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IE8 Beats Other Browsers In Laptop Battery Life
WARM3CH writes "AnandTech tested a laptop with an AMD CPU, a laptop with an Intel CPU, and a netbook to compare battery life while running Internet Explorer 8, Opera 10, Firefox 3.5, Safari 4, and Chrome. They tested on simple web pages and flash-infested ones. IE8 had the best battery life on both laptops (followed by FF + AdBlock), and Safari had the worst battery life. On the netbook, Chrome was slightly ahead of IE8. The report concludes: 'Overall, Internet Explorer and Firefox + AdBlock consistently place near the top, with Chrome following closely behind. Opera 10 Beta 3 didn't do as well as Opera 9.6.4, and in a couple quick tests, it doesn't appear that the final release of Opera 10 changes the situation at all. Opera in general — version 9 or 10 — looks like it doesn't do as well as the other major browsers. Safari is at the back, by a large margin, on all three test notebooks. We suspect that Safari 4 does better under OS X, however, so the poor Windows result probably won't matter to most Safari users.'"
I have to agree. I'm on a Macbook Pro now and using Snow Leopard with it's 64-bit Safari. Everyone is saying how fast and quick Safari is...along with Chrome, but the simple fact is both of these browsers don't have Adblock so they're actually SLOWER than Firefox with Adblock because they all have to load in those ads.
Maybe Safari and Chrome are fast on a test....but in real world situations without adblock, they're slow.
"Leo Fender was in a 'state of grace' when he designed the Stratocaster." -- Paul Reed Smith
And that is why IE8 has the best battery life - the IE version of the Flash player is hardware accelerated.
Very simple experiment - obtain a temperature monitor that can show you CPU and GPU temperatures. (This usually needs discrete graphics, although some integrated graphics systems hide the northbridge temperature as the "PCI" temperature.) Monitor CPU load, as well.
Start a flash video in IE. Note what happens to all temperatures - CPU load will be low, CPU temps won't change much, GPU temps will rise.
Now, start a flash video in any other browser (that isn't IE-based.) CPU load will be (comparatively) high, and CPU temps will rise. GPU temps will stay steady, or at most climb a couple degrees just because of being heated by the CPU.