A couple of days ago, The Chrome Developers team tweeted out that they were pausing upcoming Chrome and Chrome OS releases, presumably because of difficulties getting the work done due to the ongoing Coronavirus crisis:
During this time, we will not promote Chrome 81 from beta to stable. We plan to begin shipping Dev channels again in the near future, and will continue shipping Canaries as planned.
— Chrome Developers (@ChromiumDev) March 19, 2020
As Microsoft’s Edge web browser is now based on Chromium, it follows suit that this would affect Edge, too, and today the Edge Dev team confirmed that deduction:
In light of the current circumstances, the Edge team will pause updating the Stable channel to Edge 81 consistent with the Chromium Project. We are committed to continued security and stability updates to Edge 80. We’ll have more to share on this next week. https://t.co/nWfm87MEK2
— Microsoft Edge Dev (@MSEdgeDev) March 20, 2020
Edge, like Chrome, has been shipping “Canary” builds on a near daily basis, with “Dev” builds coming on a weekly cadence and new Stable builds every 6 weeks or so. This new release cycle will delay the release of Chrome/Edge Stable 81, and likely slow down Dev builds as well, although Canary builds will maintain their pace, at least for the time being.
