Microsoft runs several Insider channels for its Edge browser, namely Beta, Dev, and Canary. Beta gets updated every six weeks, Dev is updated on a weekly basis, while Canary is updated daily. In these channels, new features and enhancements are tested with volunteers from the public before they are rolled out generally in the stable channel. Now, a Desktop Sharing Hub has been seen in Edge Canary's latest build.
As spotted by Reddit user u/Leopeva64-2, Edge Canary's current 92.0.900.0 build contains two new flags that are visible in edge://flags and can be used to enable a "Desktop Sharing Hub". These are:
- #sharing-hub-desktop-app-menu
- #sharing-hub-desktop-omnibox
Although enabling the first flag seemingly makes no change to the three-dots menu despite its description, the second displays a new icon in the omnibox (screenshot above) which can be used to share a webpage in a variety of ways. These include copying a link, generating a QR code, saving a page to your device locally, and casting or sending it to another device. This is exactly the same as what was spotted in Google Chrome's Canary build v92 a couple of weeks ago.
Another minor configuration seen by the Redditor on the Settings page is an option to toggle "Show tab preview on hover", which is quite self-explanatory. However, this does not appear to be present in our build which means that it's part of Microsoft's staggered rollout plans.
These are potential features and enhancements that might be very useful to some Edge users. That said, it is important to note that these capabilities are only available in the Canary channel for now, which doesn't guarantee that they'll eventually make their way over to the stable channel.
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