Microsoft recently added Performance Mode to its Chromium-based browser with an announcement on Microsoft’s Tech Community page (opens in new tab) giving users detail on how it all works.
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Edge’s new Performance Mode is supposed to optimize web browsing speed and responsiveness and reduce CPU, RAM and battery usage. This will work in conjunction with an older sleeping tabs update from 2020 that put open tabs not being viewed to sleep after five minutes and saved on RAM and CPU usage. Windows Latest tested out the new mode and stated that “In our tests, we observed that that ‘performance mode’ forces Sleeping Tabs when tabs are inactive for five minutes. By default, sleeping tabs are set to go to sleep after two hours of inactivity.” The tech site further stated that “Microsoft Edge will also detect heavy resources activity in the background (such as audio or video) and block those tabs from sleeping. As you may be aware, Edge’s sleeping mode is based on a core Chromium technology that prevents background activities and scripts from minimizing resource usage while saving the browsing data.” Making Edge less of a resource hog is a welcomed update for users who will also have applications working while browsing. With Edge automatically tweaking settings continuously while in Performance Mode, users should see system performance improvements. Whether users are looking to switch to Edge over Chrome or Firefox due to these improvements is personal preference and something they will have to try for themselves to find out. Initially, when Microsoft entered the Chromium ecosystem with Edge, it had many catching up to do to try and match the other two. With this new feature, could they have possibly surpassed both Firefox and Chrome?
