Microsoft Edge will soon gain a ‘performance mode’ on Windows 10

According to the company, users will be able to “optimize speed, responsiveness, memory, CPU and battery usage” — but these results will vary based on your computer specifications and your browsing habits.

Microsoft Edge for Windows 10 could soon be gaining a performance boost.

Microsoft's Edge browser has begun testing a new performance mode on Windows 10 desktop and laptop computers that will allow it to work much more efficiently by consuming fewer system resources, the company announced recently on its blog.

Readers may be all too familiar with the tendency of browsers like Google Chrome and other browsers based on its open-source Chromium engine (like Brave, Vivaldi and Opera) to take up a vast amount of system resources including RAM, CPU and battery. Microsoft Edge would also fall under the same category, ever since the company replaced its own browser engine in Google's Chromium base.

Microsoft says that the new ‘Performance mode' will be available as a new entry under the System section of Edge's browser settings. According to the company, users will be able to “optimize speed, responsiveness, memory, CPU and battery usage.” However, the post is very light on specifics and only says that these improvements may vary based on your computer specifications and your browsing habits, which suggests the feature might work in an adaptive manner.

Microsoft Edge's new performance mode is now in testing on the Canary release channel.  (Microsoft)

Microsoft Edge's new performance mode is now in testing on the Canary release channel.  (Microsoft)

The feature is already in testing on the latest version of Microsoft Edge Canary for Windows 10, but you will need to run a 64-bit computer and make sure you have at least version 91.0.856.0 installed on your desktop or laptop computer, which contains the necessary code for the new feature. Microsoft also says that once Performance mode has been enabled, its newly released Sleeping Tabs timer, that ‘suspends' inactive tabs, will become unavailable.

According to Microsoft, you may still have to wait for the feature to be enabled via a serve side switch, but more adventurous users can manually force the feature on by using the code --enable-features=msPerformanceModeToggle to begin using the new performance mode right away. However, its best to wait until the new feature rolls out to you, as force enabling features can sometimes have unintended results such as data loss and app crashes.