bug, so let me ask.  

[#19]

@josh_bodner Thanks for your work. 

So, when will the iOS version support syncing history & open tabs? 

[#20]

An easy fix would be to not let us click the favorite/history button for it to close, then you'd be forced to click on the "x". Because when they're just floating over the page, clicking again on their respective buttons will close and reopen, and that doesn't happen when the pane is fixed. It just closes. To me it doesn't make much sense for it to remember if it was pinned or not.