Q Something strange has happened to my Edge browser. It’s not causing me a problem as such, but I’d like to know what’s going on. It’s hard to explain exactly, but sometimes some of my tabs look faded. Which tabs are faded and which aren’t seems fairly random. If I click one of the faded ones it returns to its normal colours for a while, although others might fade in the meantime. The only practical problem with this is that I find the faded tabs a little harder to see, but I’d like to stop it happening anyway. Have you any idea what’s causing this?
Eric Fortune
A Yes – this is a feature in Edge, not a fault. Microsoft’s browser puts inactive tabs to sleep after a set period of time to free up system resources. How this affects you in your daily use depends on your computer and how many tabs you tend to keep open. It could speed up a slow PC, but it can take an extra second or two for a sleeping tab to wake up after you click it.
The feature was introduced in 2021 so it’s not particularly new, but we suppose a recent update might have enabled it on your computer when previously it was switched off.
It’s easy to disable, but you can also tweak this feature so it works in the way you want. First, click the Edge menu button (three dots, top right) then Settings. Next, on the left, click ‘System and performance’. On the right, under the Optimise Performance heading, you’ll see four sliders that let you choose how sleeping tabs behave.