What’s New in Web Experiences for October 2020: Microsoft Edge is the best browser for shopping this holiday
I always love this time of year – the leaves are changing here in Seattle and my kids are “back in school” aka doing schoolwork beside me now. The last several months have forced a reframe in the way I think about work and life, and while I miss seeing my coworkers and friends in real life, there is something comforting about spending more time at home with my family during these difficult times.
Halloween is almost here and that means the holidays are just around the corner. Yikes! If that stresses you out as it does me, I’m hoping these latest features for the web will help make things a little easier. And who knows, maybe we can create some new traditions that stay with us long after all the craziness that is 2020 has (hopefully) passed. Whether it’s finding ways to stretch our hard-earned dollars, simple ways to research, or creative ways to connect with our family and friends, with this month’s update, we’re focused on delivering new features and experiences for the web that help you shop smarter, give back and connect with others.
Before I get into the details of what’s new this holiday I want to acknowledge that with all of the time we’re spending online these days, we see continued security threats as well. Phishing scams and malware are some of the most prevalent on the web today and they often show up as a simple email, possibly from an organization you recognize, or a link that we can easily mistake for something safe. Thankfully, Microsoft Edge has your back and is more secure than Chrome and Firefox by offering better protection against phishing and malware attacks on Windows 10. And with additional privacy features like tracking prevention, InPrivate Search and family safety controls, Microsoft Edge and Bing deliver peace of mind when you’re on the web. So as you gear up for researching the best gift for your family or a new recipe to try, or just as you go through your day-to-day activities, you can be confident that Microsoft Edge is putting your security and privacy first. And if you haven’t yet tried the new Microsoft Edge, download it today and let us know how you like it.
Alright, let’s get into the details of what’s new this month and how Microsoft Edge is the best browser for shopping this holiday.
Price comparison in Microsoft Edge helps you find the best price this holiday
With the holiday season just around the corner I’ve already started thinking about gifts for my family and friends. When searching the web for gifts, I typically have to open several tabs and search for the same product across multiple sites to find the best deal. This takes a lot of time. This month we are rolling out a feature called price comparison1 that helps you find the best price while shopping online.
You can easily compare the price of a product you want across other retailers with a single click. You can try it out today by adding a product to a collection. When you click “compare price to other retailers,” you’ll see a list of prices of that item across other retailers along with direct links to the pages so that you can quickly complete your purchase. This is just the beginning of the shopping journey. Microsoft Edge will continue to bring you features that help you save time and keep more money in wallet like more proactive price comparison and coupons. If you’re eager to get your hands on these features, you can join the Insider channels to start testing them out.
Save your hard-earned cash with Bing Rebates
Bing Rebates, a feature that makes earning cash back easy, is now live in the U.S.! Shoppers on Microsoft Bing can find deals easily from participating merchants right from the search results page. You no longer have to look for cashback offers across multiple websites; now, when you search for products, brands or categories, you’ll see great Bing Rebates offers right in the search results.
Learn more about the program and sign up to receive cash back; once you’re signed in, you can explore an aggregated list of deals on our Rebates offers page.
Getting Bing Rebates on your purchases is easy. All you have to do is sign in to Microsoft Rewards, search for a product like you normally would, and click on a search result with a cashback offer. You’ll see confirmation about the Bing Rebates offer being activated. Once you land on the merchant page and complete your purchase, you will receive a confirmation email within two to three days about the cashback earned. After 90 days, if the merchant confirms your purchase, you can transfer the cashback you earned via PayPal. You need to join Microsoft Rewards in order to cash out your earnings.
Today, you can shop and earn cashback from merchants across a variety of categories including fashion, electronics, groceries, travel, games, entertainment, books and more.
Find holiday recipes and shopping inspiration with Collections + Pinterest
Collections helps you easily save products, webpages, images and text from across the web and organize them to access later or share with others. This month we are announcing the general availability of Collections + Pinterest to help you find related items online. This is great for recipes and online shopping since you can find inspiration from Pinterest related to your holiday baking and gift hunt. To get started, just add items to your collection. When enabled, you will see suggested Pins related to your collection at the bottom of the Collections pane. You can easily add these suggestions to your existing collection, or export your collection to a new board on Pinterest.
Give back this holiday season with the expansion of Give with Bing
A key part of the updates we just announced about Microsoft Bing is the expansion of Give with Bing.
We launched Give with Bing earlier this year to help you make a difference without having to open your wallet. Give with Bing is an extension of Microsoft Rewards – Microsoft Rewards lets you earn points simply by searching on Microsoft Bing, and Give with Bing lets you automatically donate those points to causes you care about. It may be difficult this year for some of us to donate to those causes. With Give with Bing you can still support organizations without having to spend any money – simply by searching the web.
I’m excited to share we’ve expanded the number of non-profit organizations on Give with Bing to include over 1.4 million organizations across the globe. And, through Dec. 31, 2020, we will match the points you donate to these organizations through Give with Bing, to increase the impact of their work on urgent areas such as public health, social justice and education. To date, our Give with Bing users have donated Microsoft Rewards points valued at over $1 million, and I’m excited to see how much more money we can raise! I’m also happy to announce today that we are expanding the Give with Bing program to seven more markets beyond the United States including: U.K., Canada, Australia, France, Italy, Germany and Spain.
If you haven’t already joined Give with Bing, you can get started now! This page will show your lifetime donation amount if you’re already a member, as well as let you check or change your default nonprofit.
Microsoft Edge keeps your online gift-giving plans a secret with InPrivate Search with Microsoft Bing
I love surprising my family and friends with just the right gift for the holidays. Since we have a family computer at home, I use InPrivate Search with Microsoft Bing when searching for gifts so my kids can’t “accidentally” find out what they are getting this year. When I search for gifts using InPrivate Search, neither my search history nor site cookies are saved to my account, and my searches won’t be associated back to me. InPrivate Search won’t influence or appear in Bing search suggestions. To get started, open a New Tab Page in InPrivate Mode on your desktop or mobile version of Microsoft Edge. While in InPrivate Mode, since your search history isn’t saved, you can keep those holiday presents a secret! Try it out for yourself today in Microsoft Edge.
Stay connected with family and friends this holiday with Meet Now on the Edge new tab page
Unlike most holiday seasons, getting together and spending time with all our family and friends during the pandemic won’t be easy. This month we are starting to roll out a new experience that helps you quickly launch ad-hoc video calls, saving valuable time and helping you stay connected to family and friends with Meet Now on the new tab page. Simply click on Meet Now to start your own video chat; you can easily create a link to share with up to 50 friends who can join you for free – no sign up or download required. Meet Now lets you share screens, chat with others and record sessions that last as long as you like2. This experience will start to roll out to Edge this month, and will be available in Outlook on the web and on the Windows 10 taskbar in the coming weeks, making it easier than ever to connect with your loved ones this holiday season.
Add a personal touch to your new tab page in Edge for the holidays
If you’re like me, you like taking a ton of photos of your kids and pets during this time of year. With all of us spending more time in front of our computers, it’s nice to be reminded of the people we care most about. Starting this month you can now easily upload your favorite photo to the new tab page in Microsoft Edge. Maybe it’s a picture of your last trip to the beach to help you find your Zen, your cat dressed up as an elf, or an awkward family photo from last week. Go for it, it’s all up to you. Just click on the wheel in the upper right corner of your new tab page, click on custom page layout and upload. Done.
Capture, save and share web content with web capture in Edge.
The web changes so frequently that sometimes you want to preserve a snapshot in time. Imagine you need to take a clipping of a web article to share in a PowerPoint presentation for school, or want save a webpage for copy editing at work. We’re excited to share a way for you to capture online content within Microsoft Edge, without the need for a separate screenshot tool. You can use web capture to grab just what you need from a web page – even if it’s further down on the page — and share with others or save for future reference. Use the selection tool and drag towards the bottom of the page; Edge will automatically scroll the page down so you can get everything you need in one screenshot. This feature will begin rolling out to customers today. And if you miss the inking capabilities of web notes from Microsoft Edge Legacy, don’t worry! We’ll add in an inking toolbar and the ability to capture full webpages with a single click in the upcoming releases. Can’t wait? Join the Insider channels and start testing it out today.
Quickly navigate PDFs using the table of contents
Consider this an early holiday gift from us to you, our dear fans of Microsoft Edge. One of the top requested features in our native PDF handler today is support for tables of contents. Starting today, you will no longer have to scroll all the way through the document to get to the section you want. Now you can quickly navigate through the PDF by clicking on the sections linked in the table of contents. It’s a simple improvement to our PDF handler that will help you save time.
Stream movies with your family and friends with Teleparty for Microsoft Edge
During this time of social distancing, want to chat with your friends while watching a movie online together from the comfort of your own living rooms? Since many of us are spending more and more time at home watching movies and streaming TV, Teleparty (formerly Netflix Party) launched a Microsoft Edge browser extension that lets you stream TV shows in sync with friends and family with integrated chat from the convenience of your computer. Teleparty now works with other video streaming services including Hulu, Amazon Prime, HBO GO, Disney+, Netflix and more. Also, through our partnership with Netflix, Microsoft Edge is currently the only browser that delivers 4K UHD video streaming. Teleparty is available on the Microsoft Edge add-ons site. Download and install it now to host your next virtual viewing party.
WONDER WOMAN 1984 is coming soon! Show your support with a new browser theme for Microsoft Edge
As part of the ongoing partnership between Microsoft and WONDER WOMAN 1984, we created a new browser theme for Microsoft Edge, now available for download. This theme changes the look and feel of the browser UX as well as the new tab page to create a beautiful and immersive visual experience inspired by the film.
Get the new theme for Microsoft Edge now. If you haven’t yet tried the new Microsoft Edge, you can download it today.
And for those who love themes, Edge now supports themes from other Chromium-based stores, like the Chrome Web Store.
Check out our new MSN Esports Hub and get in the game
The world of esports is growing – even before the events this year disrupted so much of what we all do, there has been explosive growth in the numbers of streamers and viewers worldwide, and the pandemic has only accelerated this trend. With this growth, we’re excited to launch the MSN Esports Hub; a one-of-a-kind destination that brings esports news, streams, tournaments and stats together in a fast, intuitive experience on desktop or mobile.
The MSN Esports hub is built with Microsoft Bing intelligence and cutting-edge Microsoft technology to consolidate news, game streams, matches, tournaments and team info from multiple platforms – Twitch and YouTube are both supported, with more coming soon. It’s powered by “Watch For” – an AI system by Microsoft Research that uses real-time machine vision to analyze tens of thousands of streams simultaneously to identify details like streamers playing a specific character. This same AI engine also can flag malicious content to filter it out, keeping your family safer online. Whether you are trying to get smarter on gaming and connect with the gamer in your family or doing research on another team before your next tournament, we hope you’ll check it out and tell the team what you think – send suggestions on Twitter or chat with us on our Discord.
Have you upgraded to iOS14? Set Microsoft Edge as your default browser!
Lastly, I love using the Microsoft Edge mobile app on my iPhone but until now, I wasn’t able to set it as my default browser. But starting this month, this all changes since iOS14 will allow users to set their preferred browser as default. If you are loving the Microsoft Edge app on your iOS device, you can now set it as default and all web links you click on will open on Microsoft Edge. Just open Microsoft Edge on your iOS device running iOS14 and you’ll see an option to set it as your default browser. There are a lot of exciting features to discover on Microsoft Edge on Mobile for a fast, private and productive experience every time you browse. Collections on mobile is one that we’re particularly excited about, especially as the holiday shopping season approaches.
Collections helps you easily collect and organize content that you find across the web, and you can also access and add to your Collections while on the go. We know that a lot of the shopping research happens on your mobile device, and this holiday season you can use Collections to organize gift ideas for your loved ones, recipes and much more. Check out Microsoft Edge on Mobile or download if you haven’t already!
I hope these features help make what can be a hectic and stressful time of year a little easier and more enjoyable. And I hope you and your family can enjoy the upcoming season in all the ways and with all of those you hold dear.
1 Price comparison is currently rolling out in U.S. markets.
2 Calls up to 24 hours each.