Microsoft Edge Chromium: New Tab layout can't be customized? Being blocked?

[Dustyn]

Hello,

I wanted to ask a question for the AdGuard team who maintain the default set of AdGuard blocking lists for AdGuard Desktop 7.3.

I've noticed lately when using Microsoft Edge Chromium that it will no longer load my "New Tab" page layout anymore. It had been working perfectly up until 3 or 4 days ago. Now opening a new tab just loads a Microsoft Edge logo floating over a blue reflective pond. I have no options within that new tab page to customize my "New Tab" page layout like I once had before. Even going into Edge settings, New tab page, then customize just opens the same non customization New Tab page. This is what it now looks like below... and it's not normal.



The reason I ask here is because I noticed that my new tab page was ALWAYS able to by customized, and worked since the very first release on Microsoft Chromium Edge with AdGuard 7.3. Over the weekend I was working on a small project of installing AdGuard Home on my OpenWrt router. So before doing this, I uninstalled AdGuard Desktop 7.3 to try out AdGuard Home. Once AdGuard Desktop 7.3 was removed, my new tab page layout was restored and I was able to bring back image of the day, news, add favorite website tiles and other customizable settings that had been missing.

After playing around with AdGuard Home on my router, I decided to uninstall it from my router (a project I may return to), and reinstall AdGuard Desktop 7.3.
After configuring it with the default filters out of the box, Microsoft Chromium Edge won't display my personalized New Tab page layout anymore and reverts back to this non customizable state.

Are there any filters in AdGuard (ones that are provided by AdGuard and are not 3rd party) that are interfering with the New Tab page layouts ability to connect to a Microsoft or MSN server to display the customized layout correctly? I believe Microsoft Edge Chromium has to connect to some kind of Microsoft address like ntp.msn.com or msn.com or microsoft.com in order to fetch news or image of the day..ect. I'm not positive what the actual address is but I believe AdGuard may be interfering with New Tab layout in some way as the image above is not normal.

Please reference this article below as well.
Please note I do not use a custom HOSTS file or any other extensions in Edge.
»techdows.com/2020/02/dis ··· ack.html

Thank you for your time.
~ Dustyn

 

[philibeur]

The newtab page is not very stable at the moment, and I also had this problem last month but i use the nightly version of Adguard, you must be patient, in my side, all seems to be fixed.
This can come from the fact that the image of the day of adguard no longer comes from Bing but from MSN among others. I don't think it was Adguard's fault because I had the same problem on a PC not using Adguard.

 

[Dustyn]

Interesting to hear you say that the the nightly version corrects this issue. This is good to hear.
I just wanted to make sure the AdGuard team is aware of this issue, and for anyone else who is experiencing the issue to chime in.

Thanks for the response.
Cheers!
~Dustyn~

 

[Chinaski]

Hello, @Dustyn!

Yes, indeed, this was an issue for some users.
We fixed it in one of the Nightly updates (download link).
Try to install it and check is the issue still persists?
Thank you for reporting the bug

 

[Dustyn]

Hello, @Dustyn!

Yes, indeed, this was an issue for some users.
We fixed it in one of the Nightly updates (download link).
Try to install it and check is the issue still persists?
Thank you for reporting the bug

Hi @Chinaski

Out of curiosity, how stable are the nightly versions? I would assume it is risky to use? I've had success with the nightly versions before, but only with AdGuard for Android.

Are they relatively stable enough to use on Windows 10?

Also, how long would you suppose this specific bug is fixed in a stable release?

Thank you for the reply!
~ Dustyn

 

[Boo Berry]

I've personally only rarely had issues with nightly versions. Overall they've been pretty stable.

Also it's hard to give ETAs for stable releases, as ETAs are never met. So the answer to that one is when it's ready.

 

[Dustyn]

Okay thanks!
I took a look at the progress for completing 7.4.
It seems to be coming along.

https://github.com/AdguardTeam/AdguardForWindows/milestones

 

[philibeur]

It would seem that it starts again with the last Adguard 7.4 Nightly 18. To bypass this issue, i exclude "img-s-msn-com.akamaized.net" in https filtering.

 

[Dustyn]

It would seem that it starts again with the last Adguard 7.4 Nightly 18. To bypass this issue, i exclude "img-s-msn-com.akamaized.net" in https filtering.

I'm wondering why "img-s-msn-com.akamaized.net" is being filtered in the first place and why it's a part of the blocklists?

 

[Boo Berry]

@Chinaski might know why (or can hopefully find out why).

 

[philibeur]

I found "img-s-msn-com.akamaized.net" in the source code of new tab, basically, I think it is msn.con which is filtered, so I tried.

 

[Boo Berry]

Does removing img-s-msn-com.akamaized.net from the HTTPS exclusions list and adding this rule to your user filter fix it?

@@||img-s-msn-com.akamaized.net^$domain=ntp.msn.com,important,app=msedge.exe

 

[philibeur]

It seems to work.

 

[Dustyn]

Does removing img-s-msn-com.akamaized.net from the HTTPS exclusions list and adding this rule to your user filter fix it?

@@||img-s-msn-com.akamaized.net^$domain=ntp.msn.com,important,app=msedge.exe

Sorry for the late reply. I was not notified of a response to this thread.
I will post back when I have access to that computer if the rules worked.

Thanks!

 

[Dustyn]

Hi again!

Okay, so I tried doing as you requested but it made no difference. I tried looking over what's being blocked when opening the filtering log, then executing opening a new microsoft edge tab, but I don't think anything is being blocked? I posted the screenshots below to show the steps you mentioned. Maybe I entered something wrong?

Something is being blocked but I don't know what is causing this issue.
NOTE: AdGuard assistant does NOT show up in the bottom right hand corner when opening a new Microsoft Edge tab.
Could this be an issue?

 

[Boo Berry]

I wouldn't worry much about the Assistant, in 7.4 it's considered legacy and being replaced with the Browser Assistant browser extensions for Chrome/Firefox/Opera/Edge/Safari/etc.

I can't reproduce this issue at all, check your filter lists and try disabling them one-by-one and see if it starts working. If you're using stealth mode, you might try disabling that too and see if that works.