How Microsoft Insider Programs Give IT Pros a Leg Up
… new releases of the operating system in which they were embedded. Microsoft never offered any type of pre-release testing for those browsers, so creating the new Edge based on Chromium and its testing channels was a big change for the company.
Preview releases became available in early 2019 for testing; a stable build of the new Edge was released in January 2020.
The Edge Insider Program provides three testing channels and one stable channel that one can use side by side on any system. They are independent of each other with their own credentials, browser histories and favorites.
The new Edge supports multiple user profiles in each channel so testers can have a personal and a work profile alongside each other in the same channel, with auto-profile switching as an option for separating browsing histories.
Just like the other Insider Programs listed here, the four testing and release channels have different risk levels:
Canary Channel
- Who is it for? IT pros and support technicians.
- What are the benefits of the channel? Early access to upcoming features and enhancements; Microsoft updates this build daily during the week, with early access to new features and functionality.
- What are the risks of the channel? This will be the most unstable channel and Microsoft doesn’t recommended for it end-user systems.
Developer Channel
- Who is it for? IT pros, support technicians and web developers. While the builds in this channel are more stable than the Canary channel builds, you should probably limit access to key IT personnel and web developers.
- What are the benefits of the channel? Microsoft updates this build weekly and generally has more stable features that already have been tested in the Canary Channel and by the Microsoft Edge team. Web developers can test new technologies to insure compatibility with web applications and services.
Beta Channel
- Who is it for? IT pros, support technicians and key department personnel across the enterprise. Also consider expanding access to this channel to key individuals in IT, development, support, etc.
- What are the benefits of the channel? Microsoft updates this build every six weeks; it will be the most stable build in the testing channels. The well-tested features are much more stable compared to developer and canary channels.
- What are the drawbacks of this channel? Since there is a six-week delay between updates, the new features and functionality will lag much more than in the canary and developer channels.
Stable Channel
- Who is it for? The entire enterprise, if testing in previous channels did not identify any compatibility concerns for line-of-business tools and services.
- What are the benefits of this channel? This is the production channel and is released every six weeks following a release candidate in the beta channel. The releases are the most stable.
- What are the drawbacks of this channel? Since there is a six-week delay between beta channel and releases into stable, features will lag. Keep that in mind as you consider deployments, but this should be the build you widely deploy for end users due to its stability.
Microsoft Edge Insider, Microsoft Edge for Business
Note: All of these Microsoft Insider Programs have tools and templates to help business and enterprise users in managing the deployment of these preview builds.