The release of the recently reborn Microsoft Edge was interesting, but the new optimizations give hope to those who hope Microsoft will succeed in replacing Chrome in the browser. Yes, the browser that many once used only to download Google's browser may be a winner after all.

While the current build is proving to be interesting, a new blog post from the Microsoft Edge team boasts that performance will be greatly improved in future builds. Specifically, Microsoft touts that the latest version of Edge (version 81.0.389.0 or later) scores 13% faster on the Speedometer 2.0 benchmark than version 79 of Edge (the original Chromium build of Edge).

Edge 79 scored 84.85 (the median of 10 tests) and Edge 81.0.410.0 scored 96.15 (also the median of 10 tests). The tests were conducted on a Microsoft Surface Pro 5 with an Intel Core i5-8250U CPU and 8GB RAM, with no other applications or tabs open.

Importantly, this is a performance improvement that the average user should be able to notice, as Microsoft has confirmed speed gains in "typical browsing workloads." However, no one is claiming that students have become masters, as Microsoft has not compared its own scores to Chrome's.

Want to try this new, faster version of Edge? It's still in beta, so visit Microsoft's Edge Insider page to sign up.