A few days after Google released Chrome 109 to the stable channel, Microsoft today released the stable version of Microsoft Edge 109.
Notably, Edge 109 was the last version of the web browser compatible with Windows 7 and Windows 8.1, for which Microsoft terminated support in January 2023 on Patch Tuesday.
Microsoft has fixed 14 different security issues in Microsoft Edge 109. Two of the security issues are specific to Edge, while the remaining 12 issues are the same as in other Chromium-based browsers.
The two Edge-specific vulnerabilities have a severity rating of Important and Medium. One is a remote code execution vulnerability (CVE-2023-21775), and the other is an elevation of privilege vulnerability in the browser (CVE-2023-21796). One of the Chromium security issues has a severity rating of high, while the remaining vulnerabilities have a severity rating of medium or low.
Microsoft Edge 109 introduced a new text prediction feature designed to help users “write faster” and “reduce errors. The feature is currently only available on the English version of Edge in the United States, India and Australia. Microsoft plans to add more language support and enable the feature in more regions in future releases.
Text prediction enhances the Microsoft Editor in Edge with grammar, spelling, and style suggestions. When the feature is enabled, Edge sends the data to Microsoft for processing. According to Microsoft, Text Prediction uses “natural language processing to generate predictions for long-form editable text fields on web pages.
Edge users can disable the writing assistance feature in the browser or switch from using Microsoft Editor to basic writing assistance to prevent Edge from sending data to Microsoft.
