Microsoft makes it easier to see and understand Edge processes in the Windows 11 Task Manager

Arif Bacchus

An age-old problem of web browsing is coming across a website that might end up slowing down your PC. You can typically see this in Task Manager, by looking at the Edge process and seeing its overall memory consumption, but it’s usually a struggle to pinpoint the exact website that might be giving you issues (if you don’t use Edge’s own in-built Browser Task Manager.) Well, starting in Edge 94 on Windows 11, Microsoft is making big changes that should make this a thing of the past.

In Edge 94 on Windows 11, Microsoft enabled a detailed view of Microsoft Edge processes in Task Manager. For web browser processes in the Task Manager, you now can see the process type with a descriptive name and icon such as “browser,” “GPU Process,” or “Crashpad.” Meanwhile, for utility, plug-in, and extension processes, you will see the process type, and the name of the service, plug-in, or extension. Finally, for tabs and render processes, you’ll see the word tab, followed by the site name and icon.

This is how you can end up finding and “killing” a tab that takes up too many resources. We included a sample of this for you below. You can learn more about killing tabs through the Task Manager, and any adverse effects from doing so over on Microsoft’s blog.

Microsoft Edge processes in Task Manager might end up being shared, so you can click the arrow to expand a process, and see all subprocess associated with it. Since multiple items share a process, the item that has the arrow next to it will show you the total resource usage for that process. When expanded, the resource usage for the remaining rows will remain blank.

In addition to these changes, Microsoft is also updating the Browser Task Manager in Windows 11. It now looks a bit similar to Edge browser processes in the Windows 11 task manager. Microsoft says this is to help people better understand where system resources are going in Edge.

These changes are now available in the stable version 94 of Microsoft Edge. We’re seeing it on a non-insider Windows 11 PC, too. So, make sure Edge is fully updated, and check this feature out and let us know your thoughts in the comments below.