We know Microsoft Edge from the age of Windows 10, continually improvising, and learning from its mistakes quite well. This browser was originally codenamed “Spartan” and it officially switches to chromium in Jan 2020 after a full year in the beta stage. Its core team is currently working on a project – “Super Duper Secure Mode (SDSM)”, and this feature is now available on all its insider channels i.e. Canary, Dev, or Beta.
As of now, there is no browser focused on users’ privacy except Apple’s safari. With Microsoft enabling SDSM, there will be a rush among other well-known browsers as well to safeguard privacy. Let’s explore what this SDSM is, how it works, and how to enable it on your PC –
What is Super Duper Secure Mode and how it works?
Microsoft has brought this new feature “SDSM” in order to protect its users’ data from being exploited online. What they actually did is disable “Just-in-Time”, a key feature behind a browser’s overall performance. Though JIT helps in keeping things move quite fast, chances of vulnerabilities entering your site increase as well. With JIT now disabled on Microsoft Edge, developers are now finding alternatives to boost the site’s performance.
Since this is still an experimental feature, you can enable this only on Canary, Dev, or Beta channels. As per the official statement, the company is working on how to reduce security bug attacks that occur because of an ill-coded javascript.
What was JIT and how it improves browser performance?
Javascript is such a beautiful language and it empowers a website to attain real beauty. All major companies use javascript to run their frontend or backend. For example – Google, Youtube, FB, Wikipedia, Amazon, and several other famous companies. Small scale publishers also use javascript to make their Sites appear neat and clean. However, when it comes to handling complex commands, a javascript-based site also consumes more resources.
Back in 2008, Javascript introduces a technology “Just-In-Time Compiler (JIT)” that boosts the performance of all sites that use javascript. Sadly, with this new technology, viruses also find their way to enter the backend of a site. That’s the reason why companies often release new patches fixing the bugs that pop up every now and then. Installing these patches is an essential task as otherwise all your cookies, caches, browsing history, and other saved information will be at risk.
Microsoft’s new technology i.e. Super Duper Secure Mode disabled JITs right away. Going this way makes your browser more secure and safe to surf online, however, this will decrease the overall performance of the browser in use.
Should I turn on SDSM on Microsoft Edge?
As we discussed above, SDSM is a security feature, one should enable this feature to tighten security while browsing over the internet. However, as this feature is still in the developing phase, you may skip this for now as well. In short, it depends on what you do while connecting to the internet. If you browse too many unsecured sites, the SDSM feature will surely help to minimize the risks that lie there.
How to Enable Super Duper Secure Mode on Microsoft Edge
The SDSM is an experimental feature, so you can’t enable this on the stable versions of Microsoft Edge. To use this feature, you have to download and install either Canary, Dev, or Beta version. Here’s how to enable this security feature on the versions listed above –
- Launch Microsoft Edge (Canary).
- Go to the address bar, and copy/paste the following path –
edge://flags/#edge-enable-super-duper-secure-mode
- Press Enter to open the flags experimental settings.
- Use the drop-down next to SDSM, and select the option – Enabled.
- When a prompt comes into the view, hit Restart.
That’s it, your browser is now more secure and will prevent exploiters from stealing your online activities data from the browser.
Can I visit suspicious links after enabling SDSM?
Obviously a big NO. When a browser warns you from entering a website, you should immediately skip visiting that link. If you do visit even after reading the warning message, your browser can’t be held accountable for this. When you enable Super Duper Secure Mode, this only adds another security layer that too compromising the browser’s overall performance. So, it is best for you to avoid opening any suspicious sites on the Edge browser.
With an ever increase of blogging, malicious content is also growing fast on the web. So, it is up to you whether you want to be at risk while opening the sites that a browser warns not to. Each and every browser has its own way of handling suspicious sites. Microsoft went for this way at the cost of some performance and is aiming to progress. Only time will tell whether Edge will continue with SDSM or not as this is still in development mode.
That would be all from our side.
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