Microsoft promises that Windows 11’s Edge browser will be “very fast” – but will this be enough to beat Chrome?
Microsoft Edge’s settings page is getting an overhaul in December, which the company promises will improve performance. This overhaul is the latest in a series aimed at improving browser responsiveness overall, in an effort to gain more market share from Google’s rival web browser, Chrome, which remains the most used browser by a wide margin. is.
The improvements revolve around the migration to Microsoft’s new WebUI 2.0 toolkit. Microsoft describes WebUI 2.0 as “markup-first,” meaning it prioritizes technologies like HTML and CSS over demanding tools like JavaScript. In Microsoft’s words: “Modern browser engines are very fast at rendering (page content) as long as you don’t let JavaScript get in the way.”
The problem with using JavaScript is that you have to download it before it can work – and that can ultimately slow everything down, especially, as Microsoft notes, on cheap devices.
Can Chrome be toppled?
Microsoft’s solution to this “apparently minimizes the size of (its) code bundles, and the amount of JavaScript code executed during the user interface initialization path.” In plain English, this means parts of Edge’s UI (like buttons and menus) should feel a lot faster and more responsive.
Microsoft has already migrated Edge’s Browser Essentials UI – which presents security information and browser metrics such as memory usage – to the new system. It has also migrated Edge’s favorites section and says this has improved response time by 40%. The Browser Essentials change makes pages load 42% faster overall, and up to 76% faster on low-end devices, such as machines without SSDs and less than 8GB of RAM – at least, according to Microsoft.
As for the Edge settings, the changes aren’t quite under the hood. Microsoft has also taken the opportunity provided “minor visual and content upgrades to improve overall usability and usability. This includes optimizing the concise wording of individual settings, simplifying the number of pages, reorganizing content and creating a coherent user interface.”
Any improvement in Edge’s performance is welcome, especially since despite Microsoft’s best efforts (like installing it by default in Windows 11 and constantly bugging users to stick with it), the web browser still lags seriously behind Chrome when it comes to about user experience. figures.
I’m sure most people would rather Microsoft try to win new users to Edge by improving the overall web browsing experience, rather than shoving more ads into the Start Menu.