Microsoft takes on Canva with Designer (in Edge)

Microsoft Designer Logo

Microsoft Designer was first announced back in August of 2022 and has been available in a limited preview to since January this year to gain early feedback from users.

This week however, Microsoft announced that (whilst still in preview), the AI driven social media content creation platform would be available for anyone to try. Microsoft also announced plans to include the tools into their Edge browser in much the same way they have provided the ability to use the new Bing AI search.

Screen showing sign-up for Designer social media creation tool

Introducing Microsoft Designer

Microsoft Designer is a “Canva-like” designer tool aims to provide a simple, sleek and AI infused tool to help business and consumers quickly produce high quality online content such as social media posts, greeting cards, banners, branding, alerts, promotions etc.

Powered by DALL·E and built as a progressive web app, Microsoft Designer is the latest AI powered tool now in ‘preview-mode, which joins Bing Chat and Bing Image Creator along with many other tools which can be accessed on their own or from within the sidebar of their Chromium powered Edge browser.

Available from https://designer.microsoft.com or from the Edge side bar, users can use Designer to manage and create animations, impressive visuals, text, and design templates specifically for sharing on social media sites like Twitter, Facebook, TickTok and Instagram, or of course on enterprise social tools within an organisation like Viva Engage [aka Yammer].

Example of a Microsoft Designer Page for my upcoming fireside chat!
Example Designer design (c) Rob Quickenden

Here’s some of the great things you can do today in Designer.

  • Easily create designs with >20 different social media layout sizes across Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn.
  • Automatic (manual override) of elements such as text, video and images to best accommodate your chosen layout, reducing time needed to manually format you posts.
  • Wide range of animation features including auto text transitions and animated backgrounds.
  • Save or share directly with social media your finished creations.

Being in preview there is still more to come and the app will continue to evolved based on user feedback and their development lifecycle. Here’s more AI powered tools that Mcirosoft are working on which will be coming “soon”.

  • New Fill tool that allows users to select an area of a design and quickly place an object in that location
  • Simple erase function which will allow the user to brush over a person/object in the design and have Designer remove the object, generate and replace it with another image
  • Expand Background tool, which will be able to quickly fill any gaps within the foreground of your design, and
  • Replace Background which will be able to switch the background to a new one preserving the rest of your design.

Why integrate into Edge?

Microsoft say that by integrating Designer into Edge, they are bringing these capabilities straight into where people work. Since it will be accessible directly via the edge sidebar, users can access it by simply clicking on the Designer icon. Microsoft say this makes the tools accessible and “in the flow of creativity“, meaning users can quickly create unique designs instantly by simply describing the graphic you want without needing to leave the page they are, switch windows, load apps, or download custom extensions to the browser.

Coming soon - designer integrated into Microsoft Edge.
Coming soon: Designer integration directly into Edge sidebar. Image (c) Microsoft.

The aim is to improve the workflow and “keep you in the moment” – since whilst creating a social media post, Designer in Edge will provide AI-powered design suggestions to include in the post, which can then be customised and published without needing to leave the browser of switch apps.

As with any preview, Microsoft encourage users to feedback on their experience of using designer – both as a dedicated service and as a Edge browser integrated experience.

Competing with the Design giants

Designer is still in preview and there is lots Microsoft need to do to get it to the level of comparison with other apps like Canva and Adobe, both of whom have recently released their own AI-powered features. Microsoft have done a great job so far and by opening the preview up to the masses and with their recent investment in OpenAI, I expect a plethora of enhancements and new features to keep coming.

Microsoft Edge now alerts you if any of your online passwords are leaked!

Password Dialogue Screen

Let’s face it – all of us re-use our passwords across different systems, and most use one password for pretty much everything they online – and whilst these may be secure (and yes, some sites may enforce MFA – that’s something at least), if just one of these sites/company’s get’s breached – then your password is out there!!!

Microsoft are trying to help prevent this – well, at least make sure you know so you can do something about it quickly…

Whilst anyone running Beta or Dev version of Edge have had this for a while, the latest “stable” update to roll out this week, has introduced / released probably of the most important feature to help users (everyone) understand anywhere where their password may have been breached/compromised – not just on their Office 365 or laptop credentials but across any (and i mean) any web site or SaaS service they use in Edge.

Introducing Password Monitor in Edge

Microsoft have released a new feature called Password Monitor (which is included in Edge build 88 and later), which notifies users if any of their saved passwords have been found in a third-party breach.

Edge Password Monitor Graphic

This is done by using password hash comparison (so Microsoft doesn’t actually learn or store passwords anywhere), so users can be assured that neither Microsoft nor any other party can learn the user’s passwords while they are being monitored for breach.

When you turn on Password Monitor, Edge  starts periodically (you can force it too) checking the passwords you’ve saved in the browser against a huuuuuuge database of known leaked passwords that are stored in the cloud. If any of your passwords match those in the database, they’ll appear on the Password Monitor page in Microsoft Edge Settings. and you also get a pop-up notification if new ones are found. What this is basically telling you is that “any passwords listed there are no longer safe to use” and you should change them immediately – pretty damn useful advice for anyone!
 

Why this so important

Each year, hundreds of millions of usernames and passwords are exposed online when websites or apps become the target of data leaks and as i mentioned at the start, whilst the public are regularly cautioned against reusing the same username and password combination for more than one online account, it’s a common practice, which leaves them vulnerable on multiple sites when even one passwords gets leaked. Even if your password is complex – it only takes one site to be leaked and your password and username is out there – its like leaving the front door of your house wide-open.

Leaked usernames and passwords often end up for sale on the online black market, commonly referred to as the Dark Web. Hackers use automated scripts to try different stolen username and password combinations to hijack people’s accounts. If one of your accounts is taken over, you can be the victim of fraudulent transactions, identity theft, illegal fund transfers, or other illegal activities and bear in mind many of these sites allow you to save or store payment information, address information, family information on them – perfect for an identity theft!

Password Monitor helps protect your online accounts in Microsoft Edge by informing you when any of your passwords have been compromised, so you can update them. Changing passwords immediately is the best way to prevent your account from being hijacked.

Enabling Password Monitor

This new feature is not enabled by default. In order to active this, you need to carry out these simple steps

  1. Sign in to Microsoft Edge using your Microsoft account or your work or school account.
  2. Navigate to Settings and more > Settings > Profiles > Passwords.
  3. Turn on Show alerts when passwords are found in an online leak.
  4. Any unsafe passwords will then be displayed on the Password Monitor page.

Screenshot of settings in Edge

If you are signed in and syncing your passwords, Password Monitor is automatically enabled in your browsers – auto enablement

When you first enable Password Monitor for the first time, all your passwords will be checked to see if any of them have been compromised. If any of your passwords match those in the list of known leaked passwords, a notification appears:

 

This notification appears only once each time a new password is found to be unsafe. Microsoft give you two options at this point:  – view the details or dismiss the notification – its ok you can come back to them later. 

 

Responding to notifications

If Edge informs you that a user / password combination has been breached / therefore is no longer safe, can go here to learn more :

Settings and more > Settings > Profiles > Passwords > Password Monitor.

Here you will see a list of all the unsafe passwords Microsoft has found, and then for each account listed on the page you can be redirected to that site to allow you to update and change your password.  If an entry in the list of compromised passwords is no longer relevant (you may have deleted your account for example), you can click ignore – remember though, if just one site is breached and you use that account elsewhere – change it!

Microsoft have provided a nice Q&A and support page for this here: Password Monitor support page.

 

Read More about how Password Monitor works

Password Monitor will be made available to Edge users on a rolling basis so it will not be immediately visible to everyone.

You can read more about how this works and why is such a vital step forward for privacy, security and control of your online life here: Password Monitor: Safeguarding passwords in Microsoft Edge – Microsoft Research