“Batteries-Included” vs “Bloated”

Fundamentals are invisible. Features are controversial. One of the few common complaints against Microsoft Edge is that “It’s bloated– there’s too much stuff in it!” A big philosophical question for designers of popular software concerns whether the product should include features that might not be useful for everyone or even a majority of users. ThereContinue reading ““Batteries-Included” vs “Bloated””

Microsoft Edge Tips and Tricks

Last Updated: June 3, 2022. The intent of this post is to capture a list of non-obvious features of the browser that might be useful to you. Q: How do I find the tab playing audio? It’s cool that Microsoft Edge shows the volume icon in the tab playing music and I can click toContinue reading “Microsoft Edge Tips and Tricks”

Chromium Internals: PAK Files

Web browsers are made up of much more than the native code (mostly compiled C++) that makes up their .exe and .dll files. A significant portion of the browser’s functionality (and bulk) is what we’d call “resources”, which include things like: Images (at two resolutions, regular and “high-DPI”) Localized UI Strings HTML, JavaScript, and CSSContinue reading “Chromium Internals: PAK Files”

Edge Command Line Arguments

Microsoft Edge offers broad variety of configuration options, via This list of sources is roughly in order of stability and supportability– earlier choices change less often (and with more notice) than options I listed later. List of all command-line arguments for Edge? Unfortunately, Edge has not published a list of implemented command line arguments, althoughContinue reading “Edge Command Line Arguments”

Accessibility (UIA) Troubleshooting

Last update: Sept 20, 2023 Chromium-based browsers offer a number of accessibility-related features. When you visit about:accessibility, you can see more about the state of these features (similarly, you can find the states in about:histograms/Accessibility.ModeFlag). You can enable features via the Accessibility page, or pass the command line argument –force-renderer-accessibility into the browser. In someContinue reading “Accessibility (UIA) Troubleshooting”