The stable channel for Microsoft Edge, which is now on a six-weeks release cycle just like Google Chrome, received a major update yesterday. The version 85 of the web browser, which is now generally available on Windows and macOS, brings several new features including a new PDF Highlighter tool, the ability to send Edge Collections to OneNote, and more.
If the ability to sync your browser history and open tabs across devices is still missing, this new update introduces on-premise synchronisation of Favourites and Settings, for users who prefer not to use Microsoft’s cloud sync technology. You can find the full list of new features in the version 85 of Microsoft Edge, including someDevTools updates, below:
- On-premise synchronization of Favorites and Settings. Now you synchronize browser favorites and settings between Active Directory profiles within your own environment without the need for cloud sync.
- Microsoft Edge group policy support for trusting site + app combos to launch without a confirmation prompt.. Group policy support added that lets administrators add site + app combos that are trusted to launch without the confirmation prompt. This adds the ability for administrators to configure trusted protocol/origin combinations (such as Microsoft 365 apps) for their end-users to suppress the confirmation prompt when navigating to a URL that contains an app protocol.
- PDF Highlighter tool. This tool can be added to the toolbar for PDFs to easily highlight important text.
- The Storage Access API is available. The Storage Access API allows access to first-party storage in a third-party context when a user has provided a direct intent to allow storage that would otherwise be blocked by the browser’s current configuration. For more information, see Storage Access API.
- Send to OneNote is available for Microsoft Edge Collections. Everyone’s excited to be able to send the information they’ve gathered in Collections to OneNote, where they can append it to a larger project and collaborate with others! And even more importantly, in Microsoft Edge 85, you’ll be able send content to Office for Mac products (Word, Excel, and OneNote) for both MSA and Azure Active Directory.
- DevTools updates. For details about the following updates, see What’s New In DevTools (Microsoft Edge 85).
- Microsoft Edge DevTools supports Surface Duo emulation. The Microsoft Edge DevTools can emulate the Surface Duo so you can test how your web content will look on dual-screen devices. To turn on this experiment in DevTools, enter Device Mode by pressing Ctrl+Shift+M on Windows or Command+Shift+M on macOS, and then select Surface Duo from the device drop-down list.
- Microsoft Edge DevTools lets you match keyboard shortcuts to VS Code. The Microsoft Edge DevTools supports customizing keyboard shortcuts in the DevTools to match your editor/IDE. In Microsoft Edge 85, we are adding the ability to match DevTools keyboard shortcuts to VS Code. This change will help increase productively across VS Code and DevTools.
Microsoft Edge updates usually install automatically in the background, though you can force the update by clicking the ellipsis button on the top right corner and then navigate to Help and Feedback > About Microsoft Edge. If you’re being curious, you can also find release notes for all previous Edge updates in the Stable channel on this page.
