latest Edge update

Microsoft last week upgraded its Edge browser to version 89, delivering vertical tabs to all customers and improving startup times up to 41%. The Redmond, Wash. company also patched at least 33 security vulnerabilities before releasing Edge 89.

(Note: Starting Jan. 21, Microsoft began "...releasing the Chrome CVEs that are included in the new releases of Microsoft Edge (Chromium-based) directly in the Security Update Guide." For more information on what that meant, head to this explanation.)

Although Edge will update automatically in the background, to force an upgrade, select "About Microsoft Edge" from the Help and Feedback menu under the ellipsis at the upper right; the resulting tab shows that the browser has been updated or displays the download process before presenting a "Restart" button.

Users new to Edge can manually download version 89 for Windows or macOS. The Linux version is available as a Dev Channel build from the Insider website, while the Android and iOS browsers can be found in the Google Play and App Store markets, respectively.

Microsoft updates Edge on the same six-to-eight-week schedule as Chrome — although usually two days after Google refreshes its browser — and to the same version number as Chrome.

You get vertical tabs! So do you! And you!

Microsoft, like other browser makers, typically turns on a new feature for a subset of users to start, then gradually enables it for more customers as the weeks, or even months go by. So it was with the vertical tabs that debuted in January with Edge 88.

Vertical tabs are just that: Rather than plaster tab names across the top of the browser window, Edge 89 sticks them in a sidebar on the left, ranked, well, vertically. That style of display shows much more of the tab's title than can fit on tabs at the top (unless there are just a handful of tabs or the user owns an extremely wide monitor).

To bring up the vertical tab sidebar, click the icon in the upper left corner of the browser's frame. The sidebar can be pinned so that it always remains visible. If the sidebar is not pinned, it opens as soon as the mouse cursor is placed atop any of the tab icons that show in Edge's left-side edge.

To restore the traditional horizontal tab layout, simply click the vertical tab icon in the upper left corner.

Chrome lacks this — it's one of the few Edge-only features that Microsoft's crafted — but it can be duplicated, more or less, using a browser add-on, such as this one.

Edge 89 also comes with a new view of the browser's history, the recently-visited sites, which drops down from the top of the frame rather than appear in a full-page display. "This means that you can easily search, open and manage your history without navigating away ((from the current page," said Liat Ben-Zur, an executive in Microsoft's devices group, in a March 4 post to a company blog.