What you need to know
- Microsoft's "What's Next" page has a lot of updates slated for Edge.
- Launching PWAs by default and free form highlighting on PDFs are among the features coming to Edge.
- These features are still in development.
If you're an Edge user, you already know that content drops come fast and often courtesy of Microsoft. However, maybe you don't keep in the loop about when new items are slated for release or what freshly announced features just arrived. That's why you should take a look at Microsoft's What's Next roadmap, which will keep you abreast of everything going on in the world of Edge.
According to the What's Next roadmap, a lot of new items are in development for Edge (via Redditor /u/Leopeva64-2). Here's a rundown of the biggest items coming to the browser:
- Launch the browser in a PWA rather than the full native browser (starting with Edge version 97)
- Free-form text boxes added for PDFs (Edge version 94)
- Visible price histories of items across 10 different retailers for smart shopping (Edge version 94)
- Collections will support citations and reading lists (Edge version 95)
- Increased flexibility in Edge startup options for enterprise administrators (Edge version 94)
- Automatic translation for unknown languages (Edge version 94)
- PWA notifications will show the name of the web app they belong to (Edge version 94)
- Option to hide the title bar while in Vertical Tab mode (Edge version 93)
- Improved transition between modern browser and Internet Explorer mode experiences (Edge version 95)
- Initial preferences in Edge for enterprise (Edge version 93)
- Family safety content filter improvements (Edge version 94)
- Categorize tabs via custom tab groups (version 93)
Though we've heard about some of these features before, such as Tab Groups, much of what's here is new. And though Tab Groups is slated for a July 2021 release, it's still labeled as "in development," just like all the other items on the list. Most of the features are slated for a September or October 2021 release date, so it'll be a while before you see them appearing in Edge.
For the full, detailed breakdown of each feature, be sure to check out Microsoft's roadmap. Use the filters on the sidebar to narrow down items to what's been updated in the last week, and you'll see the features listed above (and maybe some others, depending on when you're reading this).
Infinite updates
If you want a browser that'll be aggressively maintained by its creators and constantly flooded with new, useful features, Edge is the way to go.
