A new version of the browser is available today

Aug 28, 2020 15:16 GMT  ·  By

Microsoft has released a new stable version of the Microsoft Edge browser (the version based on Chromium, also available on older Windows and macOS).

Microsoft Edge 85 obviously comes with several notable changes, but for consumers, there are two new features that are worth highlighting here.

First and foremost, it’s OneNote integration for Microsoft Edge Collections. In other words, beginning with Microsoft Edge 85, users can send their collections to OneNote directly, including on macOS.

“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,” Microsoft explains.

The second feature that consumers will most likely enjoy is the PDF highlighter tool, which can now be added to the toolbar in PDFs whenever they want to highlight part of the content.

Other than that, Edge 85 comes with on-premise sync for favorites and settings, the Storage Access API, and DevTools updates, including Surface Duo emulation.

Microsoft Surface Duo is the first Android device launched by the Redmond-based software giant, and it comes with a dual-screen form factor. Given this design, web developers might have a hard time preparing their applications to look correctly on dual-screen devices, so the emulator allows them to test the whole thing without actually having a Microsoft Surface Duo around.

“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 explains.

The new update also includes several security patches – given it’s based on Chromium, the browser now features all security updates that have been released as part of the Chromium project, as it follows:  

As the other Microsoft Edge updates, version 85 also comes with several new policies. A total of 13 policies have been added in this update, while other three are now considered obsolete.

Administrators who want to configure these policies on their devices only need to download the Administrative Templates. These are new policies in version 85, as published by Microsoft:  

  • AutoLaunchProtocolsFromOrigins - Define a list of protocols that can launch an external application from listed origins without prompting the user.
  • AutoOpenAllowedForURLs - URLs where AutoOpenFileTypes can apply.
  • AutoOpenFileTypes - List of file types that should be automatically opened on download.
  • DefaultSearchProviderContextMenuAccessAllowed - Allow default search provider context menu search access.
  • EnableSha1ForLocalAnchors - Allow certificates signed using SHA-1 when issued by local trust anchors.
  • ExemptDomainFileTypePairsFromFileTypeDownloadWarnings - Disable download file type extension-based warnings for specified file types on domains.
  • IntensiveWakeUpThrottlingEnabled - Control the IntensiveWakeUpThrottling feature.
  • NewTabPagePrerenderEnabled - Enable preload of the new tab page for faster rendering.
  • NewTabPageSearchBox - Configure the new tab page search box experience.
  • PasswordMonitorAllowed - Allow users to be alerted if their passwords are found to be unsafe.
  • RoamingProfileSupportEnabled - Enable using roaming copies for Microsoft Edge profile data.
  • RoamingProfileLocation - Set the roaming profile directory.
  • TLSCsipherSuiteDenyList - Specify the TLS cipher suites to disable.

The new version of Microsoft Edge is available today on all platforms where the browser is supported, namely Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 8.1, Windows 10, and macOS.