Microsoft Edge 111 was released this Tuesday (14) with several relevant changes, such as Bing highlighted, Copilot with AI and security reinforcement. In addition, the Sidebar also received new features to assist the user.
The Bing icon is now at the top of the Sidebar, located on the Toolbar, in a larger size than the other elements and with more prominence. There you can interact directly with ChatGPT, without having to be directed to the search engine, which is a huge improvement.
Associated with this feature, Copilot arrives to offer “the best experience in relevant answers”. The service uses AI to provide useful information or suggest tasks about the currently active website, such as generating page summaries or assisting with text editing.
As soon as the person opens Bing in Edge, the browser asks for permission to access the web content displayed on the screen. When you authorize it, it proceeds to make these suggestions whenever possible.
Sidebar in the spotlight
In addition to this set of AI improvements, Sidebar gained support for the auto-hide feature. Once activated, the app hides the bar when not in use, similar to what happened with the Windows Taskbar in the past.
With the change, Microsoft can increase adoption of Edge Sidebar. Many people complained that it took up unnecessary space on the screen, but its disappearance when not in use solves the problem.
To return to display, you will have to click or just hover over the Bing icon. The location will be hidden again once you are done with the desired actions.
enhanced security
Edge 111 had a fundamental reinforcement in the security part, mainly in Linux and macOS: the app started to support WebAssembly for the 64-bit versions of the aforementioned operating systems. This would be Microsoft’s first step towards support on ARM64 platforms, expected to arrive in the future.
WebAssembly is a type of code designed to offer near-native performance in modern browsers when running languages like C/C++. It’s also designed to run alongside JavaScript, allowing the two to work together for security and speed.
Edge new tab
Another browser change is Edge Enterprise’s new tab page. When opening a new tab, the browser should present a Microsoft 365 feed, bringing a different and centralized layout, productivity cards, important emails from Outlook, recent SharePoint sites, current or upcoming events, as well as tasks to be done performed.
This addition can bring more help for those who have difficulty getting organized, as there will be a summary of the main activities of the day right on the main page. The bad part is because this will require memory and internet connection, so it is possible to have some processing impact on less powerful machines.
Other Edge 111 news
Finally, the Edge developers also included a new policy to automatically clear Internet Explorer Mode data when closing the app. By enabling the option, browsing history and other data will be deleted from IE mode when Edge is closed.
Users can configure this setting in the “Clear Browsing Data for Internet Explorer” option in the “Privacy, Search & Services” menu in Settings. If you prefer, you can type the command in the address bar to go straight to the correct location: edge://settings/privacy.
These new features are already available in Microsoft Edge 111, just update the application to the latest version. To do this, just follow the steps below:
- Click on the three-dot menu in the upper right corner;
- Choose the “Help and feedback” option;
- Click on “About Microsoft Edge“;
- You will be taken to the settings homepage and must wait for the update to download;
- After that, just restart the browser and enjoy the news.
Last week, Edge was spotted testing a video quality booster tool. Video Super Resolution (VSR) uses machine learning to up-resolution low-quality videos, but requires the use of modern Nvidia or AMD GPUs to run.
