First Edge 86 build out for the Dev branch, brings a bunch of new features

Microsoft is releasing the first Edge 86 build for the Dev branch today, bringing a bunch of new features. The firm recently shipped version 84 to the stable channel with Collections and PDF improvements. As for the Dev branch, the firm released the last major version 85 build earlier this month, followed by a minor update last week. Today’s release bumps up the browser to build 86.0.587.0.

The first version 86 build brings a bunch of new features such as the ability to use a custom image for the new tab page background, a button to delete address bar suggestions, and a toggle on new InPrivate tabs that lets users select the Strict Tracking Prevention option, the Read Aloud function for PDFs on ARM based devices, and more. It also comes with some management policy improvements.

Here is the list of new features in today’s build:

Re-enabled support for searching in the sidebar in PDFs now that the functionality has been fixed.

Added the ability to use a custom image as the new tab page background.

Added the ability to add items to Collections from InPrivate windows.

Added a toggle to the InPrivate new tab page to always use Strict Tracking Prevention in InPrivate.

Added support for Read Aloud on PDFs on ARM devices.

Added dark theme to the Pinning Wizard.

Added a button to delete certain address bar suggestions.

Added the ability to re-order extension buttons that are in the … menu via the keyboard.

Added a management policy for Enterprise Mode Site List Manager Allowed, which controls whether or not users can access the Enterprise Mode Site List themselves. Note that administrative templates will be updated later for all new policies.

Added a management policy for New Tab Page Allowed Background Types to configure which types of images are allowed on new tabs.

Added a management policy to Force Sync.

Enabled support for the Chromium User Agent Client Hints Enabled management policy.

Enabled support for the Chromium Default Search Provider Context Menu Access Allowed management policy.

Re-enabled support for the Chromium management policy to Enable SHA-1 For Local Anchors.

Finished rolling out Picture Dictionary to all Canary and Dev users.

As is the case with all builds, there are also a bunch of fixes for improved reliability and changed behavior. Here is the full list of fixes for improved reliability:

Fixed an issue where certain key combinations like ctrl+f or ctrl+- crash the browser.

Fixed a crash on launch on Mac.

Fixed an issue where new tabs sometimes crash as soon as they’re opened or try to navigate.

Fixed an issue where session restore doesn’t work, causing Edge to fail to restore tabs when recovering from a crash, using continuous browsing, restarting to apply an update, etc.

Fixed an issue where clicking Site Information button sometimes crashes the tab.

Fixed an issue where adding text to a Collection via the right-click menu crashes the tab.

Fixed an issue on Mac where using the touchbar when certain sites like Netflix are playing video crashes the tab.

Fixed a crash when playing videos.

Fixed an issue where signing into the browser sometimes fails.

Fixed an issue where certain media formats like FLAC or WEBM don’t work, causing audio and video on certain sites like Coursera to fail.

Fixed an issue where entering drawing mode on a PDF causes Read Aloud not to work on other tabs.

Fixed a hang on shutdown on ARM.

Fixed an issue where navigating from an IE mode site to a non-IE mode site sometimes fails.

Fixed an issue where exporting IE mode diagnostic info from edge://compat sometimes fails.

Fixed an issue where attempting to save an edited PDF that was opened read-only fails.

Fixed an issue where clearing browsing data fails on Mac.

Fixed an issue where sharing web content such as embedded Youtube videos sometimes fails.

Fixed an issue where the Heavy Ad Intervention feature from Chromium (if enabled via a flag) doesn’t work.

Improved the reliability of sync for work and school accounts.

And here is the changelog for the extensive list of fixes for changed behavior:

Fixed an issue when cookies are added to the website permissions settings page’s Allow list and the option to delete cookies when the browser is closed is enabled. Now, cookies added to the allow list aren’t removed, and cookies expected to be removed are.

Fixed an issue where options to change the browser’s theme and zoom are missing from Settings.

Fixed an issue where the website’s protocol (https://, https://, etc.) is hidden in the address bar and only appears when interacting with it. Note that this behavior can be restored via a flag if desired.

Fixed an issue where certain management policies like those for SmartScreen weren’t being applies to devices being managed through Intune or another MDM solution. Note that domain joined devices weren’t affected.

Fixed an issue where hovering over UI such as the Favorites Bar shows corruption in the text.

Fixed an issue where the favicon of favorites on the Favorites Bar sometimes disappears.

Fixed an issue where switching tabs via the fullscreen Shy UI prevents using the touchscreen on Shy UI until fullscreen is exited.

Fixed an issue where sites sometimes don’t appear in the Back/Forward list.

Fixed an issue where extensions sometimes don’t appear on the Extensions management page.

Fixed an issue where Read Aloud sometimes reads too slow.

Fixed an issue where clearing browsing data sometimes opens a new window.

Fixed an issue where attempting to use a pen or stylus to interact with webpages fails when the interaction is over an iframe, which commonly host videos and ads.

Fixed an issue where old versions of Edge sometimes aren’t deleted after Edge is updated.

Fixed an issue on Mac where the … menu sometimes doesn’t work when used from Shy UI.

Fixed an issue on Mac where the browser sometimes reports the wrong or an unknown channel.

Fixed an issue where duplicate tooltips sometimes appear when hovering over UI.

Fixed an issue where the new tab page for Guest mode windows is in light theme even when the browser is in dark theme.

Fixed an issue where the popup that offers translation sometimes appears on the new tab page.

Fixed an issue where some parts of the Surf game aren’t localized properly.

Fixed an issue where dragging an address from the address bar into a Collection doesn’t add the website to the Collection.

Improved how products are added to a Collection from certain shopping websites like Ebay.

Improved messaging on the Downloads shelf when deleting a downloaded file fails.

Improved Autofill to reduce the number of websites where passwords are suggested on non-password fields like payment card CVVs.

Improved scrolling behavior when using Line Focus in Immersive Reader.

Removed the ability to pin a site to the Taskbar from within an Application Guard window since the functionality is broken.

There also is a long list of known issues. Here is the fill changelog:

Users with certain hardware are seeing changes in scrolling behavior that are unintended. For example, pages scroll much faster than they used to. We’re currently investigating.

Attempting to watch video in fullscreen will sometimes not work properly. Instead of showing the video fullscreen, it will blow up or zoom the video to the size of the browser window. A fix was recently identified and should be in next week’s Dev build.

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.

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. Fixing this should be easier now that the deduplicator tool is available. However, we’ve also seen duplication happen when running the deduplicator on multiple machines before either machine has a chance to fully sync its changes, so while we wait for some of the fixes we’ve made to come 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.

Microsoft also recently published the release schedule for the browser. With version 86 now being promoted to the Dev channel, the Beta version of Edge should be receiving version 85 this week. Edge 85 is not due for the stable channel until the end of August.

As usual, users running Edge Dev should be served today’s update automatically. You can also head to the ellipsis menu > Help & Feedback > About Microsoft Edge to check for updates. Since the update is just rolling out, it could take a while for it to show up for all users.