Microsoft Edge Theverge



(Photo: Microsoft)

Microsoft stopped releasing security patches for Edge Legacy from March 9, 2021, and released a security update on April 13, 2021, which replaced Edge Legacy with Chromium-based Edge. Microsoft released the Chromium-based Edge to the Xbox Insider Alpha Skip Ahead group on March 6, 2021.

Microsoft Edge Theverge

Microsoft Edge Warren The Verge

The most popular browsers continue to try and get us to switch with impressive new features, and Microsoft is the latest to entice us with a new 'Performance mode' for Edge.

  1. The Microsoft hub brings you all the latest Microsoft news on Windows 10, Office 365, Surface hardware, and Microsoft's iOS and Android apps like Outlook, Skype, Office, and many more.
  2. The Verge - Tom Warren Microsoft is launching a new Kids Mode for its Edge browser today. It’s built directly into Microsoft Edge on Windows and macOS as a free option that’s simple to enable and doesn’t require much work for.

As The Verge reports, currently Performance mode is still in development, but in a post on the Microsoft Tech Community website, the first details of what it actually does have appeared. There isn't too much information about this new mode yet, but it's described as helping to 'optimize speed, responsiveness, memory, CPU and battery usage.'

Microsoft Edge The Verge

It sounds as though Performance mode will be of most use when a user has one browser tab they wish to focus on and be as performant as possible. A side effect of turning the mode on is 'sleeping tabs timer becomes unavailable.' Sleeping tabs were introduced earlier this year and allowed resources being used by background tabs to be released to improve overall performance. Microsoft says sleeping tabs can reduce memory usage by 32% and CPU usage by 37%.

Microsoft Edge The Verge Password

The timer for the sleeping tabs feature is used to put inactive tabs to sleep after a set amount of time. It's not made clear why the timer being unavailable helps performance, but I'd guess it allows Microsoft to override any set timers and force all background tabs to immediately go to sleep and free up the most resources for your active tab.

Microsoft Edge Best Price Feature

If you want to try out Performance mode, you'll need to install Edge canary Version 91.0.856.0 (Official build) canary (64-bit) or later. It shouldn't take long for benchmarks to start appearing so we can get an idea of the performance difference this new mode makes.