Microsoft shows how Edge compares in battery life

[ImBleu]

Source: http://www.theverge.com/2016/6/20/11975514/microsoft-chrome-edge-browser-battery-life-tests

Video: 

 

 

 

 

 

Quote

Microsoft has created two tests to measure the power consumption by browsers. The first is a test in a lab-controlled environment measuring typical browsing behavior on popular sites, while the second experiment times how long streaming HD video lasts for. 

 

Microsoft's lab-controlled tests also show that Chrome, Opera, and Firefox all use more battery power than Edge during an automated cycle of opening sites, scrolling articles, watching videos, and opening new tabs. To further prove Microsoft's point, the company is also releasing aggregated telemetry data from millions of Windows 10 machines that show Microsoft Edge and Firefox are both more power efficient than Google's Chrome browser.

 

I wonder how these results will change when Edge gets its major update this summer which includes browser extensions, however Microsoft (and Google) have both shown interest in making their browsers a little less resource intensive. 

 

 

I personally use Google Chrome on my desktop and Edge on my Laptop, but can't vouch for how the power consumption varies between the two browsers. Chrome clearly leads the market compared to Microsoft Edge, and Opera / Safari / Firefox among others but I think this is an interesting test nonetheless, regardless of what browser you use.

 

Take the results with a bit of salt though, as I HIGHLY doubt Microsoft would show themselves losing against their competitors in an advert conducted by them, but it is thought provoking nonetheless. 

 

 

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UPDATE: Opera challenges Microsoft's claim, shows Opera beating Edge in battery life test.

 

Source: http://www.theverge.com/2016/6/23/12011802/opera-microsoft-edge-opera-battery-life-claims

 

 

Quote

"Like most other engineering teams, we love it when someone picks a fight," says Błażej Kaźmierczak, director of software development at Opera. "If we get beaten in a test like this, we consider it a bug."

 

[themaniac]

4 minutes ago, ThatCoolBlueKidd said:

I personally use Google Chrome on my desktop and Edge on my Laptop, but can't vouch for how the power consumption varies between the two browsers

well its not like you and anyone else with a laptop cant test it, just run an hd video on loop and time how long it takes the laptop to die on each browser

[Trixanity]

I immediately knew before even clicking that Chrome would be last. It's resource-hungry like no other regardless of OS. Windows, MacOS, Android - all the same. Too bad that Chrome has the best UI and is generally the most pleasant to use on all OSes. That's actually pretty much the only reason I use it. I'd switch browser the moment the UX was better elsewhere and on all platforms too.

 

On the Mac, I'm guessing Chrome would have the same 4 hour battery life where Safari would probably do 10 hours or so. So if I know I won't have access to charging I switch to Safari just to be sure it lasts. But it kinda pains me to do so.

 

On Android, the other browsers just can't compare (sadly) and I've tried a lot of browsers. So Chrome it is, even though it kills the battery.

 

On Windows, I'm mostly using Chrome but I occasionally use Firefox and Edge too just to switch it up a bit.

[atrash]

I actually agree with the test that was done. I use mainly Safari on my macbook and no browser comes close to giving the best battery life like it (6-7 hours easily). And I have also tested all the other browsers beside Safari (obviously) on my SP4 and Edge actually does have the best battery life among them all (Opera come in close second with the power saver mode on). If I'm on battery I'll use Edge but if not, Opera is my main browser. 

 

Chrome can suck dick on laptop imo.

[daniielrp]

This is the one reason I try and stick to Safari on my Macbook. 

 

Desktop is Chrome all the way!

[GoodBytes]

It must be remembered that this is STREAMING VIDEO.

While nice to know for those who like to watch a lot of videos, like YouTube, or Twitch, it would be nice to see how it fairs in terms of loading and navigating pages. Basically, how battery intensive is the page rendering, and Java-Script engine is on the battery, and which one is the best on battery life.

 

For example, Web Browser 1 can be really fast at page rendering, and Java-Script performance, but the laptop has the shortest battery life.

Web Browser 2 can be the reverse, where it is painfully slow to render pages, and has horrible Java-Script performance, but has the longest battery life.

 

While difficult to design such test (at least one that will please everyone), I think it would be best for a reviewer to do this (unless, it just happen that Edge is really good at this as well, else I doubt Microsoft will say the other web browser is better), and let the reader, based on its preference pick the best web browser. For example, on desktop, one can pick Web Browser 1. But on the laptop, where that person wants every seconds of battery, and doesn't care about performance at all, and can wait, web browser 2 might of interest, or web browser 3 which could be in between.

[Master Disaster]

1 minute ago, GoodBytes said:

It must be remembered that this is STREAMING VIDEO.

While nice to know for those who like to watch a lot of videos, like YouTube, or Twitch, it would be nice to see how it fairs in terms of loading and navigating pages. Basically, how battery intensive is the page rendering, and Java-Script engine is on the battery, and which one is the best on battery life.

 

For example, Web Browser 1 can be really fast at page rendering, and Java-Script performance, but the laptop has the shortest battery life.

Web Browser 2 can be the reverse, where it is painfully slow to render pages, and has horrible Java-Script performance, but has the longest battery life.

They should have ran a browser benchmark on a loop on all browsers and timed how long it took the battery to get from full to empty. That would have given a much clearer result. 

[terrytek]

whatever. microsoft can still suck my ass. chrome is still the superior browser in any case. and also fuck safari, i'd use chrome on mac over safari fuck that.

[Master Disaster]

6 minutes ago, terrytek said:

whatever. microsoft can still suck my ass.

[terrytek]

1 minute ago, Master Disaster said:

idc. i'm tired of microsoft shoving their fucking services down our throats. especially shit like windows 10 and that HATEFUL bing. i hate how you can't change the default search engine for cortana anymore. it's forced the search through bing. like that's just low, microsoft. fuck you.

[ImBleu]

51 minutes ago, Trixanity said:

 

On the Mac, I'm guessing Chrome would have the same 4 hour battery life where Safari would probably do 10 hours or so. So if I know I won't have access to charging I switch to Safari just to be sure it lasts. But it kinda pains me to do so.

 

On Android, the other browsers just can't compare (sadly) and I've tried a lot of browsers. So Chrome it is, even though it kills the battery.

 

On Windows, I'm mostly using Chrome but I occasionally use Firefox and Edge too just to switch it up a bit.

 

I own multiple Mac devices and exclusively use Safari because it just plain works better than chrome on the OS, it's better optimized. I didn't even bother with chrome on my macbook.

 

I also tried everything on android (Cyanogen's Browser, Chrome, Opera, Opera Light) and only chrome is half decent so i'm stuck with it.

 

[terrytek]

1 minute ago, ThatCoolBlueKidd said:

 

I own multiple Mac devices and exclusively use Safari because it just plain works better than chrome on the OS, it's better optimized. I didn't even bother with chrome on my macbook.

 

I also tried everything on android (Cyanogen's Browser, Chrome, Opera, Opera Light) and only chrome is half decent so i'm stuck with it.

 

really it sucks there isn't a single browser optimised for android. hell even google's own chrome runs like shit on android.

[Nineshadow]

Firefox masterrace.

[Sauron]

No wonder it draws less power while doing half as many things

[thekeemo]

No choice but to use opera because of my internet speeds

[Commander Llama]

I use Chrome most of the time and Firefox on my Linux distros. Honestly, Chrome's impact on my Surface Pro's battery is not that big a deal to me because I still get around 5 hours out of the device and that works for me.

 

When last I checked, Edge had no extension support, and my extensions are essential to my Internet experience. The fact that Chrome auto imports all my stuff with my Google account to all devices is very convenient too.

 

So the question becomes, what exactly is the "edge" this new browser is bringing, that's so good that I should switch? Can it do everything Chrome and Firefox does, plus I get 2 hours more battery?

[daniielrp]

Well at least Microsoft's efforts haven't been pointless. A massive 11% of LTT people will now consider switching.

[AlexGoesHigh]

3 hours ago, GoodBytes said:

It must be remembered that this is STREAMING VIDEO.

While nice to know for those who like to watch a lot of videos, like YouTube, or Twitch, it would be nice to see how it fairs in terms of loading and navigating pages. Basically, how battery intensive is the page rendering, and Java-Script engine is on the battery, and which one is the best on battery life.

https://blogs.windows.com/msedgedev/2016/06/20/edge-battery-anniversary-update/

they released this a couple hours ago, its still a bit bare and some of the details about the benches aren't detailed but it has more info that the video.

[GoodBytes]

1 hour ago, Commander Llama said:

I use Chrome most of the time and Firefox on my Linux distros. Honestly, Chrome's impact on my Surface Pro's battery is not that big a deal to me because I still get around 5 hours out of the device and that works for me.

 

When last I checked, Edge had no extension support, and my extensions are essential to my Internet experience. The fact that Chrome auto imports all my stuff with my Google account to all devices is very convenient too.

 

So the question becomes, what exactly is the "edge" this new browser is bringing, that's so good that I should switch? Can it do everything Chrome and Firefox does, plus I get 2 hours more battery?

 

Wait a few weeks, and Edge will be more feature complete, improved, and have extension support.

Insiders can already enjoy officially released: https://developer.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-edge/extensions/

(As more popular extensions are officially released, the page is updated), and you yes, you can side-load extensions if you have one still in the works. Officially, you can get them by searching through the App section of the Store (once Windows10 Anniversary Update is officially released).

 

[pyrojoe34]

I have started using Edge for any flash video streaming (HBO, Hulu, redbull.tv, etc) since Firefox doesn't have native support and even when I install flash it tends to skip and drop frames (on a i7-6800k w/ GTX980?!). Chrome doesn't skip but everytime I go to full screen flash my nvidia drivers crash and recover continuously.... So the only option I had left was Edge and it worked perfectly, Lower CPU/gpu use for video, no skipping, and no GPU driver crash.

 

I'm a Firefox guy and have been since as long as they became a thing, but for flash video streaming it's by far the best. I still use Firefox for everything else I do and any non-flash video (netflix, YT, vimeo). But I have to hand it to them, Edge is not all that bad, I just wish they'd finally add add-ons to it so I can get ublock...

[Trixanity]

13 minutes ago, pyrojoe34 said:

I just wish they'd finally add add-ons to it so I can get ublock...

It's coming in like a month or so, when the next big Windows Anniversary update is released publicly. Although uBlock is not yet available on the Insider Preview but Adblock Plus is (would prefer uBlock myself). 

29 minutes ago, GoodBytes said:

 

Wait a few weeks, and Edge will be more feature complete, improved, and have extension support.

Insiders can already enjoy officially released: https://developer.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-edge/extensions/

(As more popular extensions are officially released, the page is updated), and you yes, you can side-load extensions if you have one still in the works. Officially, you can get them by searching through the App section of the Store (once Windows10 Anniversary Update is officially released).

 

Funny thing is that a lot of the addons don't show up in the Store itself. You have to use the Extensions menu in Edge and get a link to the Store page from there. It's ridiculous how bad the Windows Store still is. I mean wtf are they doing? Neither looking up extensions manually in the Store or searching for them works. And yes, I've reported how bad the Store is to Microsoft months ago but I doubt the feedback gets read when there isn't a ton of upvotes on it. I suspect that they split up feedback per country even though I report in English regardless of that. It means things are less likely to see wide-spread recognition from users. They should actually add the ability to revert to an international English-language feedback hub.

3 hours ago, terrytek said:

really it sucks there isn't a single browser optimised for android. hell even google's own chrome runs like shit on android.

Yeah, it's ridiculous how Google have been unable to make an efficient browser yet. Actually, expand that to encompass Android in its entirety. They have a ton of work to do on performance, efficiency and optimization yet. They're moving too slow.

3 hours ago, ThatCoolBlueKidd said:

 

I own multiple Mac devices and exclusively use Safari because it just plain works better than chrome on the OS, it's better optimized. I didn't even bother with chrome on my macbook.

 

I also tried everything on android (Cyanogen's Browser, Chrome, Opera, Opera Light) and only chrome is half decent so i'm stuck with it.

 

I always found Safari's UI jarring. As I mentioned: my primary motivation for using Chrome is the UI/UX and the extension support. The potential speed is of no concern to me. I find most browsers (on desktop) are "fast enough" on modern hardware.

 

And definitely agreed on the Chrome part. I feel like I'm stuck with it. When you say Cyanogen Browser do you mean the new "Gello" browser that I've seen mentioned as being a new thing or is it an older project?

[GoodBytes]

Windows 10 Anniversary Update is still in the works. Heck the Update system of the Store doesn't work. It will get fixed soon.

[brownninja97]

Functionality comes at a price, mozilla and chrome both have a crapload of features so they do require a good level of cycles so this energy usage isnt surprising. Its nice that edge is so lightweight but its slow and customising options are pitiful.

[AlTech]

7 hours ago, ThatCoolBlueKidd said:

 

I own multiple Mac devices and exclusively use Safari because it just plain works better than chrome on the OS, it's better optimized. I didn't even bother with chrome on my macbook.

 

I also tried everything on android (Cyanogen's Browser, Chrome, Opera, Opera Light) and only chrome is half decent so i'm stuck with it.

 

When I used a mac briefly, I mainly used Safari cos battery life on Chrome was shitty.

 

Now I use Edge on my laptop (and also desktop) cos I knew Chrome was eating through my battery life.

[iCrushDreams]

I hate the Microsoft ecosystem as a whole. The entire ecosystem pretty much sucks.

 

If anything, it'd be motivated to use Opera on my Surface when battery is a concern.