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Yesterday, Microsoft announced the launch of the first beta builds of its Chromium-based Edge browser. Developers using the supported versions of Windows and macOS can now test it and share their feedback with the Microsoft Edge team.

The preview builds are made available to developers and early adopters through three channels on the Microsoft Edge Insider site: Beta, Canary, and Developer. Earlier this year, Microsoft opened the Canary and Developer channel. Canary builds receive updates every night, while Developer builds are updated weekly. Beta is the third and final preview channel that is the most stable one among the three. It receives updates every six weeks, along with periodic minor updates for bug fixes and security.

Microsoft Edge Insider Channels

Source: Microsoft Edge Insider

What’s new in Microsoft Edge Beta

Microsoft Edge Beta comes with several options using which you can personalize your browsing experience. It supports the dark theme and offers 14 different languages to choose from. If you are not a fan of the default new tab page, you can customize it with its tab page customizations. There are currently three preset styles that you can switch between:  Focused, Inspirational and Informational.

You can further customize and personalize Microsoft Edge through the different addons available on Microsoft Edge Insider Addons store or other Chromium-based web stores. Talking about the user privacy bit, this release brings support for tracking prevention. Enabling this feature will protect you from being tracked by websites that you don’t visit. You can choose from three levels of privacy, which are Basic, Balanced and Strict.

Microsoft Edge Beta also comes with some of the commercial features that were announced at Build this year. Microsoft Search is now integrated into Bing that lets you search for OneDrive files directly from Bing search. There is support for Internet Explorer mode that brings Internet Explorer 11 compatibility directly into Microsoft Edge. It also supports Windows Defender Application Guard for isolating enterprise-defined untrusted sites.

Along with this release, Microsoft also launched the Microsoft Edge Insider Bounty Program.  Under this program researchers who find any high-impact vulnerabilities in Dev and Beta channels will receive rewards up to US$30,000.

Read Microsoft’s official announcement to know more in detail.

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