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The slowdown might be caused by the extra steps related to prompting the user and the job-based processing for background tasks. Let’s address two key factors to improve the efficiency:

1. Job Processing: The script starts a new background job (Start-Job) for each URL, which adds overhead. Instead of starting a job for each URL, we can directly open URLs without background jobs, which will likely speed up the script if the number of URLs is manageable.

2. File Validation: Instead of reading the file content multiple times, we can read it once and perform all checks in one go, which avoids some unnecessary file operations.

Key Changes for Performance:
1. No Background Jobs: Instead of using Start-Job, URLs are opened directly using Start-Process. This eliminates the overhead of managing multiple jobs, which improves speed.

2. Single File Read: The file is read only once, and we perform all the filtering and validation in memory. This avoids redundant file I/O operations.

3. Efficient Filtering: We use Where-Object { $_.Trim() -match "^https?://" } to filter out empty or invalid lines in a single step.

What this Means for Performance:
Speed: By removing background job handling and reducing file operations, this script will run faster, especially with a moderate number of URLs.
Responsiveness: The prompt for "Press Enter to exit" is still there for user interaction, but the rest of the process is more direct and efficient.
When to Use Background Jobs:
If you have a very large number of URLs (e.g., hundreds or thousands), you might consider using background jobs again. However, in most cases, processing the URLs sequentially (one at a time) will likely be faster, especially when managing browser processes.

If the delay is still noticeable, I recommend testing this version first to see if it meets your needs for efficiency.