Microsoft Edge Dev channel updated with improvements for the favorites bar and Collections feature

Arif Bacchus

Microsoft Edge Dev

Microsoft today announced the release of yet another Edge Dev build. Coming in at 87.0.664.8, this week’s release is bringing improvements for the favorites bar, as well as improvements for Collections. As usual, there are also bug fixes and reliability improvements, too. Here’s a look at what you need to know.

As always, we’ll start first with the new features. On this end, Microsoft has added the price comparison features to Collections. Also added is the new Favorites menu, which is now a pinable pane that lists all favorites in a single vertical list instead of multiple flyout menus. Some of the other new features can be seen below. There’s quite a lot this week.

  • Added data recovery to PDFs so that edits or annotations aren’t lost in the event of a crash.
  • Improved support for AV1 encoded videos. Note that the Windows extension is still required to be installed from https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/p/av1-video-extension/9mvzqvxjbq9v.
  • Added a keyboard shortcut to open and close Collections.
  • Added a button to the Profile flyout to turn on Sync if it’s not already turned on.
  • Added a setting to control whether or not the button to reveal passwords on webpages is shown, as well as a management policy for Password Reveal Enabled. Note that updates to documentation and administrative templates are still needed.
  • Added a management policy for Kiosk Address Bar Editing Enabled. Note that updates to documentation and administrative templates are still needed.
  • Added a management policy for Web Capture Enabled. Note that updates to documentation and administrative templates are still needed.
    Merged the News and Office new tab pages for work and school users. Note that the Office-only new tab page can still be set for users via management policy.
  • Rolled out the pre-rendered new tab page more broadly.
  • Deprecated the management policy for New Tab Page Set Feed Type.

In addition to those new features, there are some fixes for common issues with the web browser. This includes a fix for an issue where navigating to websites might crash Edge, as well as an issue where Read Aloud might crash Edge. Have a look below for other fixes in this release. There are a lot this week, so be sure to check the full list here, at Microsoft.

  • Fixed a crash when syncing Collections.
  • Fixed an issue where dragging items into a Collection sometimes crashes the Collections pane.
  • Fixed a crash when playing certain videos.
  • Fixed an issue where certain videos fail to play.
  • Fixed an issue where updating Edge causes the current session to be closed instead of restored (if it was set to be restored).
  • Fixed an issue where users are signed out of Edge after an update.
  • Fixed an issue where downloaded PDFs always open in Edge instead of opening in the default PDF viewer.
  • Fixed an issue where the Favorites list sometimes won’t open.
  • Fixed an issue where some website permissions are unable to be deleted from Settings.
  • Fixed an issue where items can’t be added to a Collection from within Immersive Reader.

Finally, for known issues. These are still the same as the past few weeks. You’ll find problems with ad-blocking extensions, an issue where all tabs and extensions might crash if antivirus software is not updated. There’also the problem with Kaspersky internet suite, favorites being duplicated, Edge becoming all black, wobbling when scrolling, and users with multiple audio outputs not getting sound.

If you’re running the stable version of Edge, then we also have news for you, too. Version 86 of the browser was recently released. We invite you to learn more about that here.