Microsoft emphasizes the move it took by highlighting how effectively it works, saying it can increase browser performance while lowering disk footprint, after beginning cache compression on Microsoft Edge 102 on Windows earlier this year.
In the blog post, Microsoft states that its team’s mission is to create the best-performing browser on Windows and other platforms. “When a browser utilizes too many resources, it can slow down the entire system in addition to having an adverse effect on the browsing experience. However, when it comes to performance improvements, we frequently need to strike a balance between optimizing for the system as a whole and optimizing for one resource in particular because doing so might frequently result in increased consumption of another resource.
When consumers repeatedly attempt to access the same online file, disk caching is a crucial component for browsers to maintain quick action performance. The cache saves and keeps the web resources so that the browser may quickly access them from the computer’s local storage when the user needs to view them again. Microsoft clarifies that it could not work well on computers with little or no storage, though.
Since an unbounded cache can result in the system running out of disk space, it is explained that we need to carefully regulate the size of the cache, especially on devices with limited disk capacity. Browsers already regulate disk cache utilization based on available space in order to prevent the browser cache from using up all of the disk space. This problem becomes urgent, particularly for computers with limited storage capacity.
This problem, which hinders the performance of the browsers, is something that Microsoft Edge intends to fix. Edge can conserve disk space by using disk cache compression to “highly compressible” information. The compression will only take place on approved devices, says Microsoft, “to ensure the compression will be advantageous without harming performance.”
