The main theme for this ASP.NET Core release was to improve developer productivity and platform functionality with regard to building Web/HTTP APIs. As usual, we made some performance improvements as well.  

.NET Core 2.1.6 is available for download and usage in your environment. This release includes .NET Core 2.1.6, ASP.NET Core 2.1.6 and .NET Core SDK 2.1.500. All fixes of note can be seen in the 2.1.6 commits list. 

Today we released Visual Studio 2015 Update 2 CTP. Our focus for this release has been stability and performance, along with responding to feedback you’ve given us on Visual Studio 2015 RTM and Update 1. 

Entity Framework 7 (EF7) Preview 5 has shipped with support for Table-per-Concrete type (TPC) mapping. This blog post will focus on TPC. There are several other enhancements included in Preview 5, such as:

• Support for AT TIME ZONE in SQL Server
• Updates to command and connection interception (#23087, #23085, #17261)
• Addition of the delete behavior attribute

Read the full list of EF7 Preview 5 enhancements. 

• Add option for Windows (UWP) platform when creating new Xamarin.Forms project from 'Mobile App (Xamarin.Forms)' project template.
• Help > About window title in Visual Studio 2019 still shows 'RC' after upgrade.
• When updating Visual Studio 2019 from RC to GA, RC shortcuts for Visual Studio are left behind.
• Visual Studio 2019 Preview 1.1 cannot create a UWP xamarin form.
• Package load failure starting Visual Studio 2019 after upgrade from Preview 4.4 to 16.0.

Query: Regression in EF 6.1.2: OUTER APPLY introduced and more compex queries for 1:1 relationships and "let" clause

TPT problem with hiding base class property in inherited class

DbMigration.Sql fails when the word 'go' is contained in the text

Create compatibility flag for UnionAll and Intersect flattening support

Query with multiple Includes does not work in 6.1.2 (working in 6.1.1)

"You have an error in your SQL syntax" after upgrading from EF 6.1.1 to 6.1.2

• VS is more responsive when running Git operations.
• Debugging large solutions with /debug:fastlink PDBs is more robust. Changes in the PDB/DIA lead to reduced latency and a 30% reduction in heap memory consumption in the VS debugger that used to cause crashes.
• C++ compiler bugfixes:
  • Fix for the SSA optimizer incorrectly sinking a function call past a store to a variable used in a __finally handler.
  • Fix for the SSA optimizer sometimes incorrectly analyzing memory loads from locations with negative offsets.
  • Fix for the optimizer incorrectly transforming a pre-incremented loop into a post-incremented loop. This was found compiling the ICU project.
• Microsoft bumped up the Java™ Development Kit 8 to Update 172 (JDK version 8u172). 

Third Party Site Cookies

In August 2020, Google announced their 'Privacy Sandbox' initiative, which aims to preserve and protect user's privacy. The cookie processing change is part of this initiative. An official  blog post sheds some light on it.

Google will drop support for third-party cookies in the Chrome browser in two years. Also, the company will start limiting cross-site tracking by enforcing its new SameSite rules . This has already happened in Chrome 80.

The SameSite-by-default and SameSite=None-requires-Secure behaviors will begin rolling out to Chrome 80 Stable for an initial limited population starting the week of February 17, 2020. 

Today, the Entity Framework Core team announces the eighth and final preview release of EF Core 5.0. The next release will be a release candidate (RC). This release includes table-per-type (TPT) mapping, table-valued functions, SQLite table rebuilds for migrations and much more.