Short for Unified Extensible Firmware Interface, UEFI is an upgrade to the traditional computer BIOS that Intel started developing as EFI. UEFI is an update that includes improved boot times, better security with cryptography, and better support for the hardware found in today’s computers.

UEFI is compatible with the standard hard drive partition format, which utilizes an MBR (master boot record) and the GPT (GUID partition table) partition format. Linux and Windows operating systems can utilize UEFI.

As of November 2021, the current UEFI specification is version 2.9, published in March 2021.

Computer acronyms, EFI, Intel, Motherboard terms, Secure boot

  • The official UEFI website.