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Windows 10 Warns Chrome and Firefox Users About Battery Drain, Recommends Switching To Edge (venturebeat.com)

Posted by msmash on from the their-os,-their-rule dept.

A month after Microsoft claimed that its Edge web browser is more power efficient than Google Chrome and Firefox, the company is now warning Windows 10 users about the same. VentureBeat reports: Microsoft has turned on a new set of Windows Tips that warn Windows 10 users that Google Chrome or Mozilla Firefox is draining their laptop's battery. The solution, according to the notification, is to use Microsoft Edge.In a statement to the publication, the company said: "These Windows Tips notifications were created to provide people with quick, easy information that can help them enhance their Windows 10 experience, including information that can help users extend battery life. That said, with Windows 10 you can easily choose the default browser and search engine of your choice."

31 of 377 comments (clear)

  1. 'Enhancements' by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    You know what would enhance my windows 10 experience? Allow me to disable driver-breaking updates.

    1. Re:'Enhancements' by gweilo8888 · · Score: 5, Funny

      You know what would enhance your Windows 10 experience even more? Uninstalling it.

    2. Re:'Enhancements' by rubycodez · · Score: 3, Informative

      he only needs to install this patch http://goodbye-microsoft.com/

    3. Re:'Enhancements' by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Precisely. Using that same logic, they should suggest you uninstall windows and install Linux with just a shell. :)

  2. Windows 10 isn't done until... by zkiwi34 · · Score: 3, Funny

    Chrome, Firefox, or for that matter anything not out of Microsoft won't run.

    1. Re:Windows 10 isn't done until... by Shadow99_1 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Ironically Chrome runs just fine for me on Windows 10, however Edge does not. It regularly 'comes up' and then doesn't load correctly. This gives me a useless window that won't connect to sites on the internet. Ever. I open and close it enough it it may eventually open correctly. Chrome? Chrome always opens. Firefox did as well when I had it installed. Opera works fine and all the time as well. No idea why Edge can't work right, but it's the one I won't be using.

      --
      we are all invisible unless we choose otherwise
    2. Re:Windows 10 isn't done until... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      See how much battery power it saves!

  3. "Google works better with Chrome" by Hardhead_7 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    So what's the news? Google pushes you to download Chrome every time you visit their site.

    1. Re:"Google works better with Chrome" by shaitand · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Google doesn't have a monopoly on the desktop... hasn't been convicted of illegally using that monopoly to give a market advantage vs competitors including their browser. That would be apples to apples if Microsoft were advertising Edge on bing.

      Yet again, Microsoft is up to their old tricks. Sleezily shoving windows 10 down the throats of users and now slimy tricks to get people to install their new browser.

    2. Re:"Google works better with Chrome" by WheezyJoe · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Yes, and Yahoo (remember them?) suggests you run Firefox. But these are routinely ignored, jammed somewhere on a corner of the page. Attentive users may be annoyed for a few moments before moving on, while novice users have no awareness it was ever there. I mean, the page is displaying, isn't it? It's like you drive to McDonald's, and see a sign that says "Your ride here would have been more fun in a Chevy Malibu!" Nevertheless, you've arrived, your attention turns to your craving for salty oily processed food, and you go on your way.

      It's a different thing when the OS itself bitches at you. They tend to look like dire warnings, that send dumb users to the phones asking "am I doing something wrong?" Like Amber-Alert signs flashing at you to dump your ride for a Chevy Malibu cause you're wasting gas or something.

      --
      Take it easy, Charlie, I've got an Angle...
    3. Re:"Google works better with Chrome" by kheldan · · Score: 5, Insightful
      Knowing Microsoft's history, I wouldn't at all be surprised if it detects a 3rd-party browser being used, and intentionally disables power management to force battery drain, to trick you into using their browser instead.

      Hey, nice battery you've got there, end user, it would be a shame if something.. HAPPENED to it.. Maybe you'd better use our Edge browser, you know, for your own protection

      --
      Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
    4. Re:"Google works better with Chrome" by mschwanke97402 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      So what's the news? Google pushes you to download Chrome every time you visit their site.

      I don't have to use Google. In fact, I use DuckDuckGo instead. I pretty much have to use Windows for business reasons. You see the difference?

      Then there is simply the old school belief that a computer OS should be a neutral platform, enabling the user to make the computer do its bidding, not serving up ads that you can't turn off on a device that you actually need to use.

    5. Re:"Google works better with Chrome" by shaitand · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Google and Facebook are pretty sleazy but they don't have a monopoly. Idiots buy into their shit eyes wide open.

      Microsoft does have a monopoly and is actively trying to use it to dupe people into adopting their new products.

      Google and Facebook have set up a stand that says in big bold blinking letters. "Free stonecones with ass raping!" When questioned they say that everyone has to be ass raped in order to make free snow cones possible. But that isn't the point, the point is, you could simply choose to buy a snow cone at any of the other snow cone stands.

      Microsoft is setting up a booth in the doorway of the only grocery store in town with a sign saying "Free health checkup! You'll live longer using our quick and fun service." You then have to solve a rubiks cube to indicate you don't want the service and just want to go in the store, anything else, including putting the cube down results in a 6'5 greasy convict grabbing you and ass raping you.

      See the difference?

  4. No thanks, again. by ITRambo · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I've found Edge to be unstable on many sites. It's also slower than Chrome, Firefox, or Opera. The biggest issue I have with Edge is that I cannot add uBlock Origin as an extension, which reduces data usage and speeds up browsing. Edge is a real POS that should never have been released when it was. Edge being the default browser on Windows 10 is what helped Chrome become the most widely used desktop browser. Microsoft will do and say whatever they can to try to win people back to the MS browser camp. No thanks.

    1. Re:No thanks, again. by SuricouRaven · · Score: 4, Funny

      I've not used edge much, but in its defence, it is better than the previous IE.

      In the same way that the common cold is better than norovirus.

  5. Re:And on Chromebook... by MightyYar · · Score: 4, Funny

    Which would piss me off if they sold it as a general purpose computer instead of a "Chromebook" that runs... Chrome.

    --
    W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
  6. Re:And on Chromebook... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    And when you run Edge or Firefox on a Chromebook, Chrome OS warns.... Oh wait. You can't run 3rd party browsers at all under Google's Chrome OS.

    firefox runs just great on my chromebook, just install chrubuntu and it's just another linux box.

    tell us about the os choices on your surface hardware

  7. Laughable by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    It's laughable that they claim to care about the battery now. If they really cared, they'd let me shut down my fucking laptop without installing updates.

    Hey Microsoft! I don't always have time or battery power to sit around waiting for updates to install!

  8. Re:Warning: Windows 10 is draining your battery by jellomizer · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I expect most of it is because Edge is already running in the background (Integrated web browser). So When running Chrome of Firefox it is using more power because you are running Edge and the other browser. If you could fully deIntegrate the web browser from Windows You may see Windows running with less power requirement. And when you kick off a third party browser you may not see such a drane.

    Also I expect your other browsers are using the extra processing power to do things like properly rendering the page. And not the cheapo decade behind the times compatibility that Edge has to offer.

    --
    If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
  9. Re:Consistency people by torkus · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Yup, but not on my desktop itself.

    I only see those notifications when I visit google's webpage as part of (or in place of) other ads.

    As opposed to a 'notification area' being used as an advertising area. It'd be nice though if they made a button called 'yeah I acutally know what i'm doing, leave me alone' ... I mean besides installing linux of course.

    --
    You can get rich if you own a politician, but you have to be rich to buy one in the first place.
  10. Re:And on Chromebook... by Sax+Russell+5449D29A · · Score: 4, Insightful

    It's about holding a dominant position in the computer OS markets and utilizing that to further entrench your dominance. The same applies for example to Google using their dominant position on the search engine markets to promote their own products at the expense of competitors' visibility in search results.

    --
    -SR
  11. is there by desdinova+216 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    an ad blocker for edge. last time I tried it they didn't have any ad blocker (please no host file APK spam) I refuse to run a browser without ad blocking because of malware.

    1. Re:is there by ljw1004 · · Score: 3, Informative

      an ad blocker for edge. last time I tried it they didn't have any ad blocker (please no host file APK spam) I refuse to run a browser without ad blocking because of malware.

      Yes, the ad blockers so far released for Edge are "Adblock" and "Adblock Plus"
      https://www.engadget.com/2016/...

      They're for the anniversary update, currently available on the insiders program, due for general release on August 2nd.

  12. Re:And on Chromebook... by Lonewolf666 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    In related news, the European commission starts noticing a possible abuse of Android to skew the market against competitors:
    https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/apr/20/eu-commission-google-android-skew-market-competition-antitrust-vestager

    It seems quite possible that the next antitrust proceedings are brewing here...

    --
    C - the footgun of programming languages
  13. Re:Warning: Windows 10 is draining your battery by chipschap · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Well ... seriously, on my Asus Zenbook running Linux Mint 17.2, I get 10 hours of battery life if I'm not running Chrome but that goes down to 4 hours if I leave Chrome up in the background.

    I have to agree that Chrome is a battery eater; Firefox is a lot easier on my battery, but not running processes I don't need is even better.

    I don't have Windows installed so I can't compare with Edge.

  14. Re:And on Chromebook... by MightyMartian · · Score: 5, Informative

    Except Edge sucks so incredibly bad that even if it made my battery last three times as long I wouldn't use it. With great effort we've finally rolled out our default apps XML file through GPO settings to all but make Edge disappear, because that astonishingly terrible hunk of shit even wants to open PDF files by default.

    --
    The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
  15. Re:google chrome sleep mode? by tepples · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Chrome will automatically unload the contents of tabs you can't see in low memory conditions.

    Which makes it harder to open things in tabs to read later while offline, as it'll often try to reload them from the Internet instead of cache.

  16. Old dog, old tricks by duckintheface · · Score: 5, Insightful

    In the late 1990s Microsoft was found guilty of violations of the anti-trust laws for using their monopoly in one market (operating systems) to leverage market share in another market (browsers). Through a number a dirty tactics, Microsoft stole the browser market from Netscape and avoided the creation of an independent, OS-neutral, platform for running applications.

    Now, twenty years later, Microsoft up to its old tricks. Using the Windows 10 market share to leverage its browser. I'm thinking the Department of Justice might want to take a look at the Microsoft consent decree from their last conviction.

    --
    "He took a duck in the face at 250 knots." -- William Gibson, Pattern Recognition
    1. Re:Old dog, old tricks by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

      > where Google refuses to allow any YouTube apps on Windows Phones

      That is not true. Microsoft wrote an app that abused YouTube's terms of service, so Google asked for it to be removed. Later it was reinstated without the ability to download and save videos, which was the issue.

      There are several YouTube apps available on Windows Phone so you are completely wrong.

      > Microsoft is not the bad guy,

      Yes, they were. Microsoft knew YouTube's terms of service and deliberately abused them.

  17. Re:And on Chromebook... by joetomato · · Score: 3, Informative

    What's wrong with Edge?

    Your favourites folder is no longer able to be redirected, (They're stored in some awful location like %appdata%/localLow/Microsoft /{00423025-2252342fj90fcj2903} in some awful proprietary blob database, so if you're in an environment that you might use multiple computers there's no way to sync your favourites unless you log into the computer with a microsoft account (Or Azure AD account) And the GPO's available at the moment to configure it are pretty much non-existant. You can set the home page and a couple other things but other than that it's pathetic.

  18. Re: What's next? by Ol+Olsoc · · Score: 3, Informative

    You still ain't shown anything to backup your incredible claims.

    https://support.office.com/en-...

    Office for Mac doesn't run correctly within itself. https://support.microsoft.com/...

    Some ways to help - but not a complete list. http://www.officeformachelp.co...

    A bad answer, but more problems http://answers.microsoft.com/e... As they say "most likely" That will take care of some issues but not all.

    http://www.walternelson.com/dr...

    Here you are told to do exactly what an above link tells you not to do http://presentationsoft.about....

    Just general things https://support.microsoft.com/...

    This one is cute - directly from Microsoft and I quote> "However, high compatibility workbooks/projects can be achieved", as well as "There may well be a solution or workaround." Hozabout that? High compatibility is not compatibility, and workarounds are not compatibility. http://answers.microsoft.com/e...

    And with Office 365 in particular http://answers.microsoft.com/e...

    So anyhow there is about as much as I'm willing to do for you, coward. Any more, and do your own research Which of course is a non starter isn't it?

    Right from Microsoft, they speak of it's issues. Take it up with them. Sparky.

    Meantime, I'm using a suite that doesn't have those issues.

    --
    The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.