How to Fix: Microsoft Edge is Very Slow

When Microsoft switched from its legacy Internet Explorer browser to the Chromium source engine, it resulted in many users switching over to its new offering. Until then, the most significant issue users had with Chrome was its slow and sluggish user experience.

In this regard, Microsoft’s browser provided a smooth and fast experience but lacked all the goodies that a Chromium browser had to offer.

Therefore, users didn’t have much choice but to stick with Chrome. But as soon as the OS giants released Edge, many users quickly adopted it without a second thought.

However, it seems the exact sluggish nature of Chrome is now bugging Edge users as well. A slew of complaints has already been lined up across Microsoft Support Forum that the browser performs at a snail’s pace.

The adverse impact of this is also felt across various sites as they either take ages to load or even fail to load in some instances.

If you echo these thoughts, this tutorial shall help you. This guide will inform you of some handy methods to fix Microsoft Edge’s slow performance issue. So without any further ado, let’s get started.

Contents

Delete Cache and Cookies

If you are using the browser for a long time, then a plethora of data will accumulate. These data belong to two categories- some are temporary ones in the form of cache, whereas others are the website data such as login information.

However, since your browser isn’t performing along the expected lines, you should consider deleting both these data forms and lessen the burden on Edge.

Here are the steps to clear the cache and cookies in the Edge browser:

Launch the Microsoft Edge browser.
Keypress the Ctrl + Shift + Del edge shortcut.
It shall open the Clear Browsing Data dialog box.
Select Browsing History, Cookies, and other site data, and Cached Images and Files.
Hit the Clear now button and wait for the process to complete.

Deleting Cache files might slow down the opening of some sites, but that will be a one-time delay as the cached data would get repopulated.

Along the same lines, deleting cookies will sign you out of sites, but you should have no trouble signing back in since data is synced to your account.

Disable Edge Extensions

Third-party add-ons slow down the browser’s functioning as they are continuously running in the background.

In this regard, the more the number of extensions installed, the greater its adverse effect on the browser. Therefore, you should consider disabling these extensions.

Here are the steps to disable the Edge browser extensions:

Launch the Microsoft Edge browser and head over to the Edge extensions.
```
edge://extensions/
```
Disable the extension one after the other.

By doing so, you’ll notice an improvement in the browser’s performance.

Moreover, once you can identify the extension or extensions that were causing hindrance, you should consider removing them as well.

Though these third-party add-ons add more features to the browser, they are usually the single biggest culprit behind Microsoft Edge’s slow performance issue. Therefore, keeping their numbers at the absolute minimum is recommended, and only letting the essential ones be enabled.

Balanced Privacy Approach

Edge comes with three levels of privacy: Basic, Balanced and Strict. During the strict level blocks, all the trackers could also break a few websites. This inability of the sites to load could ultimately lead to issues with the browser.

Along the same lines, some users were also able to succeed after disabling the Secure DNS feature.

Here are the steps to change the secure DNS in Edge:

Launch Edge Browser and copy-paste the below location in the address bar:
```
edge://settings/privacy
```
It will open the Privacy settings in the Edge browser.
Select Balanced under Tracking protection.
Scroll down to the Security section and disable the Use Secure DNS toggle.

Verify if it can fix the Microsoft Edge slow performance issue or not.

Setting up the most stringent level of privacy does spell out the most secure work environment, but sometimes, it might not be the best way forward. Therefore, it is recommended to have a balanced approach in this regard.

Repair Edge Browser

Microsoft has baked in a repair feature for some of its built-in apps, and Edge is among them. This feature checks for all the underlying issues related to that app and then rectifies them accordingly.

It would uninstall the app from your PC and then re-install it without any manual intervention.

Here are the steps to repair the Microsoft Edge browser:

Keypress Windows + I shortcut keys to open the Settings menu.
Switch to the Apps tab from the left pane, and select the Apps & Feature option.
Scroll to the Microsoft Edge app, and click on the More option.
Select Modify option command.
It will open the Repair window.
Hit the Repair button and wait for the process to complete.

After the repair work is done, it is recommended to restart your PC. Once it boots up, check whether there’s any improvement in the browser’s performance.

Reset Microsoft Edge Browser

If repairing the browser didn’t spell out much success for you, your following action should be resetting the browser to its default settings.

Remember that doing so will reset all the startup and new tabs pages and remove the pinned tabs.

Here are the steps to reset the Microsoft Edge browser profiles and settings:

Launch the Microsoft Edge browser, and head over to the below location.
```
edge://settings/resetProfileSettings
```
Click on the Reset button in the confirmation dialog box.

Resetting the browser will bid farewell to your customized browser settings, but if it fixes the slowness of Microsoft Edge, then it’s worth the trade-off.

Reinstall Edge Browser

If none of those above tweaks improved the overall browser’s usage experience, you should consider uninstalling and installing its fresh instance.

Here are the steps to reinstall the Microsoft Edge browser:

Open File Explorer via Win + E shortcut keys.
Head over to the below location.
Please replace UserName with your location username.
```
C:\Users\UserName\AppData\Local\Packages
```
Delete the folder named Microsoft.MicrosoftEdge_8wekyb3d8bbwe.
Go to the Start menu and open Powershell as an Administrator.
Paste the below code and hit Enter key.
```
Get-AppXPackage -AllUsers -Name Microsoft.MicrosoftEdge | Foreach {Add-AppxPackage -DisableDevelopmentMode -Register “$($_.InstallLocation)AppXManifest.xml” -Verbose}
```

The combination of two commands will uninstall and re-install the Edge Browser on your PC. Once that is done, launch the browser and sign in with your account. It should fix the underlying performance issue.

Since it is a built-in app, uninstalling the Edge browser is a tad more complicated than the native method you might be following. But it comes with a high success rate and is usually known to fix most critical issues, so it’s worth a try.

Bottom Line: Edge Browser Slow

So with this, we round off the guide on how to fix Microsoft Edge’s slow performance issue. In most cases, deleting the cache and cookies or disabling the extensions should be enough to fix this performance issue.

However, if any browser’s file has got corrupted or outdated, you would have to consider repairing or reinstalling the app on your PC.

If you cannot fix the slow Edge browser, you can consider switching to other best available browsers for Windows.

On that note, we conclude this tutorial. Please let us know if you have any queries concerning the steps above or if the Edge browser is too slow. It’s worth sharing if you found something that has worked to fix the Edge browser’s sluggishness.

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3 thoughts on “How to Fix: Microsoft Edge is Very Slow”

Cameron November 15, 2021 at 12:28 AM
There’s another slow performance culprit in Edge – profile sync, it’s simple to disable and diagnose if this is causing the performance issue.
Erik February 28, 2022 at 7:21 AM
Thanks! These tips got my Edge back to normal!
JohnIL September 13, 2022 at 3:14 AM
Could be all the features Microsoft has added to Edge has caused some of the slowness to creep in. I use both Edge and Chrome and at first Edge was definitely faster overall using it then Chrome. But over time Microsoft added features to Edge that appear to have negatively affected performance a bit with Edge. I now feel Chrome continues to do better with page loading then Edge. Any browser works fine these days, its all incremental differences in page loading times. It is more about what you want in features in a browser.