New Feature | Automatic HTTPS switching added to Edge browser
Automatic HTTPS Enables support for Automatic HTTPS, which switches connections to websites from HTTP to HTTPS. The feature can then be turned on/off or further configured at edge://settings/privacy. – Mac, Windows, Linux #edge-automatic-https Microsoft Edge Version 92.0.877.0 (Official build) canary (64-bit) edge://flags/#edge-automatic-httpsSome parts of the Privacy Sandbox land on Edge Canary
This flag edge://flags/#use-first-party-set which was added today to Edge Version 89.0.749.0 (Official build) canary (64-bit) it's one of many privacy-related features for Privacy Sandbox, the goal of which is to ultimately get rid of 3rd party cookies. Use First-Party Sets First-Party Sets are sets of registrable domains (or origins). The browser uses these sets to allow websites that have multiple domains to treat their related domains as if they were first-party domains. This enables less restricted cross-domain communication across all the domains in a First-Party Set. – Mac, Windows, Linux Enable domains to belong to the same first party Goal: Enable entities to declare that related domain names are owned by the same first party. Many organizations own sites across multiple domains. This can become a problem if restrictions are imposed on tracking user identity across sites that are seen as 'third-party' but actually belong to the same organization. First Party Sets aims to make the web's concept of first and third parties more closely aligned with the real world's by enabling multiple domains to declare themselves as belonging to the same first party. more info: Digging into the Privacy Sandbox (web.dev) privacycg/first-party-sets (github.com)
Give users a true incognito mode - Privacy improvement
Hi, Edge have the "classic" Incognito mode shipped by Chrome and it basically just allows you to browse without recording your history. While this might be useful, that's not what an Incognito mode should do. Right now if I visit a website in my browser and then open it in Incognito mode, the website can still identify me by my fingerprint and that's not really what Incognito means (or at least, should mean). A practical way to check it is to go here: https://fingerprintjs.com/demo. Open that website in your browser, then open it in Incognito mode and you'll se the exact same fingerprint. This does not happen in browser like Brave for example (one of the few that implement a correct Incognito mode) and should not happen at all. Edge already has some nice tools and features that highlight how its developers care about users privacy: it should implement this mode to give users a real useful privacy tool and not just this fake/incomplete Incognito mode.New privacy oriented feature added to Edge 82 - Freeze User-Agent request header
New in Microsoft Edge Version 82.0.421.0 (Official build) canary (64-bit) Reason for doing it is more about privacy and stopping fingerprinting. edge://flags/ Freeze User-Agent request header Set the User-Agent request header to a static string that conforms to the current User-Agent string format but only reveals desktop vs Android and if the 'mobile' flag is set – Mac, Windows #freeze-user-agent to be more effective, also enable this flag: Reduce default 'referer' header granularity If a page hasn't set an explicit referrer policy, setting this flag will reduce the amount of information in the 'referer' header for cross-origin requests. – Mac, Windows #reduced-referrer-granularity More info: https://www.chromestatus.com/feature/5704553745874944 https://css-tricks.com/freezing-user-agent-strings/
Microsoft Edge - Never remember history
The privacy of the new Microsoft Edge needs to be significantly improved. Despite me checking all the relevant boxes to clear history, and not allowing autofill on the search bar, not only is my history not cleared on closing (which I've selected), but it also means the search bar is filled with old history items. It even autofills forms in with email addresses etc... At least Firefox gives you the option of never remembering history, which is another feature that frankly I'm surprised has not been implemented. See the attached as an example. I've had no problems with the old version of Edge, but this new one seems to be a step backwards in terms of privacy.
