Microsoft Edge Beats Chrome By Over Three Hours In New Battery Usage Test (bleepingcomputer.com)

An anonymous reader writes: With the launch of the Windows 10 Creators Update and Edge 40 (EdgeHTML 15), Microsoft has released a new battery usage test that, naturally, trashes the company's competition. This new test shows that Edge uses less power than both Chrome 57 and Firefox 52, and is bound to draw a response from its competition, especially Google, who doesn't like it when Microsoft takes a jab at Chrome's efficiency. The same thing happened last year, in June, when a similar test showcasing Edge's longer battery life was met with responses from both Google and Opera.

The most recent tests were performed for the launch of Windows 10 Creators Update. Two tests were carried out until a laptop's battery gave out. For each browser, a minimum of 16 iterations were recorded per test. The first test measured normal browsing performance and the second ran a looped Vimeo fullscreen video. In the normal browsing performance test, Microsoft claims Edge used 31% less power than Chrome 57, and 44% less power than Firefox 52. In the second test, Edge played a looped Vimeo video in fullscreen for 751 minutes (12:31:08), while Chrome lasted 557 minutes (9:17:03) and Firefox for only 424 minutes (7:04:19). That's a whopping three hours over Chrome, and five hours above Firefox.

Comments

Nobody

[MightyMartian]

Nobody believes you, MS. And even if it were true, Edge sucks so fucking bad that I'd rather have a shorter battery life and a decent browser than that worthless piece of shit browser you've produced.

Re: Nobody

[Anonymous Coward]

And yet the numbers are clear that Edge is superior. There's no denying that Edge drains the battery a lot less. You would rightly criticize anyone who denied the facts that humans are causing global warming. Why, then, do you get to deny these facts?

Re: Nobody

[MightyMartian]

MS's numbers are clear. I'm not really going to simply believe what MS says about their own browser. They've spent fifteen years exaggerating the wonders of their shitty browsers. As it is, unless battery life is your only concern, Edge just fucking sucks in every other way. The whole browsing experience in Edge just stinks, and the numbers don't lie there either, people simply don't use Edge.

Re: Nobody

[ArmoredDragon]

I actually just reformatted my daily driver desktop PC, installing the creator's update, and the new marketing pressure is real.

The first boot after install loads a cortana screen that doesn't go away until you click the mic mute button, with not one but three prompts to use a Microsoft account.

When you finally get to the desktop and use edge for the one and only purpose that most people use it for, it doesn't stop there. You type "Firefox download" in the search bar, and the first thing you get is a prompt to stick with edge. After you install Firefox and click to set it as default, the windows 10 default settings applet loads a blank screen (this repeated after multiple attempts.) So to change the default browser, you have to open that settings applet manually. Once you try to select Firefox as your default browser, you get another prompt telling you to try edge first, which you then have to dismiss to finally change the default.

Re: Nobody

[Anonymous Coward]

It wouldn't surprise me if MS has added code into Windows 10 to drain a battery faster if certain conditions are met.
Its not unusual behavior for MS. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Re:Nobody

[TechyImmigrant]

The test didn't even compare the battery performance while editing code with VIM followed by compiling it with MinGW.
Watching video's for hours on end is not something I do. Coding for hours on end is.

Re: Nobody

[whoever57]

And yet the numbers are clear that Edge is superior.

... because Microsoft would never cheat? Microsoft would never pick a set of tests that favour its own browser, or even put code into its OS to make the competition less efficient?

Re:Nobody

[BronsCon]

Right? I think the real news here is that Edge ran for 12 hours without crashing. I'm forced to restart it nearly hourly; not because I have to close it, but because it has crashed or closed itself. As a result, I neither use it, nor believe that it ran for over 12 hours in this test.

Re:Nobody

[Tharkkun]

Nobody believes you, MS. And even if it were true, Edge sucks so fucking bad that I'd rather have a shorter battery life and a decent browser than that worthless piece of shit browser you've produced.

Actually Chrome is an abomination lately. It's a memory hog. Firefox is performing far better now than Chrome. Google is more worried about its performance in the mobile world and less on the PC. Hell they are the only browser that hasn't restricted javascript from launching in it's own tab. 2 years behind...

Re: Nobody

[The Grim Reefer]

And yet the numbers are clear that Edge is superior. There's no denying that Edge drains the battery a lot less.

I can't say I've used Edge, so I really don't know. But because it uses less power does not make it a superior browser. It only makes a better at electrical consumption. While a Prius has better fuel economy than a Z06 Corvette, I wouldn't necessary call the Prius a better car. If you're commuting to work in it, sure it may be better. If your doing laps at the local track, not so much.

I not making any claims regarding what Microsoft has done, but it also wouldn't surprise me if Windows 10 finds a way to waste power when another browser is used. It's not like they haven't been caught for pulling anti competitive crap in the past. And their recent decisions with regard to Windows 10 don't inspire much confidence either.

Re: Nobody

[ausekilis]

Because these facts ignore other problems that Edge has. I've experienced slowdown, improper coloring, improper page layout (to the point of unusable) and a handful of other strange behaviors on a regular basis. I switched to Chrome because it just plain works.

So you can save battery life, but at what other costs? I'd rather get crap done than reload a page 100 times or wait 2 minutes for it to render.

Re: Nobody

[imgod2u]

"Superior" is a subjective term not at all equivalent with "drains battery less". I do in fact acknowledge that for Vimeo video playback and a "normal browsing" set of tasks Microsoft has come up with, Edge drains less battery than Chrome.

That, in and of itself, doesn't automatically confer the label "superior" to Edge for me. As I value the usability features of Chrome much more than Edge.

Re: Nobody

[avandesande]

I guess that's what 'Creators Update' means, in the spirit of Bill Gates era MS mid 90s......

Re:Nobody

[kangsterizer]

Have you even used Edge? because its actually pretty good technology.
Sure, so is Chrome (and Firefox, btw). But that's certainly not a "worthless piece of shit". Very far from it.

Heck these days when a page doesnt work in Chrome I load it in Edge and I don't even mind it.

Re:Nobody

[kangsterizer]

Kinda makes sense with Android being the most used OS in the world, though yes, not cool.

Re: Nobody

[dszd0g]

Climate change is supported by hundreds of independent studies. There are also some studies funding by the oil companies that cherry pick the data to claim that climate change does not exist or is purely following the natural course of the planet. There are articles that show how the oil companies studies cherry picked data points and why the results are invalid.

This article is based on tests done by Microsoft on their own browser. That is much more like the oil company "studies" than the independent ones. The Microsoft test isn't based on any industry standard benchmark or anything; they designed new tests to show off their browser. If you don't think Microsoft designed the tests to show Edge in the best possible light and the other browsers in the worst; then you are naive. Microsoft has a long history of producing PR that doesn't stand up to independent testing and many articles cover this topic.

The facts here are that Microsoft designed 2 tests that makes their browser look good. I don't think anyone is denying that. The facts we don't know is whether independent testing will show the same results.

Re: Nobody

[14erCleaner]

Boy, no wonder Firefox consumes so much power. All those extra screens....

Re: Nobody

[Rob Y.]

Surely an 'innocent bug'. Like how the browser choice function in Windows 7 used to routinely fail to work.

I assume there's no Metro version of Chrome or Firefox (yet?... ever?). In any case, I wonder whether 'legacy' win32 apps have to jump through hoops on this version of Windows to access the screen or other system resources that Metro apps do not - and whether those hoops drain the battery. It's either that or the websites they're testing on are getting some kind of native video boost that only Edge supports - and falling back to something else on Chrome and Firefox.

If it matters, presumably Chrome will fix it - to the extent that's possible while still maintaining their cross-platform code base. If it's just some artfully chosen test scenario, well that's not surprising...

Re: Nobody

[4wdloop]

...and next you're going to imply they also cheat on EPA emission tests, no? :-)

Re:Nobody

[MightyMartian]

Really? What actually sets it apart, or even makes it the equivalent of Chrome or Firefox?

Re: Nobody

[Gr8Apes]

And yet the numbers are clear that Edge is superior. There's no denying that Edge drains the battery a lot less. You would rightly criticize anyone who denied the facts that humans are causing global warming. Why, then, do you get to deny these facts?

The numbers are clear that a 0.1HP gas engined unicycle runs much further on a gallon of gas than a bus, so it is clearly superior.

Re: Nobody

[Gr8Apes]

Boy, no wonder Firefox consumes so much power. All those extra screens....

And all the extra processing that goes into checking that firefox is running. Maybe it would be better said that win10 creator edition sucks so bad it loses over 3 hours of battery life when running quality software.

Re: Nobody

[nomadic]

Interesting, I switched mostly to Edge because it seems faster and more efficient than Chrome (and I switched to Chrome in the first place because it seemed faster and more efficient than IE).

Re:Nobody

[jamesjw]

If you used a decent browser to begin with you wouldn't need the extra 3 hours of battery life to get your work done using Microsoft Edge...

Re:Nobody

[thegarbz]

That's fine, memory is cheap. As for Firefox performing far better? We'll have to see some stats. The ones in TFS show Chrome being more efficient already. On the general benchmark category each browser seems to win an equal number. And frankly as someone who uses both, Chrome just seems faster on the interface side.

Being "2 years behind" in something no one gives a crap about and doesn't have any impact is something people in general are okay with. People in general are also okay with high memory usage providing that usage doesn't result in a never ending climb due to a memory leak.

Quite frankly the fact that every other update to Firefox seems to break some plugin just shows Firefox is 2 years behind other browsers.

Re:Nobody

[Rick Schumann]

Seeing as how probably nobody to speak of is using either one, does anyone really even care about this?

Re:Nobody

[MightyMartian]

The whole Windows environment spies on you, and as to battery life, it's not that important to me, and even if it was, Microsoft's history of rigged analyses of the wonders of its own products would hardly convince me they're telling me the truth this time.

Re: Nobody

[david_thornley]

There's no denying that Edge drains the battery a lot less.

I'm waiting for the large number of peer-reviewed journal articles to have as much confidence in that as I have that AGW is going on. Heck, some independent tests would help.

And yet the numbers are clear that Edge is superior.

Leaving the computer off drains the battery even slower. Hence, by your reasoning, leaving the computer off is superior to running Edge. I'm finding that conclusion almost plausible.

Re: Nobody

[david_thornley]

I'm getting pretty good at hitting the invisible X on the notification to fix my Microsoft account so I can so something with my other Microsoft devices, which number almost but not quite one.

Re: Nobody

[ArmoredDragon]

You should probably pay attention to Microsoft's latest privacy disclosure. Edge and IE BOTH very much do spy on you. Microsoft records every URL you visit and every search term you type, including in competing search engines. So if you thought you had privacy when searching in duck duck go when used with edge/ie, you are wrong, as Microsoft does and will log it, and presumably even associate it with your name if you use a Microsoft account.

This is actually the whole point of Microsoft pushing edge/IE so hard: They KNOW Bing ultimately can't compete with Google in its current state, and thus neither can Cortana. The only way they can make it compete is if they can start recording what websites end users ultimately view after searching, thus knowing what content is actually relevant to given search terms.

If nobody uses edge/IE, then doing this is much more difficult, but Microsoft does try other approaches too. I know for example that Microsoft is now pushing some Bing extensions for third party browsers, and is even known to show a taskbar pop-up above the browser icon asking you to install it in some cases if you run windows 10.

Re: Nobody

[rtb61]

No the numbers are a lie. Why are they are lie because edge is running all of the fucking time, whether you use it or not. So basically the fucking liars are comparing edge running in the background and foreground to edge running in the background and Chrome running in the foreground. A straight up marketing fucking lie. So yes, just running fucking edge uses less power than running edge and chrome, surprise, surprise, surprise. Want a real world comparison for edge versus chrome, compare edge on windows 10 to chrome on linux and then just for fun compare TCO, M$'s favourite total cost of ownership. So conduct a range of internet tasks and then look a data usage will edge on windows 10 not only consume more energy but also how much more network data will be wastefully created.

On Windows 10, the bulk of edge is now running in the background no matter what the fuck you do, you can not stop it wasting power, reducing performance and spying on you.

Re: Nobody

[FirephoxRising]

We don't bother. If edge renders it poorly, who cares? IE was important because they had such a large segment of the market back then.

Re: Nobody

[ArmoredDragon]

See this is the problem. Even the self-professed geeks still use Windows and it's the same reason everybody uses Windows, because stuff works on it and it's easier to just use Windows rather than to make those workflows actually work on Linux.

Microsoft stories should barely get a blip of attention here, but they get overwhelming response because most of the people here use Microsoft products rather than contributing to developing or funding those workflows for Linux.

This ultimately comes from the smattering of (as Microsoft terms it) legacy applications out there, and then video games which rely on well optimized video card drivers to run well. This isn't Microsoft's doing so much as it is third party hardware and software developers putting less effort on other platforms. However, I wouldn't necessarily count on this remaining the case forever as Microsoft is already seeing its mindshare seriously take a nosedive over the last decade.

Re: Nobody

[SharpFang]

You know which browser draws batteries even less than Edge?

Lynx.

Re:Nobody

[FirephoxRising]

I can't use Edge for about 40% of the sites I use daily, they don't work well enough. I've tried, I was stuck on a PC once with now other browsers and no admin rights, shudder.

Re: Nobody

[Sperbels]

Probably yes. But let's be honest, browsers are ridiculous resource hogs these days. It wouldn't be hard to humiliate Chrome.

Re: Nobody

[im_thatoneguy]

Great idea! Hobble their whole Surface line of PCs and every single Mac vs PC comparison in order to win a pissing contest over browser efficiency.

Microsoft would be idiots to sabotage Chrome performance when they know that Chrome would be a normal battery benchmark when people reviewed their computers.

Re: Nobody

[emaname]

The stats re Edge's uptake are telling. Nobody likes it. MS knows this so they start a PR effort to make people think Edge is remarkable. This is a marketing piece, nothing more. And face it, MS's credibility is weak. They have repeatedly lied to and deceived their customers. I'm astonished that more people haven't abandoned MS's crappy, over-priced products.

Re: Nobody

[cjjjer]

But you are willing to be the product to Google I'd bet.

Re: Nobody

[unrtst]

... and then video games which rely on well optimized video card drivers to run well.

For many years, the video game excuse was that they only ran on Windows.
Then, for many years, that they ran poorly through wine (or various versions of it or winelib), or they were released later than the windows counter part (even if some of them actually ran better on linux).
There's also a fairly large list of games that still require Windows, or run better there, and that can be used as an excuse.
This quote, that they require well optimized video card drivers to run well, this is just stupid.

The majority of the driver is identical on all OS's. Let's ignore that for a second and assume that you found a case where your top end card (must be top end if the driver optimization has a big enough impact that it could make the game run poorly)... where your top end card actually runs noticeably better on Windows. For years now I keep hearing that someones top end card from 5 years ago is still plenty good enough to play any AAA title full res with medium to high settings. So, how is this relatively minor difference due to driver optimization holding up developers or users?

FWIW, I think there are some legit reasons that make significantly more difficult to successfully release a game on Linux. I think the majority of that has its root cause in a chicken and egg problem, but it's a problem nonetheless. But optimized drivers? That's not a valid reason for users or devs.

Re:Nobody

[unrtst]

I have, and consider it far, far behind the competition in features.

I'm honestly curious - what features are people talking about?

I don't run Windows, let alone Edge, so I can't compare. However, when it comes to browser features, they all seem to be removing them far faster than adding features. The only features left (by default) seem to be:
* back button
* reload button
* location bar
* tabs
* bookmarks
* incognito / privacy mode
* history / downloads
* print
* settings

I'm digging deep on some of those. There isn't even an OS title bar nor status bar anymore. I have a forward button, but I think I had to add that. I guess there's form autocomplete and password management too, but I turn those off first thing. What features are everyone talking about that Chrome has but Edge lacks?

Re: Nobody

[exomondo]

It wouldn't surprise me if MS has added code into Windows 10 to drain a battery faster if certain conditions are met.

If that really were the case it would be trivially easy to prove: Just run the same benchmark on Windows and Linux. No need to speculate.

Re: Nobody

[exomondo]

And yet the numbers are clear that Edge is superior.

... because Microsoft would never cheat? Microsoft would never pick a set of tests that favour its own browser, or even put code into its OS to make the competition less efficient?

If you really think that then just run the tests on Chrome on the same system in both Windows and Linux and you can prove or disprove your hypothesis.

Re: Nobody

[zennling]

So, just like the other version of internet explorer that were too hard to separate from windows?

Re: Nobody

[Custard Horse]

I have no doubt that the usage stats are skewed by people like me who accidentally clicks on the quick launch icon when I mean to launch Word (obviously not on my own PC where the edge short cut has been deleted).

Re: Nobody

[RuffMasterD]

Edgegate ;-) If MS was a foreign company, I am sure they would have been sued already for cheating by the US Department of Justice. But in communist USA, government bails out company for cheating!

Re: Nobody

[Joce640k]

The numbers may be clear but the test itself is complete bollocks.

The test is 'watching video in Vimeo'. Any efficiency is down to the video codec, not the "browser".

If you think your computer will go three hours longer when you're just generally surfing the web then you're WRONG.

Re: Nobody

[Merk42]

Because it's something in favor of Microsoft, and this is Slashdot.
In here, Microsoft is always wrong and bad.

Re: Nobody

[dave420]

Hardware acceleration is definitely up to the browser, and that has a huge impact on battery life and video performance. On my shitty AMD APU machine, Chrome chokes when playing video in the browser. For some reason Edge plays them with full hardware acceleration, removing the tearing and stuttering present in Chrome - with the same video. It's not as simple as you seem to assume it is...

Re: Nobody

[dave420]

That makes no sense. So what if Edge is running in the background? If it's not doing anything it's not doing anything. Chrome also runs in the background on Windows, so I don't know what your point is, and I'm slowly suspecting you don't either...

Re: Nobody

[Javaman59]

Whether it is true is not important.

Microsoft cannot undo three decades of mistrust that it has earned. At least not anytime soon.

Agreed.

Except that for me, "mistrust" has become "I'm sure you will screw me".

Re: Nobody

[Stickybombs]

It is kind of the opposite situation, though.
Windows comes on the majority of PCs, and it takes effort to switch to Linux, effort that most people don't want to bother with. So Linux numbers remain low
On the other hand, Edge is standard on most PCs, and it takes extra work to switch to Chrome or Firefox. Granted, it is easier than installing a new OS, but people are willing to put in the time and effort to get away from Edge, that's how bad it is.

Re: Nobody

[Javaman59]

use edge for the one and only purpose that most people use it for, it doesn't stop there. You type "Firefox download" in the search bar, and the first thing you get is a prompt to stick with edge.

Close, but not quite, for me. I also use Edge to access Microsoft web sites, with the hope that it *might* work better, on their crappy site. So far, without success.

Re: Nobody

[david_thornley]

To keep in tone with the insulting nature of your reply, you've got to be a deplorable to think that we have to take any single-sourced information as true, or as something there's "no denying" about. That Microsoft by itself can't provide the necessary tests is beside the point.

Moreover, your reading comprehension is thoroughly lacking if you can't see the difference between "used less power in one test" and "superior". If using less power does mean superior, then indeed you should leave your laptop off at all times (particularly if it runs Windows 8 or 10), If you actually want to do something with your laptop, and think that accomplishing something is superior to accomplishing nothing, even you should see that battery life isn't the only criterion for "superior".

Re: Nobody

[ArmoredDragon]

For years now I keep hearing that someones top end card from 5 years ago is still plenty good enough to play any AAA title full res with medium to high settings.

I've never heard that before, and it doesn't sound at all accurate unless you're just talking about playing older titles, in which case upgrading is typically moot. You're most likely thinking of CPUs; 4-6 year old ones work just fine for the newest AAA titles, and likewise you can typically keep the same old motherboard and RAM as well. However, video cards are a completely different story, especially for games that aren't simple console ports, and upgrading your video card typically doesn't require replacing any other components. In general, for the latest titles you don't want to have a card that's more than 3 years old, unless you want to turn down the graphics settings and/or put up with a slower frame rate. In fact, 3 years is probably even pushing it.

Re: Nobody

[exomondo]

There is a huge difference when an application uses spyware to when a whole operation system uses spyware.

AC isn't talking about an application, he/she is talking about a company that collects tracking and analytical information on billions of webpages that you could visit on the web.

If you don't trust an application then you just don't use it and use something else that you do trust.

And you should do the same for your operating system. Linux and macOS have long been viable alternatives and if you really need a program that only runs on Windows then you can run Windows in a VM, isolated from everything else. This has been a know solution for many years already.

Really?

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

Didn't we last month some story about MsDev IDE taking one full core to implement the blinking cursor? They probably tuned the code for this specific test.

Re:Really?

[Tharkkun]

Didn't we last month some story about MsDev IDE taking one full core to implement the blinking cursor? They probably tuned the code for this specific test.

That was the IDE. You use that to compile your code. That had no effect on the finished product. Only that the video performance was locked at a higher refresh rate.

Re:Really?

[parkinglot777]

Ironically (or not) it was a chrome bug.

Err... Chromium != Chrome

Re:Really?

[tepples]

Chromium and Google Chrome are identical except for a few proprietary components, mostly Adobe Flash Player and the video DRM stuff. Or are you claiming that one of those proprietary components caused Visual Studio Code's poor performance?

I believe it

[Anonymous Coward]

Since I never use Edge, I guess it'll never use the battery.

Re:I believe it

[kangsterizer]

This is why I browse Slashdot.

So?

[Anonymous Coward]

Edge is an incomplete browser by modern standards. Of course I'd expect it to not require as much resources (and the power they require) as a full spec web browser. If anything this is just MS highlighting the fact that their browser is incomplete as a feature.

Let me know how much power it uses when it can actually act like a normal browser. If it uses less power than the other browsers available at that time, then I'll be impressed.

Re:So?

[Anonymous Coward]

Edge is now a decent browser. Actually quite good, tbh

Re:So?

[ArchieBunker]

Ok I'll bite. What makes edge "incomplete"?

Great

[Opportunist]

So I can now spend 3 hours more using a browser that's unusable.

I kinda fail to see the benefit.

Re:It's clear that Edge is better

[Opportunist]

Because it wins in a metric nobody gives a fuck about?

Seriously, if your battery life depends on what browser you use, whatever you're doing with your computer cannot be too important.

good thing....

[avandesande]

the edge machine was infected with viruses that don't use much power!

Re:good thing....

[DickBreath]

The edge machine wasn't turned on until the final minutes of the test. Users of Edge were unaware of this and thought it was just the startup time for Edge. But it had great battery life.

Screw with the numbers

[rahvin112]

I'm sure the test was perfectly fair and they didn't do anything like ensure Chrome was loading and running flash on a video loop while their own used HTML5 and refused to autoplay. No way Microsoft would be that underhanded.

Re:Screw with the numbers

[DickBreath]

It's not like Microsoft has ever rigged tests before. Remember old Linux vs Windows performance benchmark? (I can't think of the name of it, sorry.)

It's not like Microsoft would put its thumb on the scales. Remember "Total Cost of Ownership" argument of Windows cost vs Linux cost?

no debugging session I suppose ?

[v1nce29]

I guess the test protocol doesn't include a debugging session (> 30 secondes to get to the debug console in Edge) nor the time (and battery) lost switching from Edge to IE and back (and finally to get back to chrome) to get the things done.

Re:no debugging session I suppose ?

[TechyImmigrant]

Debugging console? What's wrong with printfs?

Re:no debugging session I suppose ?

[darkain]

I didn't realize that pressing the "F12" key on the keyboard took so much longer in Edge than it did in Chrome.

Also, if you were unaware that F12 was the keyboard shortcut for the dev tools window, it is pretty obvious you've never actually USED Edge then, and are just talkin out your ass, since Edge literally calls it the "F12 Develop Tools" in both the context menu option to open the console as well as the title bar of said console.

Re:no debugging session I suppose ?

[v1nce29]

If you're ok with the slow, buggy, inconsistent, Playskool/W10 F12 tools in IE/Edge then I bet you never used a real debug environment as in Chrome or FF (not to mention the lot of addons that will ease your life) Going to debug mode in chrome takes less than 1 second (with lot of extension : snippet, styling,shader editor, inspectors (jq, three) ...) when it takes 30s in freshly installed Edge.

Re:no debugging session I suppose ?

[v1nce29]

you meant function printfs(txt) { windows.alert(txt); }

Re:no debugging session I suppose ?

[TechyImmigrant]

But it's faster tan the 30 seconds it takes to load the debug console.

Re:no debugging session I suppose ?

[TechyImmigrant]

you meant
function printfs(txt)
{
windows.alert(txt);
}

Tsk. What makes you think I would program on Windows? I write algorithms, not graphical candy.

Internet Explorer finds something to win at

[bussdriver]

Ignoring MS history, their Internet Explorer:Edge is at the "edge" of supporting many standards and probably far from supporting as many as the other browsers meaning it does far less work. Besides their advantageous knowledge of their own OS and not needing any portable cross platform code... such as being able to decode video playback thru their OS in ways the others may not do.

I frankly don't care, I will never go back to a corporate controlled browser and support that nightmare again... Including google - it's only a matter of time before they get worse and abuse their dominance. Some people think google's turned towards the dark side already. Boards of directors are not permanent.

Similar to my experience. But why is FF so bad?

[Anonymous Coward]

I mainly use Linux, but I occasionally use a Surface Pro 4 for testing web sites. This means I use Chrome, Firefox, Edge and Opera on the same system for long periods of time.

I can't talk about exact numbers, but what's described in the summary is similar to what I've experienced.

Firefox will drain the battery the quickest, without a doubt. There have long been rumors that it's a slow, inefficient browser, and I think this is true.

Chrome and Opera (which is pretty much Chrome these days) are about the same. I can test with them much longer than I can with Firefox, but usually not as long as I can test with Edge.

Edge drains the battery the slowest, but I wouldn't say that it's that far ahead of Chrome and Opera.

What I find really strange is the difference between Edge/Chrome/Opera and Firefox. I don't know why Firefox is so much less efficient than the others. I don't think it's a problem with my Firefox installation, because I usually test with one profile that has no addons installed, and another profile that has common ad blockers installed. Both last about the same amount of time.

Clearly there's a big difference between what Edge/Chrome/Opera are doing, and what Firefox is doing. Maybe Firefox uses slower, inefficient JavaScript code for its XUL UI, while Edge/Chrome/Opera all use more native UIs written mainly in efficient C++, or something along those lines?

I'm not sure if I'll even keep testing with Firefox. Its share of the market is only about 5% now, which puts it well below a lot of mobile browsers. I think I'll have to focus more of my testing efforts on those browsers, and less on Firefox.

Re:Similar to my experience. But why is FF so bad?

[justthinkit]

Just load Task Manager and you'll see why Firefox drains the battery. CPU utilization is crazy with Firefox. Routinely using 2 to 3 of my 4 cores. I'll stop working, with the most trivial of pages loaded, and wait for the CPU storm to die down.

Nothing makes a system feel more bogged down as well.

I forget what I was doing the other day. Nothing fancy, maybe video, and with a single tab the browser was using a gig of memory. Close browser, open it, load same page. Gig of memory.

Suckage, thy name is Firefox.

Re:What else beats Windows?

[Anonymous Coward]

IANAL but the information that I see contradicts with what I have read at other dozens of reliable sites:

-- Part of this license states that any changes to the kernel are to be made freely available.
Only true if you are going to distribute kernel outside the company. As long as you use within the company, you don't need to make source code available to anyone.

-- any products compiled with GPL'ed tools - such as gcc - would also have to its source code released:
This is simply not true even if you are doing a commercial release, let alone internal usage of compiled code

Credit where credit is due

[yuvcifjt]

No doubt, credit where credit is due and my hats off to MS in their browsers efficiency, however, it still doesn't change the fact that Microsoft's browser will always be seen as inferior like IE. I guess (sadly) the same as many people see Firefox as always bloated and inefficient compared to Chrome.

MS will no doubt use this to their advantage in ads as much as possible, but I don't think it will change the browser war - until perhaps they (like Google) also spend billions in advertising Edge all over the world in train stations to newspapers to billboards... all over the world! :)

But good news for the rest of us, hopefully it will force competition and hopefully get (especially) Mozilla to create a more efficient browser!

Re:Credit where credit is due

[Holi]

Microsoft is pretty much all you can use if you need things like java. Both Chrome and Firefox have broken support for certain plugins intentionally. That's a lot of fun when your banks deposit app runs on Java and you can no longer deposit checks.

Re:Credit where credit is due

[Gr8Apes]

Microsoft is pretty much all you can use if you need things like java. Both Chrome and Firefox have broken support for certain plugins intentionally.

Who runs anything in java in the browser?

That's a lot of fun when your banks deposit app runs on Java and you can no longer deposit checks.

Sounds like it's time for a new bank to me.

Re:Credit where credit is due

[serviscope_minor]

No doubt, credit where credit is due and my hats off to MS in their browsers efficiency,/em.

Really no doubt? The summary can be summarised further as "Microsoft says Microsoft is the best". I'd say there's a fair degree of doubt that they are, in fact, the best and I won't be taking their word for it.

Re:Credit where credit is due

[Holi]

Yep, because the IT department always gets to decide what bank a company uses.

Webster is the bank, our check capture software runs in Java, and it looks like most check capture devices use Java (or activex which leads to the same problem).

To me that means...

[QuietLagoon]

That I will be subject to the poor performance of Edge for that much longer... So, is more battery life really a good thing in this instance? (of course, that's presuming that Microsoft didn't cook the numbers. Nah, they'd never do something like that...)

Re: Similar to my experience. But why is FF so bad

[Anonymous Coward]

I think the answer is obvious: the developers for the competing browsers know what they are doing and the Firefox ones don't. Firefox never cared about performance. They DID care about worthless, egotistical things like developing their own slow webdev frameworks that only worked with their browser, and that NOBODY adopted. "Grand" (in their own mind) stuff, not pedestrian things like memory usage or not crashing. Firefox "architects" have less talent than the competition -- less "engineering" ability.

Looping video can be cached

[fustakrakich]

Edge just has a lot of buffers

Ad blocker

[fred6666]

In real world, any gain in battery life made by using Edge is more than lost for not having an ad blocker.

Re:Ad blocker

[aitan]

If you want an ad blocker, then you should install the proper extension: https://www.microsoft.com/en-u...

Vendor Paid Test

[Luthair]

Favours vendor in a shocking twist.

Not to beat a dead horse, but...

[poofmeisterp]

...Didn't they integrate some browser into an earlier version of their operating system at some point in the past, and get sued over it?

I wonder what happens if you integrate a running virtualized piece of software, loaded "into the OS" at all times, to remove the conceptual difference between "normal" and "excessive" power usage...?

Oh, and they just set the "new official industry standard for battery usage measurement"; one you must comply with in order to have their "certification".

Ima shut up now. Ahh, mem'ries.

The better tool takes less time.

[SeaFox]

It doesn't matter if Edge is more battery efficient if it's less time efficient to use it. The extra laptop run time till be lost in having to spend more time to do the same tasks because of lack of add-ons/familiarity with the software. Not to mention that would cost me real world time I could be doing stuff besides the activity that required web browsing to start with.

3 hours!

[Chas]

Yes! By completely fucking off on security, we've extended run time by three full hours!

Too bad it only takes someone 15 seconds to break in and corn-hole your device (by accident) or 5 seconds (if they're actually trying).

Open the source and give it to Tor...

[emil]

...and maybe I'll use it. Not until.

Re:It's clear that Edge is better

[DickBreath]

Edge might be better. The problem is that I have so little trust for Microsoft that I would actually trust Google more. That says something. Microsoft spent three decades earning its bad reputation. They can't make it better overnight. Google spent more than a decade earning its great reputation. They can easily destroy it in a relatively short time. Trust is not easily earned, but is easily and permanently lost.

What about standards?

[Gravis Zero]

How does Edge and other browsers do on standards compliance tests? Who cares how long it works if it doesn't work correctly?

Re:What else beats Windows?

[bmk67]

Absolute bullshit.

What if it were true?

[Anonymous Coward]

How should Microsoft approach this assuming it were true? Imagine a universe where Edge really was substantially more battery efficient than Chrome. What could Microsoft do to convince Slashdot that it were the fact?

Run tests? "Of course Microsoft won, it was rigged."
Run tests and publish the data? "It has to be bias. Microsoft ran the tests, and of course they would rig it."
Pay a company to run the tests? "It has to be faked. Whoever pays the piper calls the tune, and they took Microsoft's 30 pieces of silver."

So what could they do?

Re:What if it were true?

[OYAHHH]

My gut tells me no one at MS has opened a browser to /. in years now.

This is my experience

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't like Edge that much and use Chrome the most and Firefox and Edge much less. But in my experience if all your concerned about is battery life then use Edge. Really there is no real argument against Edge except personal preference. Edge as a browser is perfectly fine for browsing web. It lacks a lot of extensions and advanced features. But for basic browsing and battery savings, why not use Edge at those times when battery life is important. Used to do the same on my Mac's when Safari was so much better with battery life than Chrome. Chrome for all its positives has always had issues with battery life. This is simply the negative effect of design and function.

Re:This is my experience

[MightyMartian]

If the quality of the browser isn't an obstacle, and battery life is your only really concern, then I'll wager Links has everything else beat for battery life. What's more, it's probably the safest browser ever made.

IANAL a lawyer but my advice would be to

[v1nce29]

hire a lawyer who is sober

Re:IANAL a lawyer but my advice would be to

[MightyMartian]

More to the point, tell a story that isn't a complete fabrication. /. really does need to kill the AC.

Re:IANAL a lawyer but my advice would be to

[nomadic]

Yep, by Slashdot standards I am a pretty big Linux-basher but this is pretty clearly a troll.

Re:What else beats Windows?

[losfromla]

total bullshit.
No MS Troll who's entire career has been spent developing on windoze would know how to or why the kernel should be modified, much less have the chops to do so. Defragging "some stuff"? WTF?
"We were informed by a lawyer...". Bullshit.

Everything by this troll is uninformed marketing drivel. It seems like some shitty essay posted by a marketing droid out of Redmond or some other anti-Libre outfit.

Clear? Not really. Remember Dieselgate?

[Anonymous Coward]

But remember too that MS have rights to internals of the OS that others do not have, and can also pick what machine to use in case there's oddities in the MS ACPI implementation that they can gain yet more advantage with.

Moreover, we don;t know what Edge has on normally but for this test MS turned off.

Re:What else beats Windows?

[losfromla]

LoL

This is a good thing

[xantonin]

I don't use Edge, and I'm a Chrome user myself, but this is good. Google needs some competition because let's be honest, Chrome is a damn resource whore.

It wouldn't hurt if Google gave Chrome a "battery optimized" mode.

Not a valid testing methodology

[scdeimos]

Although Microsoft claims that the three browsers are being tested on "the same Vimeo video" I'm betting that the three browsers are being served different versions of said video. This kind of test is entirely dependant on CODEC selection and video resolution, both of which affect hardware-based decoding and battery efficiency. To be a valid test the browsers should be playing back the same video file from local media.

I don't doubt it

[Kupo]

MS Edge is a fast, lean, and efficient browser. When I play around with underpowered WinTabs, Edge consistently has smoother browsing (load times, scrolling, etc.) all around, when compared to Chrome and FF. It simply uses less RAM and CPU compared to the competition. Therefore, it's not surprising that it fares better with battery life comparisons. If they made even more improvements lately compared to the last time I played with Edge, I congratulate them for a job well done. Edge is indeed much more efficient than their competition, and as a web/software developer, that makes me appreciate their efforts on that front.

HOWEVER, that does not excuse their crappy security model. Anyone that's watched recent hacking events should know that Edge is the laughing stock of the bunch when it comes to vulnerabilities. Some of it comes with being the younger browser of the bunch. But that shouldn't really be an excuse in this day and age. I can't trust a browser that is so full of holes.

I'd appreciate if MS focused more on closing gaping security holes than a few more % on arbitrary benchmarks that become meaningless because the target audience is too afraid to use the product anymore.

Battery Life vs Privacy

[WillAffleckUW]

Luckily for us, neither one has actual privacy, so it doesn't matter what the battery life is.

Real world tests don't tend to just use browsers, actually.

Damn, my modpoints expired yesterday unused

[mpercy]

Was out of town for several days, otherwise this would have been modded up some more.

and in other news

[Anonymous Coward]

Notepad uses less battery than Word.

battery life is so important

[eaglesrule]

Who cares about security, and MS siphoning up your user activity?

Edge could be ten times better than all the other browsers, assuming you can trust their metrics at all (which you can't). I wouldn't use it, for the same reason I wouldn't eat the world's most delicious sandwich if it happened to be sitting on top of a giant mound of shit.

Low hanging fruit

[OYAHHH]

Ignoring the Chrome comparisons, comparing Edge to Firefox just isn't a fair fight. Heck, I believe I could come up with a better browser than Firefox.

Re:It's clear that Edge is better

[OYAHHH]

I trust neither. Google talked a good game but is now just as evil as the rest.

Breaking news from the Gee, Ya Think dept.

[halfdan the black]

Say it isn't so, multiple process, constant IPC messages, massive amounts of wasted memory in multiple processes consume more energy. Nahh, really, say it isn't so.

Energy usage is directly related to memory usage: more memory used means more energy required to access it.

We need to get back to writing efficient code again. By that, code that minimized memory and CPU usage, and is not a bloated multi-process pig like Chrome.

This multi-process crap is the biggest pile of crap, it increases complexity by SEVERAL ORDERS OF MAGNITUDE, it takes something that used to be a clean elegant design like WebKit and makes it into the multi-process monster that is completely and totally unintelligible to anyone other that a few core devs. It wasted a massive amount of memory, wastes CPU and wastes energy.

There is no evidence whatsoever...

[Man On Pink Corner]

... that any representatives of the Trump campaign organization cooperated with, colluded with, or otherwise worked with any Rus--

Oh, wait, sorry, wrong account. Ahem.

There is no evidence whatsoever that Firefox, Chrome, or any other browser is even remotely competitive with the superior battery life and rendering performance available from Microsoft(r) Edge(tm). I just installed the Windows(r) 10 Creators Update(tm) last night, in fact, and was delighted with all aspects of the newly-enhanced customer experience. My laptop's battery life is the envy of everyone from the Energizer Bunny to Elon Musk. Luddites and dead-enders still running Linux or Windows 7 don't know what they're missing! I was skeptical, don't get me wrong, but I decided to embrace change instead of fighting it. Give it a try, tovarisch, I'm sure you'll agree!

Microsoft tweaks Edge to run better under Windows

[najajomo]

"Microsoft Edge Beats Chrome By Over Three Hours In New Battery Usage Test" which wouldn't be suprising seeing as most of the Edge rendering code is embedded into the Operating System.

Safari too

[the-matt-mobile]

Chrome is a serious resource hog on the Mac too, even with few or no extensions. Chrome 57 is somewhat improved, but I find myself favoring Safari much more simply because it will not destroy my battery life. Firefox is orders of magnitude worse than all of them. While I don't believe Microsoft's 3 hour number either, it's indisputable that Chrome can't beat Safari or Edge when it comes to battery life, a fact which I appreciate Google finally feeling the pressure to address.

Re: Similar to my experience. But why is FF so ba

[unrtst]

since Mosaic was the only browser in existence.

Minor nitpick, but that's never been the case. You might assume I'm talking about Lynx (which did predate Mosaic, barely) or something similar, but Mosaic wasn't even the first graphical web browser. This is grammar-nazi level nitpicking though... you could have easily said, "I have been using the web since Mosaic was released", and that'd mean the same thing and have the same impact, even if you didn't use it on release day (Mosaic was around for less than 2 years before Netscape Navigator was released, so you must have used it somewhere in that short range of Jan 1993 - end of 1994).

Re:What else beats Windows?

[SharpFang]

OP is a dirty unwashed troll, and you, sir have been trolled.

Google Chrome Beats Edge

[stooo]

>> Microsoft Edge Beats Chrome By Over Three Hours In New Battery Usage Test

Better headline :
"Google Chrome Beats Edge By Over Fifty Percent In New Market Usage Test"

Chrome: ~50%
Edge: ~1,5%
Ouch
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Re:What else beats Windows?

[Zontar The Mindless]

It's also copypasta that's at least 10 and maybe 15 years old. Pay no heed to it.

Yes, that's what we want

[lcarnevale]

That's exactly whats relevant, not speed, comply to standards, javascript compatibility... you did it again M$

Oh sure

[kilodelta]

Longer battery run time but the great big security hole that is Edge no thank you.

Only on Win 10

[iampiti]

No matter how good Edge is it doesn't change the fact that you must be using Windows 10 to be able to run it...so it's out for me.

At same performance?

[BeanThere]

It's not a fair comparison if Edge is in effect sacrificing performance - e.g. perhaps the video played smoother and dropped fewer frames on Chrome? We don't know. Could be something as simple as, something in their tests trigger hi-rest timers i.e. timeBeginPeriod to be called on Chrome, e.g.: https://bugs.chromium.org/p/ch... (this was a known issue in Chrome for a long time, and if you read the "fix", it isn't a 100% fix in that Chrome will still active high-res timers in some conditions) ... if Edge say never sets the time period to 1ms but Chrome does then though Chrome might use more power it could be at a benefit of increased performance. If Edge performs as well, and has as responsive a UI, in those same tests, then they have a much stronger case.

Of course, users may want battery life over performance in some cases, e.g. if at a coffee shop or on a plane. If plugged in, I'd want performance over battery life.

Re:At same performance?

[BeanThere]

For a bit more info/explanations on the above, see: https://randomascii.wordpress....

Re:It's clear that Edge is better

[DickBreath]

Note that I did say "I would actually trust Google more. That says something." I have a certain amount of trust for Google. But only a certain amount. And it is gradually declining. If the downward trend is not reversed, I won't trust Google at all at some point. I understand that Google is a business and acts in its own self interest. They seem to forget that I also act in my own self interest.

That's all well and good...

[Phoenix]

That's all well and good that they have a lower power demand.

It however does not change the fact that Edge is a browser that wants to do everything but can't do any one thing well. The damn thing wants to be my primary PDF viewer and I've yet to have one single PDF file load in it either from a web page or from a local file. I'm also quite annoyed with the fact that it gets all pouty when you want to make something else your primary handler of a function that it wants to have control of. It begged me when I wanted to make Adobe my PDF viewer, and it pleaded when I set Opera as my browser.

And even now, any time I go to a Microsoft page it gives me that sad puppy dog look saying that I should give it another chance.

You know the look. The sad puppy that's all alone in the world...at midnight, in the cold, it's raining, on its birthday, and a larger dog stole his birthday bone.

So what

[tflf]

Hey Microsoft, even if your testing results are true, they have the same real-world validity as Ford noting the Edsel carried more passengers than a Volkswagen Beetle. In 1959, Edsel was the worst vehicle choice possible, passenger capacity notwithstanding. In 2017, for most of us, Edge remains the worst browser choice possible, battery usage notwithstanding.

Re:Irrelevant, this is a goddamned ad.

[exomondo]

Which you read and then commented on, seems it worked.