Microsoft just started rolling out Edge 150 in stable, and the latest version of the built-in browser brings in some highly anticipated changes.
As we already announced a few weeks back, Edge now lets you sign in with a Google account instead of only a Microsoft account. The option shows up in the profile menu and on the Edge sign-in screen, and it"s available on both Windows and macOS. It"s rolling out gradually as a controlled feature, so it might take a bit to show up for everyone.
Signing in with a Google account introduces many benefits, especially if you’re in the ecosystem. For example, you can instantly bring in all your bookmarks and passwords, without needing to import them manually.
The road to integrating the Google sign-in into Edge was a rocky one. Back in 2020, Microsoft said it had no plans to "integrate Google services into Microsoft Edge by default.” But it appears that constant user requests and feedback finally made Microsoft give in and release this feature to everyone.
Besides the ability to sign in with a Google account, Edge 150 brings a few other notable changes. Workspaces, the feature that lets you save and share sets of tabs, is being migrated to a new architecture. Saved Workspaces data is moving from OneDrive and SharePoint over to Edge"s own Sync service. Microsoft is also removing the ability to share Workspaces with other people.
Edge is also retiring its sidebar app list. You can no longer pin new apps to it, and Microsoft says apps already pinned there will be removed in a future update. Related admin policies for sidebar apps will stop working too.
There"s also a cutoff for macOS users to be aware of. Edge 150 is the last version that supports macOS 12 Monterey. Anyone still running Monterey will need to upgrade their OS before Edge 151 arrives, or they"ll be stuck on this version going forward.
You can find the rest of what changed in Edge 150, including several enterprise-focused policy updates, in Microsoft"s full release notes.