Edge now launches up to 33% faster on Windows thanks to new shortcut tech

Microsoft has rolled out a new feature for Windows 11 that makes Edge open up to 33% faster when your computer is already busy running other stuff.

According to an announcement from the Microsoft Edge Team, the browser is the first to use a new Windows feature called accelerated app launches. Most people can expect everyday tasks to feel about 15% faster, with the biggest improvements for those who multitask heavily.

It fixes a weird quirk in how Windows handles apps that are already running in the background. Because of features like Startup Boost or an open window you forgot about, Edge is almost always awake on your PC.

Normally, when you click a web link or hit the Edge icon on your taskbar, Windows has to spin up a separate middleman process just to check if the browser is already running before handing off the request.

On a freshly booted PC, you wouldn’t notice the delay, but Microsoft admits that “in real multi-tasking scenarios, the extra work of having to look for an existing Edge process could make Edge feel slow.”

Now, Edge simply lets Windows know it’s running as soon as it starts up. The next time you click a link or open the app from the Start menu, Windows can skip the middleman and connect directly to the browser.

The blog post mentions that users on Edge version 150 or newer and running Windows 11 versions 25H2, 26H1, or 26H2 with the October 2026 update installed already have this. It joins a string of recent under-the-hood tweaks from Microsoft, including a prototype that updates Edge in the background without forcing a browser restart.

Right now, the speed boost works when launching from the taskbar, Start menu, or default web links, and Microsoft is working on bringing the same behavior to PDF files.

Microsoft also says it is sharing this code with the open-source Chromium project. That means rivals like Chrome and Brave should eventually get the exact same launch speed boost on Windows 11.

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