14 DAY TRIAL // The Chromium-powered version of Microsoft Edge browser now features support for Windows Defender Application Guard.
With this update, Edge can technically launch websites in a secure environment that doesn’t allow crafted content online to compromise data on the device.
This means that even if the user loads malicious websites in the browser, malware can’t get past the borders of the sandbox, so files stored locally are always guarded.
As per BP, Windows Defender Application Guard needs to be manually enabled in Windows 10 and then turned on in Microsoft Edge with its very own flag. However, as the work advances on this version of the browser, there’s a chance that Microsoft makes the implementation a little bit more straightforward, eventually turning WDAG a feature that users can enable much easier.
Improvements still needed
At this point, the implementation is still in its early days, so while it’s technically possible to enable Windows Defender Application Guard in the new Edge browser, there are things that need further refinements.
For example, WDAG can block downloads when running Edge in this mode, but according to the cited source, no warning is displayed to let users know that the browser’s protection system kicked in.
This will most likely be resolved in the next few updates for Microsoft Edge, as the browser is currently under development. A beta version of Edge is expected next month at the Build developer conference, while the public version for all users should land later this year.
Microsoft bringing Windows Defender Application Guard to its new browser isn’t necessarily surprising.
Not only that the original version of Microsoft Edge, which is offered as default in Windows 10, boasted the same capabilities, but the software giant also recently rolled out a browser extension for Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox to enable Windows Defender Application Guard in these apps.