If you use a modern browser, you might have a number of browser extensions installed. While they can be very helpful for things like detecting shopping discounts or remote watching videos with friends, sometimes these extensions can adversely affect the performance of your browser and, indeed, your entire PC.
Today, Microsoft announced it is launching a new feature for users of its Edge web browsers. It is called an extension performance detector. This feature will begin rolling out to people who get the Edge Canary 130 release.
In a blog post, Microsoft stated:
Edge will start alerting you about slowdowns if extensions persistently impact your browsing experience. Clicking the alert will reveal more information about your extensions and the impact that each has on page loading speed. We will even give you the opportunity to disable the extension of your choice right there.
Microsoft adds that this new tool will mostly not alert Edge users. It will only go off if an installed browser extension causes persistent performance issues when using Edge.
If you don"t get the latest Canary Edge builds but still want to try out this new tool, you can launch it at edge://flags/#edge-performance-extension-detection in a new tab or window. You can then select the Enabled option. You will then have to restart Edge to get the extension performance tool to start working.
Since this new tool is still being developed, people who use it in the Canary channel or get the tool early can send their feedback or questions to Microsoft. Just go to Settings and more (…) > Help and feedback > Send feedback. Also, if you are a developer of Edge extensions, you might want to check out this support page. It offers advice and hints about how to optimize an Edge browser extension for the best possible performance.