Many of these are required additions, some are welcome, and a few veer towards bloatware territory.

But despite the company’s best efforts, Edge is finding it hard to gain a big market share. Redmond is finding it hard to get its web browser past the 10% share mark, with things stagnating a bit these last few months.

Of course, this picture has been painted by none other than StatCounter, the firm that also released the figures for the desktop market share for this month.

And data shows that Google Chrome remains the absolute king of the hill in these parts, with its 66.46% share of the market. This, despite the fact that it lost 1.12 points in October. But a dip like this does nothing to chip away at the commanding lead the world’s most popular browser has.

Less impressive is the showing from the second most popular browser, with Edge gaining a measly 0.05 points to end up with a 10.85% share.

That is to say, the situation has been relatively unchanged for Microsoft’s solution for five months now.

Apple Safari rounds up the top three desktop browsers list with a 9.38% share, up 0.45 points. Firefox comes in fourth with 7.05%, losing 0.22 points. Opera closes the top five with 3.61%, gaining 0.67 points the last time we checked.

And just like Windows XP, which refused to give up some eight years after its high-profile retirement, Internet Explorer also has a never-say-die attitude, holding on to about 0.8% of the global desktop browser market share.

That will likely change, as Microsoft plans to disable IE on specific versions of Windows 10 on February 14, 2023.

Talk about a Valentine’s Day present.

That being an improved sidebar.

Stable channel users now have access to this refreshed version of the web browser, which is available for download on multiple platforms—namely, Windows, macOS, and Linux. As the announcement post details, this release includes an enhanced sidebar.

Sidebar is a feature in Edge that lets you view various productivity tools side-by-side with the page you have currently open. This handy feature also lets you view two websites in a single window and allows you to pin a specific page to keep it available on every tab.

In other words, this is one of the better features in Edge.

And it just got a bit more, shall we say, better.

That’s because Microsoft has improved things to let users access their productivity tools side-by-side in this location right alongside their browsing window. For enterprise customers, a number of experiences are currently turned on by default.

These include Search, Discover, Office.com, and Outlook.

Administrators can also control the availability and configure the Microsoft Edge sidebar using dedicated policies. For more information on how to manage it, visit this link.

Microsoft has also snuck in a new policy that gives you more flexibility when starting up Edge. You can now add and remove your own URLs to open when starting the browser while maintaining the mandatory list of sites specified by the admin.

Edge version 107 is now available for all.

While the web browser will update itself automatically, you can force an update by paying a quick visit to Settings.

Chrome and Firefox both kept working and getting updates for the old platforms, even as Microsoft forged ahead with Edge and dropped support for old browsers.

But if you are still rocking these operating systems, then listen up. Google has announced its intention to end support for Chrome early next year on both these older versions of the operating systems—the fan favorite Windows 7 and the problem-solver Windows 8.1.

The search engine giant made this formal in a post on its Chrome Help Blog:

“You’ll need to ensure your device is running Windows 10 or later to continue receiving future Chrome releases. This matches Microsoft’s end of support for Windows 7 ESU and Windows 8.1 extended support on January 10th, 2023.”

This is in line with the tentative release of Chrome 110 on February 7, 2023, and Microsoft’s looming retirement date for Windows 8.1.

While Google Chrome will continue working after the update — and well, old versions of the web browser will continue to be available on several websites that host them — it will no longer receive any feature updates and security patches on devices powered by these operating systems.

This retirement, therefore, increases the risks that users and businesses face falling prey to online attacks if they continue to use Chrome on Windows 7 and 8.1.

And there are hundreds of millions of them out there.

Windows 7 may have reached the end of support back in January 2022, but it still commands a 10.68% share of the desktop market worldwide. Windows 8.1, on the other hand, holds a measly 2.7% slice of the pie. All figures via StatCounter.

With this in mind, it makes sense to start preparing for the migration if you are one of these users.

Right about now.

Web apps, as in Progressive Web Apps, are also called PWAs.

The company labeled this new API as Window Controls Overlays, and it is now enabled by default in the web browser. It was implemented in Version 105, and the feature itself was a long time coming.

Microsoft initially discussed it in January 2020 before starting work on an early implementation in March 2021 through the Chromium project. The feature has now finally become the default experience on Edge 105, complete with a formal specification being published.

As Microsoft details:

“We believe PWAs are a great fit for making desktop web applications. Turning your website into an app that really feels like it belongs on desktop has never been so easy and using the Window Controls Overlay feature will help you create desktop apps that look much more modern and engaging to your users.”

And all the effort on this front has been worth it, as this new addition makes PWAs feel more native.

This is not done by making them more performant; rather, it is done by making a seemingly minor UI enhancement. Instead of making an app’s title bar follow the operating system defaults, it returns around 30 pixels of height back to the PWA.

Essentially, giving the PWA almost full control over the title bar.

While this number sounds small, it does give a PWA the autonomy to display custom titles, menu bars, navigation tabs, and more in this area. This diagram above does a good job of illustrating how this new implementation looks.

Redmond emphasizes that this implementation adapts to different operating systems, including Windows, macOS, and Linux. The graphic below shows this.

If you are a PWA developer, Microsoft also has some handy code snippets to help you figure out how to tweak your web app’s title bar.

Interestingly, while this feature is here, none of the major or minor releases of Edge 105 highlight this new addition. The API is, however, enabled by default if you are on the latest build of the web browser and is a very welcome improvement.

And smaller browser makers like Mozilla, Opera, and Brave waste no opportunity to highlight this.

This time, the nonprofit organization behind Firefox has once again implied that tech giants that control the popular operating platforms and web services use their position to deprive consumers of choice regarding web browsers.

Mozilla detailed this in a new report they just released.

Appropriately titled Five Walled Gardens: Why Browsers are Essential to the Internet and How Operating Systems Are Holding Them Back, it focuses on how people these days use web browsers in their daily lives.

The firm claims that the three most popular web browsers today are Chrome, Safari, and Edge, and the reason these enjoy a bigger user base is because of their parent companies.

Firefox is not far behind, but it has definitely slipped a lot in standing over the years.

The report argues that tech giants employ various methods to make it difficult or impossible for users to switch web browsers. This ultimately lowers the quality and experience for end users, but it can also increase their risks.

Five examples of consumer harm from operating system self-preferencing are outlined. These include limited or frustrating choices, lower quality, lower innovation, poor privacy, and unfair contracts.

Worth a read if you are into the browser wars and all that.

It is not the first time that Microsoft has been accused of directly or indirectly limiting the choice of web browsers for Windows users. Similar criticisms have also been levied at Apple with its iOS and macOS platforms and Google with its Android platform.

These companies have also faced lawsuits for restricting and influencing the browser choice for users on their operating platforms. What’s equally interesting is that there have been occasions when these smaller browser makers have taken things into their own hands.

But ultimately, this is something that looks like will continue far into the future.

Any thoughts here?

Not quite the miracle worker that you see on films and TV shows, but close enough.

The cliché in entertainment is of genius investigators seeing an extremely blurry element on a screen and asking their support assistant to enhance it. And voila! It results in a crystal-clear image of a person or object in the photo.

Microsoft’s technology leverages its machine learning technology to enhance the quality of the images being displayed in the web browser.

Eric Lawrence explains in a dedicated blog post on this new feature for Edge that the company is currently calling “SuperRes” or “Enhance Images” technology. And as of now, only a small percentage of users using Edge Stable, Dev, and Canary have this capability enabled via trial flags.

This machine-learning model improves an image by adjusting its color, lighting, and contrast.

The important thing to note here is that this image enhancement does not happen locally in the web browser. Microsoft uses the Turing Image Super-Resolution model built by the Microsoft Turing team that is hosted on the cloud to dynamically improve image quality.

This post here has more details if you are interested in monitoring the communication Edge conducts with this cloud service with this feature enabled through Fiddler.

Lawrence does note that the model is not quite perfect just yet. It does not work that well with PNG images and leaves pink, fuzzy artifacts. Nor does it cater to the ICCv4 color profiles correctly, either. These are still early days, of course.

There’s no word yet on when — or if — this image enhancement technology will be generally available for all users of the Edge web browser.

But you can check if you have it by heading over to edge://flags and enabling Enhance images in Microsoft Edge. If it is enabled, you will see an “HD” icon in the omnibox that can be leveraged to toggle image enhancement.

Not only that, you will also discover related offers automatically via this new feature.

This new addition is similar in concept to an existing feature in Edge that lets you store your cards. When you buy something on the web, these cards are used, and your credentials are then easily used to complete the purchase.

The company plans to take these capabilities to the next level.

The Wallet feature will take over when you make a payment using Microsoft Edge. When it comes across a field for entering the credit card number and associated details, like the CVV number, the browser will ask if you want to use a saved card instead.

It is worth mentioning here that Microsoft is not working with credit card providers and networks or sharing your details with third parties — it is simply making the current payments feature in Edge better.

The company does plan to use the Bing Rebates feature and automatically recommend coupons.

These capabilities will not only let you save more than $50 a year, but you can avail of additional cashback on select purchases and view personalized deals on products that interest you the most. Edge will get the ability to automatically apply coupons at the checkout by detecting your card and its vendor.

The new Wallet page is available to select users in the United States, and Microsoft appears to be A/B testing this feature now.

What this means is that even if you download and run Edge Canary, you will not be able to access the Wallet page unless your device is included in this closed system.

While the initial rollout is for US customers only, as of this writing, support for more regions is coming later this year.

Likewise, this extra layer of credit card security will be built into Microsoft Edge on both Windows 11 and Windows 10, with arrival on other platforms like macOS and Android promised at a later date. Your wallet will, obviously, automatically sync across devices.

This release is now available in the Stable channel. The software titan lists the necessary details in the release notes that you can scan. The company also lists the security updates separately for those who want to monitor these specific enhancements.

Version 105’s main highlights are improvements to the web browser’s overall security and enhancements to the Cloud Site List Management experience for Internet Explorer mode.

Proceeding start with enhanced security mode improvements, with this mode now supporting WebAssembly for x64 flavors of Windows. There were some concerns regarding the performance in this mode, with fears that it would be too slow for use or break down sites.

But thankfully, we are in the clear.

You can check out further details on the security features that Edge now boasts here.

Next up is IE mode, which has seen improvements to the Cloud Site List Management experience. This particular feature has now assumed a whole other level of importance following the high-profile retirement of Internet Explorer.

And this is why Redmond now recommends users switch to this special mode baked into Edge for any websites or applications requiring IE compatibility.

Version 105 includes a number of improvements for IE mode, which you can check out in the link above.

Finally, like any version upgrade for Microsoft Edge, this new release also introduces new and changed policies while deprecating some older rules. Six new policies, one deprecation, and an additional policy change are here for your consideration.

Microsoft Edge build 105.0.1343.25 is the one that you are looking for.

This version can be downloaded manually or using the auto update engine built into the desktop web browser. Be sure to upgrade via whichever route you prefer for your Edge installation.

This time, Edge is taking another step to help you deal with your passwords.

The latest build landing in the Dev channel of its preview program brings along a few handy new features. Edge Dev build 106.0.1349.1 is the one you are looking for, and it comes with a small selection of notable changes and new capabilities.

Unlike the latest Beta release for version 105, which is rather light on new additions.

As for the new features in this release, Microsoft lists three things.

First, new policies from upstream and corresponding downstream changes have been added. The developers have also added History Date Filtering on the full page for History, which lets you filter your browsing history by date.

Likewise, users can also add nicknames for their passwords after this feature is enabled in this build.

There are also a few additions that improve the overall reliability of Edge.

To that end, pinning options are disabled in the menu for a specific website if that website is already pinned to the taskbar. Edge also now comes with improved smart history searches, meaning you can search for videos from last week if you want to.

On the Android side of things, we also have an improved camera feature for websites.

This release also includes a small array of changed behavior, details of which you can gather from the changelog above.

Microsoft Edge Dev will automatically update itself the next time you launch the browser. Alternatively, you can also navigate to Settings to force update the web browser. And if you want to download the latest Insider build on Windows, macOS, Linux, and Android, you can do so below.

Download: Edge Dev

The vintage web browser was killed off for almost every consumer version of Windows on the bright sunny day of June 15, 2022. But it continues to live on in the depths of the latest operating system if you go seek it there.

Although Windows 11 does not officially come bundled with Internet Explorer, you can still launch IE straight from within the operating system.

This video from Tom Warren illustrates:

you thought Internet Explorer was dead, didn't you? muahahaha

⎛⎝( ` ᢍ ´ )⎠⎞ pic.twitter.com/i5bXZwLRr3

— Tom Warren (@tomwarren) August 3, 2022

The method works on all versions of Windows 11, including preview builds, and is clearly unintended. Microsoft appears to have forgotten to repurpose this legacy piece of code, which means that the company will likely get around to it in a future update.

A Twitter user first discovered this trick to launch IE in Windows 11.

Here’s what you have to do:

1. Search for Internet Options in the Start Menu search bar.
2. Open the Control Panel applet that pops up in search results.
3. Go to the Programs
4. Click on the Manage Add-ons
5. Click Learn more about toolbars and extensions in the bottom-left corner of the window.

Viola, familiar old Internet Explorer is back again!

The retired web browser still functions normally. This is surprising because whenever you try to launch Internet Explorer in Windows 11, you are automatically redirected to Microsoft Edge.

Besides, the newer web browser also comes with a dedicated IE mode for legacy affairs.

As mentioned, this little trick slipped Microsoft’s attention. Now that it is common knowledge, expect the company to work fast to close this gap and address it in the next set of OS updates.