How to permanently enable JPEG XL in Microsoft Edge 91-109

enable-jxl-edge-91.md

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⚠️ Instructions below only apply to outdated Microsoft Edge versions. Since JPEG XL support has been removed from the latest versions of Edge (110+), this guide is irrelevant on the latest systems. Windows 7 and 8(.1) are limited to Edge 109, so the guide can still be used there.

ℹ️ Users are advised to move to Thorium, an enhanced fork of Chromium that supports JPEG XL out of the box by default.

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How to permanently enable JPEG XL in Microsoft Edge 91-109

Enabling JPEG XL in Microsoft Edge is tricky. The runtime flag has to be embedded in a shortcut and may not work all the time (e.g. if you run Edge from a different shortcut without runtime flag). Here's how you can enable it permanently... or at least until you revert it.

1. MAKE SURE THAT THE BROWSER ISN'T RUNNING.
2. Open %localappdata%\Microsoft\Edge\User Data in File Explorer.
   • Keep in mind that there are other versions of Edge that might be on your PC. They have their own path variations:
     • Edge Beta: %localappdata%\Microsoft\Edge Beta\User Data
     • Edge Dev: %localappdata%\Microsoft\Edge Dev\User Data
     • Edge Canary: %localappdata%\Microsoft\Edge SxS\User Data
3. Open Local State file in your favourite text editor.
4. Find "enabled_labs_experiments": string.
   • If you found it, enter "enable-jxl@1" inside empty brackets next to the string above.
   • If the brackets aren't empty because you've already got some flags enabled, insert ,"enable-jxl@1" (yes, with that comma) before the closing bracket, after all other flag descriptions (or inside the list, I tried to keep its alphabetical order).
   • If you couldn't find that string, try temporarily enabling a non-harmful flag in edge://flags (I'd recommend Parallel downloading), then close the browser, open the file again, and replace that flag's string ("enable-parallel-downloading@1", if you followed my example) with "enable-jxl@1".
5. Save and close the file, then open the browser and test if JPEG XL is working on https://jpegxl.info, https://jpegxl.info/jxl-art.html and https://mo271.github.io/jxl.

We need to fork Edge 110, there must be Open-Source components considering the Chromium-Base 🤔

And off topic but, is WebGPU still in it too?