Here’s a summary of what’s new in this preview release:

• Request decompression middleware
• Output caching middleware
• Updates to rate limiting middleware
• Kestrel support for WebSockets over HTTP/2
• Kestrel performance improvements on high core machines
• Support for logging additional request headers in W3CLogger
• Empty Blazor project templates
• System.Security.Cryptography support on WebAssembly
• Blazor custom elements no longer experimental
• Experimental QuickGrid component for Blazor
• gRPC JSON transcoding multi-segment parameters
• MapGroup support for more extension methods 

Any experienced .NET developer knows that even though .NET applications have a garbage collector, memory leaks occur all the time. It’s not that the garbage collector has bugs, it’s just that there are ways we can (easily) cause memory leaks in a managed language.

Memory leaks are sneakily bad creatures. It’s easy to ignore them for a very long time, while they slowly destroy the application. With memory leaks, your memory consumption grows, creating GC pressure and performance problems. Finally, the program will just crash on an out-of-memory exception.

In this article, we will go over the most common reasons for memory leaks in .NET programs. All examples are in C#, but they are relevant to other languages.  

.NET 5 Preview 7 is now available and is ready for evaluation. Here’s what’s new in this release:

• Blazor WebAssembly apps now target .NET 5
• Updated debugging requirements for Blazor WebAssembly
• Blazor accessibility improvements
• Blazor performance improvements
• Certificate authentication performance improvements
• Sending HTTP/2 PING frames
• Support for additional endpoints types in the Kestrel sockets transport
• Custom header decoding in Kestrel
• Other minor improvements 

What’s new in 2.2

We’re publishing a series of posts here that go over some of the new feature areas in detail. We’ll update the post with links to these posts as they go live over the coming days:

• API Controller Conventions
• Endpoint Routing
• Health Checks
• HTTP/2 in Kestrel
• Improvements to IIS hosting
• SignalR Java client 

Summary of Notable New Features in 15.9

• You can now import and export an installation configuration file that specifies which workloads and components should be installed with an instance of Visual Studio.
• We have improved the debugging experience for NuGet packages using the new symbol package format (.snupkg).
• Step back in debugger is now available in C++ for Enterprise customers.
• C++ IntelliSense now responds to changes in the remote environment for both CMake and MSBuild projects targeting Linux.
• We have made updates to UWP Desktop Bridge framework packages and added support for ARM64 C++ Native Desktop scenarios.
• We added support for the range-v3 library with the MSVC 15.9 compiler.
• We fixed several bugs in the F# compiler and F# tools.
• Language service support for new TypeScript features for semantic file renaming and project references.
• Improved Node.js development by updating Vue.js templates and adding support for unit testing using the Jest framework.
• We added SharePoint 2019 project templates, so you can migrate existing SharePoint 2013 and 2016 projects to SharePoint 2019.
• Visual Studio Tools for Xamarin now supports Xcode 10.
• We made improvements to the Xamarin.Android build performance.
• We have added and improved features for Universal Windows Platform developers, including ARM64 support, the latest preview SDK, better debugging of Desktop Bridge applications, and XAML Designer improvements.
• Substantial improvements were made to the experience of using authenticated package feeds.
• There is now support for lock file to enable repeatable restore for PackageReference based projects.
• We have added support for the new license format for NuGet packages.
• We have introduced NuGet client policies in Visual Studio which enables you to lock down environments such that only trusted packages can be installed.
• We made the use of .NET Core within Visual Studio more predictable.

Top Issues Fixed in 15.9

• No way to change "Find All References" background color.
• "Visual C++ Resource Editor Package" load failed.
• VS2017 v15.8 Build does not start if XAML files are not manually saved first.
• Installation failed - manifest signature verification failed.
• Update 15.8.6 breaks Installer Projects.
• Scrolling up with the arrow key causes Visual Studio to page up.
• After updating to 15.8.1, data tip does not show when debugging.
• System.InvalidProgramException: Common Language Runtime detected an invalid program..
• Solution Explorer does not remain pinned after closing Visual Studio.
• Navigation bar in editor has trouble handling long method names. 

Say hello to Rider 2019.1.2 and its 80+ fixed bugs and improvements! 

Here’s what’s new in this preview release:

• Parity with existing experiences for minimal APIs
• Added IResult implementations for producing common HTTP responses
• Support Request, Response and User for minimal actions
• Minimal host and template improvements
• Supply Blazor component parameters from the query string
• Replace the current URI in the browser history from Blazor
• New DynamicComponent.Instance property
• Blazor streaming interop from JavaScript to .NET
• Large file upload & faster file uploads with Blazor
• Modify HTML <head> content from Blazor components
• Support for the multiple attribute on <select> elements in Blazor
• Support for HTTP/3 in Kestrel
• QUIC support moved to the shared framework
• Allow control over Activity creation
• Support for non-ASCII characters in Kestrel response headers
• Add W3CLogger
• Add authentication expiration option to SignalR 

• Find the Code You’re Looking For: Enhanced search capabilities to help you quickly locate the code you need, even in the largest projects.
• More Meaningful Code Reviews: Improvements to code review workflows, making it easier to spot potential issues and collaborate with your team.
• Updates to pull request creation: Continual improvements to the pull request creation experience.
• Familiar keyboard shortcuts: Some common keyboard shortcuts now match those in other popular IDEs.
• AI-Generated Breakpoint Expressions: Automatically suggest breakpoints based on your code, helping you debug more efficiently.
• Understand Your Symbols: Improved symbol recognition to ensure you get the most accurate suggestions.
• Refined Suggestions: More precise and context-aware code completions, reducing the need for manual edits.
• GitHub Copilot is even more secure: GitHub Copilot Business customers to prevent specified files or repositories from being used to inform code completion suggestions made by GitHub Copilot.

PostgreSQL derived databases
A list of PostgreSQL derived forks and rebranded distributions in alphabetical order.  

.NET 8 Preview 4 is now available and includes many great new improvements to ASP.NET Core.

Here’s a summary of what’s new in this preview release:

Blazor

Streaming rendering with Blazor components

Handling form posts with Blazor SSR

Route to named elements in Blazor

Webcil packaging for Blazor WebAssembly apps

API authoring

Expanded support for form binding in minimal APIs

API project template includes .http file

Native AOT

Logging and exception handling in compile-time generated minimal APIs

ASP.NET Core top-level APIs annotated for trim warnings

Reduced app size with configurable HTTPS support

Worker Service template updates

Additional default services configured in the slim builder

API template JSON configuration changes

Support for JSON serialization of compiler-generated IAsyncEnumerable unspeakable types

Authentication and authorization

Identity API endpoints

Improved support for custom authorization policies with IAuthorizationRequirementData

ASP.NET Core metrics

For more details on the ASP.NET Core work planned for .NET 8 see the full ASP.NET Core roadmap for .NET 8 on GitHub.