Microsoft releases Edge Dev build 80.0.361.5 with native ARM64 support, teases new features

Microsoft today, December 17, announced the release of the latest update for the Edge Dev channel. Coming in at version 80.0.361.5, this release is the final for version 80, and will eventually become the candidate for the next Beta channel update. Also the final Dev channel update for the year, the build introduces native ARM64 support, Dolby Vision playback as well as some new reliability improvements.

We’ll be starting first with the new features and reliability improvements. Importantly, Microsoft is now bringing native ARM64 support to the Dev channel today, with the caveat of certain DRM video on websites not playing properly. As you may recall, ARM users only previously had access to a native version in the Canary channel.

On top that is new support for Dolby Vision playback and a new ability for users of Windows Mixed Reality to view 360° videos on VR headsets. The reliability has also been improved for when opening PDFs, and using the Collections feature. Have a look below for the full list of changes:

• Fixed an issue where clicking on the Feedback button crashes the browser
• Fixed a crash when closing the browser.
• Fixed an issue where typing passwords into password fields sometimes causes a tab crash.
• Fixed a crash when playing the Surf game.
• Fixed an issue where certain websites don’t load properly.
• Fixed an issue where Netflix playback fails for certain videos with error D7381.

In the changelog of today’s release, Microsoft’s Josh Bodner also teased some new features coming ahead in the new year once new releases resume. These include a new “pinning wizard” which will appear in the Task Bar and suggest for you to pin the most frequently visited websites. Here are some other new features coming soon.

• For users of high contrast themes in Windows, Edge now supports high contrast themes as well! It will follow the theme you’ve chosen in the OS Settings and brings us back to parity with the support offered in Edge Legacy.
• And for users of Immersive Reader (formerly known as Reading View), we’ve greatly expanded the number of color themes you can choose from. Many of these are specially designed to reduce eye strain and increase reading comprehension.

Microsoft also reminds users that in this release, favorites sync will be disabled by default. It is recommended for you to manually export favorites as a file, and import them manually. The company says it is working on on a deduplication mechanism once favorites sync is re-enabled, which should prevent new duplicates from coming in. You can check below for some new known issues and changed behaviors, and check out the full list here.

• Navigation in new tabs sometimes fails, either showing an error that the connection is closed, or crashing the tab. In some cases, subsequent navigations in the tab are okay.
• After an initial fix for it recently, some users are still experiencing Edge windows becoming all black. UI popups like menus are not affected, and opening the Browser Task Manager (keyboard shortcut is shift+esc) and killing the GPU process fixes it.
• Highlighting text in the address bar then clicking on webpages sometimes causes black-on-dark text when the browser is in Dark Theme.
• ixed an issue where the search engine can’t be edited because the Save button doesn’t work.
  Fixed an issue where the current display language can be removed from Edge even though it shouldn’t be.
• Fixed an issue where Edge installations on Azure Active Directory domain-joined machines get signed into the wrong account on first run.
• Fixed an issue where some webpages aren’t able to be translated, and instead show an error saying that the source language and target language are the same.

In related news, the Microsoft Chredge browser will officially be coming out of beta next month on January 15. Microsoft will also be shipping out the browser through Windows Update to all users running the Windows 10 April 2018 update or newer.