Microsoft Edge 93 released with Tab Groups and Vertical Tabs improvements
Microsoft released a new version of the company's Microsoft Edge web browser on September 2, 2021. Microsoft Edge 93 is an update for the stable channel of the browser that introduces new features and patches Chromium-based and Microsoft-Edge specific security issues.
Most desktop installations of Microsoft Edge are updated automatically. You may load edge://settings/help in the browser's address bar to display the currently installed version and run a check for updates. Edge 93 should be picked up at that point if not installed already.
Microsoft Edge 93: what is new
Microsoft Edge 93 introduces several long-awaited features in the stable branch of the web browser. Edge users who display tabs in a vertical sidebar can now hide the titlebar of the web browser to save horizontal space when using the layout.
Do the following to enable the feature:
- Load edge://settings/appearance in the browser's address bar.
- Scroll down to the "Customize Toolbar" section.
- Toggle Hide title bar while in vertical tabs.
Edge hides the titlebar when the feature is enabled.
Tab Groups
Tab Group functionality has been under development for a long time. It comes from Chromium, and browsers such as Google Chrome support it already. Microsoft introduces support for Tab Groups in Edge 93 officially.
Right-click on a tab that is open in Microsoft Edge and select the "add tab to group" option from the context menu. You may assign custom names and colors to each group to distinguish them from each other.
Once you have at least one group set up, you may assign tabs to that group or create new groups for it.
Groups can be collapsed or expanded, and Edge remembers groups across sessions if you have configured the browser to load the last browsing session on start.
Microsoft lists a number of additional features, several of which Enterprise-related, in the official release notes:
- Edge displays a toolbar when you hover over an image to view the video in a Picture-in-Picture window (only on Mac OS).
- Administrators may configure a number of Initial Preferences in Microsoft Edge, which are applied before the browser is run for the first time. This support page provides instructions.
- IE Mode on Microsoft Edge supports the no-merge behavior (similarly to the no-merge behavior of Internet Explorer 11).
- New policy to block implicit sign-in functionality in Microsoft Edge.
- New policies to bypass ClickOnce and DirectInvoke prompts.
- Removal of 3DES in TLS. Support for the TLS_RSA_WITH_3DES_EDE_CBC_SHA cipher suite will be removed.
Closing Words
Edge 93 improves its vertical tabs mode and introduces support for tab groups, two highly-awaited features.
Now You: have you tried Edge recently? What has been your experience using the browser?
Nice. Just noticed it after reading your post. I liked this grouping in Firefox, and now it’s on Edge chromium? Awesome! ?
So you still have to manually assign tabs to groups? What a waste of time. I’ll stick with Sidebery.
Context menu for Basilisk, Fx, Edge, take the same amount of screen height for me and slightly more for Vivaldi. I have vertical tabs on all these browsers and the context menu is about the height of 12 tabs out of 21 visible on this 24″ wide screen monitor at 1080. It all looks fine to me. Font is Verdana 13pt.
How do people use this browser? It popped up on its own on a EntSAC machine due to captive portal nonsense – the context menus take more than half screen height on a 1080p screen with 100% scaling. Somebody at Microsoft needs an eye check asap!
Finding “Edge” to be a pretty sharp working/looking browser. FF? My gosh . . . I’m not sure what to say? It’s not FF anymore.
Thank you for the article, Martin, if it wasn’t for you I would not have known about the changes. I’ve left MS Edge as my default browser, and usually I don’t even notice the updating as Microsoft doesn’t give an indication. This time it did, demanding (with opt-out) that I make Bing the default search engine, re-pin to the taskbar and several other changes. However, nothing about new or improved features.
Just missing notes on the sidebar like Vivaldi to make the switch but I don’t see that happening…
The new overlay scrollbars are also available in version 93, they can be enabled using a command line flag:
https://www.reddit.com/r/MicrosoftEdge/comments/pgstyc/psa_overlay_scrollbars_windowsstyle_are_now/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3