Edge Canary gets link handling for web applications

Microsoft’s latest version, Edge Canary, brings a new and notable feature to progressive web applications. Users can enable a new experimental flag to let PWAs "handle" links. In other words, you can open links from other programs directly in the relevant web application without launching a browser.

Here's an example of how this feature works: You receive a message in Telegram with a YouTube link. You click the link and Windows opens it in the YouTube PWA instead of the browser.

To enable link handling for Progressive Web Apps:

1. Update Microsoft Edge Canary to the latest version. You can download Edge Canary from the official Edge Insider website.
2. Make sure Edge Canary is your default browser. If you're using Windows 11 22H2, here's how to change your default browser with a single click.
3. Install web apps, such as YouTube or Reddit, by clicking the button in the address bar.
   

   

4. Go to edge://flags/#edge-webapp-link-handling and select enable.
   

   

5. Restart the browser.
6. Go to edge://apps, find the web app you need, and click Details.
   

   

7. Open Link processing switch.
   

   

8. # Try opening a link to a website installed as a web application.

It's worth noting that the link handling functionality has some quirks. For example, Edge Canary cannot open a shareable YouTube link ( youtu.be ) in a PWA, but launches the web app with a regular youtube.com link without issue.

Additionally, the new flag does not affect how Edge works with sites installed as applications. There's a difference between full-blown progressive web apps (the ones Edge lets you install from the address bar) and websites that just open in a dedicated window. Currently, Edge cannot open external links in websites installed as applications. Instead, the browser starts as usual and opens the link in a regular tab.

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