Follow the tribe. Microsoft Edge is now set to receive major updates every 4 weeks, Redmond has confirmed. This will align it with the Chromium release calendar.
Google recently announced this shift for its browser technology that sees a new version practically every month as opposed to every six weeks. And to keep up with proceedings, Microsoft has announced a similar shift for Edge.
This being, after all, a new flavor of Edge that is now based on the same engine as the one used by Google Chrome. That old classic flavor, with its own underlying technology, recently sailed into the sunset just this last week.
Not to mention, Microsoft is also one of the biggest contributors to the Chromium project.
It stands to reason that Microsoft Edge stable would thus receive big updates every month, while a newly announced Extended Stable channel would be updated every 8 weeks.
The software titan explained this in an announcement:
“To help our enterprise customers looking for an extended timeline to manage updates, Microsoft Edge will offer an Extended Stable option aligned to a longer, 8-week major release cycle; if this option is not selected, the 4-week cadence will be the default experience.
Enterprise customers opting for the Extended Stable option will still get all the great innovation and security from the 4-week cycles, just delivered at a more manageable pace. In between major releases, customers choosing the Extended Stable option can expect a biweekly security update with the most important fixes; everything else will be delivered on the extended schedule every eight weeks.”
This new cadence comes into effect with Edge 94, which according to the current release calendar, is projected to reach the stable channel in the week of September 23 later this year.
Likely only for Windows and macOS.
Because while the new Edge is now a cross-platform browser that is available on Windows 10, as well as Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 8.1, macOS, and Linux, the stable channel is only available on the Windows and macOS platforms. Linux builds are still release as part of its preview program.
Perhaps that will change, around the time this cadence does.
