Microsoft has announced a significant speedup in its Edge browser, now rendering the first elements of a website in less than 300 milliseconds. This corresponds to the First Contentful Paint (FCP) metric, which, according to research, directly affects user satisfaction. The Verge writes about this.
The company also announced improvements to 13 other features of the browser, including the settings page, history, private tabs, split screen, and Read Aloud, which reads page content aloud. Edge also has smoother media playback and less lag when navigating in split screen.
These changes were made possible by the transition to WebUI 2.0, an updated interface architecture that reduces the amount of JavaScript code loaded and speeds up element initialization.
Despite technical improvements, Edge remains in the market with a share of less than 5%, while Google Chrome holds over 68%. Competition in the browser market may intensify — in particular, from OpenAI, which is considering launching its own browser to integrate deeper AI features.
Microsoft plans to continue to update Edge, with improvements to print preview and extension management expected in the near future.