SoftwareNov 12, 2026, 5:07 AM UTC·2 min read

Windows 11 opens a hidden second browser when you click links

Click a link in an email and Windows 11 may quietly start a second copy of your browser, then close it again. Microsoft's fix cuts the delay from 70 to 3 milliseconds.

A Windows 11 desktop with a browser window opening after a link is clicked in an email. — Image: t3n Magazin

Click a link in an email on Windows 11 and your browser may not simply receive it. Windows often starts a second instance of the browser first, even if Chrome is already running, and then quietly closes it again.

The reason is a check. Windows launches the browser to find out whether it is already active. If it is, the extra copy disappears and the link is handed to the instance you were using. It happens whenever a browser has already been started since the last restart, or whenever a link is clicked outside the browser. If the browser has not run yet in the session, the link takes longer anyway, because the whole program has to start.

What is Accelerated Warm Launches?

Microsoft calls the fix "Accelerated Warm Launches" in its developer documentation. Once a browser has started, it is registered as the program responsible for opening links and further instances, so the detour is skipped. In first tests, Windows 11 needed about 70 milliseconds to pass a link to the browser before the update. Afterwards it needed only three.

So far, only Microsoft's own browser, Edge, has had the feature. That may change. Mozilla is now testing it for Firefox.

Can Chrome and Firefox use it too?

Not freely. The feature sits behind an unlock code that developers have to request from Microsoft. According to the reporting, Mozilla was able to use an older code that had been meant for pinning apps to the taskbar.

It is still unclear whether and when Firefox will get it without problems. One open question is which Firefox instance should receive the link when several profiles are open. It is also not settled whether Microsoft has to approve the feature before release. The same hurdle would likely apply to Chrome if its developers tried something similar.

For you, the difference is small, a few dozen milliseconds. But if Windows 11 sometimes feels sluggish when you open links, this is one of the places Microsoft is working on.

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Tags:windows 11microsoftfirefoxchromeedgebrowser