Microsoft Edge Dev channel build 88.0.680.1 comes with PDF reader improvements, more

Microsoft today announced the release of build 88.0.680.1 for Edge Dev channel users. This new Edge Dev channel build includes new features, several bug fixes, and some small improvements.

The update brings caret mode for PDFs, a group policy for Startup boost and news of a fix when Edge refuses to launch (this reportedly requires an update to Windows which is rolling out now.)

The full changelog reads:

Added features:

• Adding support for Caret Mode to PDFs.
• Added a warning dialog when closing a Web Capture that’s been inked on but not saved.
• Added support for enhanced copy and paste on Mac.
• Added a management policy to control Startup Boost.  Note that updates to documentation and administrative templates haven’t happened yet.

Improved reliability:

• Fixed a crash on launch.
• Fixed a crash when viewing PDFs.
• Fixed a crash when printing a PDF.
• Fixed a crash that sometimes shows an error with cookie_exporter.exe.
• Fixed a hang when running the favorites deduplicator.
• Fixed an issue where edge://tracing fails to load.

Changed behavior:

• Fixed an issue where the Security section in Settings is missing.
• Fixed an issue where the Downloads management page only shows the 30 most recent downloads.
• Fixed an issue where Web Captures are sometimes taken at the wrong page zoom level.
• Fixed an issue when taking a Web Capture where pages with fixed headers or footers aren’t captured properly.
• Fixed an issue where Password Monitor alerts are seen even when the feature is turned off.
• Fixed an issue where websites installed as apps sometimes use icons that are too big on the Start menu.
• Fixed an issue where using the Highlighter tool on a PDF sometimes results in more text being highlighted than intended.
• Fixed an issue where the search Sidebar can’t be closed because the close button is missing.
• Fixed an issue where data is sometimes able to be copied from Information Protected files when it shouldn’t be.
• Fixed an issue where text notes sometimes get created unintentionally in a Collection.
• Deprecated the ProxyMode, ProxyServer, ProxyPacUrl, and ProxyBypassList management policies since they’re all superseded by the ProxySettings policy.

Known issues:

• Users of certain ad blocking extensions may experience playback errors on Youtube.  As a workaround, temporarily disabling the extension should allow playback to proceed.  See https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/articles/known-issue-adblock-causing-errors-on-youtube/m-p/14… for more details.
• Some users are still running into an issue where all tabs and extensions immediately crash with a STATUS_INVALID_IMAGE_HASH error.  The most common cause of this error is outdated security or antivirus software from vendors like Symantec, and in those cases, updating that software will fix it.
• Users of the Kaspersky Internet Suite who have the associated extension installed may sometimes see webpages like Gmail fail to load.  This failure is due to the main Kaspersky software being out of date, and is thus fixed by making sure the latest version is installed.
• Some users are seeing favorites get duplicated after we made some previous fixes in that area. The most common way this is triggered is by installing the Stable channel of Edge and then signing into it with an account that has already signed into Edge before.  Fixing this should be easier now that the deduplicator tool is available.  However, we’ve also seen duplication happen when running the deduplicator on multiple machines before either machine has a chance to fully sync its changes, so while we wait for some of the fixes we’ve made to come to Stable, make sure to leave plenty of time in between runs of the deduplicator.
• After an initial fix for it recently, some users are still experiencing Edge windows becoming all black.  Opening the Browser Task Manager (keyboard shortcut is shift + esc) and killing the GPU process usually fixes it.  Note that this only appears to affect users with certain hardware and is most easily triggered by resizing an Edge window.  For users with discrete GPUs, updating graphics drivers may help.
• Some users are seeing “wobbling” behavior when scrolling using trackpad gestures or touchscreens, where scrolling in one dimension also causes the page to subtly scroll back and forth in the other.  Note that this only affects certain websites and seems to be worse on certain devices.  This is most likely related to our ongoing work to bring scrolling back to parity with Edge Legacy’s behavior, so if this behavior is undesirable, you can temporarily turn it off by disabling the edge://flags/#edge-experimental-scrolling flag.
• There are some issues where users with multiple audio output devices sometimes don’t get any sound from Edge.  In one case, Edge becomes muted in the Windows Volume Mixer and unmuting it fixes it.  In another, restarting the browser fixes it.

This Edge Dev channel update should download and install directly but in case it doesn’t then you can head to the Edge settings and manually update the browser.