Edge gets a built-in price tracker, faster downloads, scareware protection and more

Recently, Microsoft added a scareware blocker into the beta version of Edge, and now, the feature is available in the new stable version 133.0.3065.51 of the browser.

In the latest Edge release notes for the stable channel, Microsoft is listing a lot of new features of the browser, and one of the most exciting changes is the Shopping Product Tracking included in the Edge address bar:

Track product prices easily with a new experience in the Edge Address Bar that appears on the product detail page. Users can track prices quickly and will be notified when there is a price drop on that product and save more. Administrators can control the availability of Shopping in Edge using the EdgeShoppingAssistantEnabled policy.

So, now, when you get to a store, you can see the price trending of the products you’re interested in. This is an important addition because while there are many shopping assistants for browsers, they were only implemented as extensions. In fact, the Microsoft Shopping Assistant extension has been around since 2016, and in 2019, it even got an updated icon.

Another important improvement comes from the Downloads UI. Microsoft says that it has rewritten to improve its performance. The software giant doesn’t detail the changes but mentions that you should notice improved responsiveness in dealing with downloading files using the browser.

These are not the only improvements for the browser. Here is the list of additional changes to Edge version 133.0.3065.51 as they are displayed in the release note:

Feature updates

• Extending support for viewing MIP Protected PDF Files to different sovereignties (including GCCH). Sovereign cloud customers (including GCCH) are able to open MIP protected PDF content in Microsoft Edge. This change is available in the Microsoft Edge built-in PDF reader powered by Adobe Acrobat and the legacy Microsoft Edge PDF engine.
• Non-special scheme URL handling. Nonspecial scheme URL handling is updated to become compliant with the URL Standard (https://url.spec.whatwg.org/). This change has site compatibility impacts which might require changes to your web sites. For more information and web developer guidance, see http://bit.ly/url-non-special.
• Deprecate textprediction attribute. Removes support for the textprediction HTML attribute, which is a nonstandard attribute that’s used to enable or disable the browser-based Text Prediction feature for long-form text inputs. Instead, use the standardized writingsuggestions attribute, which functions similarly to textprediction, but also applies to other writing-assistance features that browsers may provide. Sites that explicitly set textprediction to true or false can instead set writingsuggestions to the same value. For more information, see Writing suggestions in the HTML specification.

Microsoft Edge is certainly moving fast and soon it might also get incoming call notifications. We’re also waiting for a huge print preview update in WebUI2.0. Microsoft’s browser is certainly on the right track, even though the aggressive tactics against Chrome might hurt it on the long run.

What do you think about the latest Microsoft Edge update? Let’s talk about it in the comments below.