Microsoft Says Edge is Still More Power Efficient than Chrome and Firefox (neowin.net)
An anonymous reader quotes Neowin:
Every time Microsoft releases a Windows 10 feature update, it runs some efficiency tests to prove that its Edge browser is significantly faster than the competition, which includes Mozilla Firefox and Google Chrome. Then the company posts the detailed results on its Windows blog and YouTube channel, boasting about the power efficiency of its browser. Even though the company still has run battery tests, it has remained strangely silent about them, posting about it on GitHub only. While many thought that Microsoft's silence on the matter was due to Edge finally losing to the competition, it appears that this is not the case.
As spotted by Paul Thurrott, Microsoft has indeed run efficiency tests for Edge in Windows 10 version 1809, pitting it against the likes of Firefox and Chrome. Through these tests, the company has concluded that Edge lasts 24% longer than Chrome and a massive 94% longer than Firefox on average.
"While Edge appears to have won these efficiency tests easily as well, it is likely that the company did not decide to promote this achievement -- as it has always done previously -- because of the planned abandonment of EdgeHTML in favor of Chromium," the article concludes.
"It will be very interesting to see if Microsoft Edge is able to maintain its battery advantage once the switch to Chromium is complete."
As spotted by Paul Thurrott, Microsoft has indeed run efficiency tests for Edge in Windows 10 version 1809, pitting it against the likes of Firefox and Chrome. Through these tests, the company has concluded that Edge lasts 24% longer than Chrome and a massive 94% longer than Firefox on average.
"While Edge appears to have won these efficiency tests easily as well, it is likely that the company did not decide to promote this achievement -- as it has always done previously -- because of the planned abandonment of EdgeHTML in favor of Chromium," the article concludes.
"It will be very interesting to see if Microsoft Edge is able to maintain its battery advantage once the switch to Chromium is complete."
If only it worked as well in the real world as it apparently does in tests.
After all these years I have a hard time understanding why "browser wars" are still a thing.
We've got plenty of options and more perhaps coming.
Another consultant who stuck it out.
"We are the Priests, of the Temples of Syrinx..."
A browser that is so dysfunctional that no one uses it, who cares how efficient or fast it is?
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
Your browser can't use much battery power on laptops...
why is microsoft building a new edge browser using chromium?
Most of the time I run CCleaner on my laptop, I get a message saying it needs to close Edge to clean its cache files. I don't use Edge. So apparently Microsoft has gamed it so Edge runs in the backround even if you don't use it.
That makes me wonder about the tests where Edge "beats" other browsers in power consumption. Maybe they were actually measuring the power consumption of Chrome + Edge, vs only Edge.
yet they want to switch to Chromium engine.
But rendering sucks
Sent as ripples into the electromagnetic field. No single photon has been harmed in the process.
shared library shenanigans that boost Edge performance.
They will switch to Chromium, remove the shenanigans and we're back to zero.
Why does Microsoft always double down on the shitty products it makes instead of admit failure, learn a lesson, and move on? Edge is shitty! It has a crappy UI and overall feel. I am NOT going to use it and there is no convincing me otherwise: I don't even like Chrome. I am a Firefox user. I don't even care if Firefox is marginally less resource efficient if it has a good UI and smooth experience.
I bought my girlfriend a Dell laptop for Christmas. She’s a MS SQL DBA primarily and specifically said no MacBook (I’m a Unix Eng and have a MacBook :) ).
Anyway, not long after getting her laptop up and configured, we removed MacAfee, it would popup every few minutes insisting she purchase the product, and then after hunting for a few things on the ‘net and having trouble with Edge’s results, asked me which browser I recommended. I had her install chrome even though I use Firefox (I’m used to the development console on firefox).
[John]
Shit better not happen!
is that they are probably going to lose the power efficiency advantage once they switch to chrome's engine.
i like the idea of having a barebones light browser that just renders good webpages. kinda like the original phoenix was supposed to do
Open Source Java Web Forum with LDAP authentication
Thanks to Ubuntu, I have been free of the influences of microsoft since July 4th of this year. There is no condition or event that could make me reconsider that decision, so I couldn't possibly care about their browser or o.s. or apps or whatever.
Circle the wagons and fire inward. Entropy increases without bounds.
... about market share?
It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
Last May Microsoft hired a bunch of Volkswagen diesel emission control software developers to work on the Edge browser. So it was just a matter of time before it nailed the benchmarks.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
Microsoft Says Edge is Still More Power Efficient than Chrome and Firefox
Microsoft has said a LOT of things; doesn't mean it's a good idea to believe them.
Also... SO? I don't generally choose which app I use based on energy efficiency. If I did, I'd run GNU/Linux in text-only/CLI mode, and browse the web with Lynx. Or maybe I'd use TWM and some incredibly simple, stripped down browser in an X session... like Lynx.
Hey, Microsoft... is "Edge" more power efficient than Lynx? (Actually, I suppose it could be. I don't know if Lynx is optimized for power efficiency.)
Our reign has gone on long enough. Indeed. Summon the meteors.
“Edge lasts 24% longer than Chrome and a massive 94% longer than Firefox on average”
Assuming this to be true, that would mean that Edge renders pages more efficiently that the others. If so, the most plausible reason for this would be that Edge is using different API calls than the rest. If so that would mean Microsoft is cheating on this test. It wouldn't be the first time softwares premier software innovator has done so. There even was a name for this back in the day, Microsoft Undocumentation.
...but you're not going to haul sheets of plywood, or kids to a party, or anyone over 50 in the back seat, for that matter.
Sure, build a browser with less power, and you'll get more efficiency. Good luck with all the broken sites you'll encounter!
I use four browsers.
I usually open Firefox as my first choice, but I end up using it about equal with Chrome, and together that is more than 95% of my usage.
I infrequently, but sometimes, open Edge primarily. However, I allow Edge to remain as the OS default browser, so when I click on a link in an email or some other extra-browser origin, it opens in Edge. Thus, I use Edge with some regularity, but only for brief take-a-looks, and if I intend to play around at that website or save pages, I copy the url and open it in Chrome of Firefox.
I also use Cliqz, built on Firefox, for more sensitive browsing.
And. once in a blue moon, I use IE last version when pages will not load correctly elsewhere.
I have no special allegiance or favoritism to any single browser. just using whatever is convenient at the moment.
Several interesting observations (to me at least) come from this experience.
1 - When MS fought and won the browser wars and vanquished Netscape, they had a product that worked and people wanted. I know all of the history and arguments and reasons against Internet Explorer (non-standardized features, poor security, unfair business practices), but for users, it was robustly featured, useful, and dependable. I am not defending MS or IE, but it makes me wonder how MS could sink so low from where they once were, the Gods of internet software, and now they can hardly make a Dick-and-Jane level product lacking in all of the features that made IE compelling in the earlier days.
2 - Edge is not so entirely awful as many people like to complain about. On the other hand it is terrible in many ways. For instance, you cannot save a webpage from Edge. By using it to open email links and other trivial things, I get to keep an eye on whether it is improving, but not much progress. BUT, now and then there are pages that will not open or render properly on the other browsers but do so perfectly on Edge. One post here wonders if MS is using hidden or non-standard API's, so some pages written for Edge work but trash or crash elsewhere. While such practices, if true, would be disgraceful, it points out that in order to smoothly sail the Internet, having all browsers handy is what you need.
3 - Edge can excel. On example that affected me this month concerns reading large PDF's. I am working on a manuscript that has about 800 pages and numerous graphics. In pdf format, which is a large file, Adobe Acrobat reader crashes, and others render slowly or choppy. Edge handles monster pdf's with grace and speed. Even if Edge does nothing else well, that alone makes it a worthy tool.
4 - By the way, I also this week downloaded some huge pdf's from other sites (scans of historical works), each pdf on the order of 1 GB. Firefox uniformly trashed every one of those pdf's when downloading and saving them, corrupted files not reparable with any pdf repair utility. However, Chrome handled every one flawlessly. Likewise Google maps - Chrome does maps well, Firefox chokes. So, even when it comes to Firefox versus Chrome, neither is perfect. This brings us back to the important idea above - having all browsers handy is what you need.
One post here recounts how MS won the browser wars in part by creating non-standard features that made a lot of web pages unreadable on standards-compliant browsers, and that now Google is doing the same. It would be nice if every company released products that were strictly standards compliant, but if they did so, there would be no distinction between the products, and thus no competition or advancement. As irritating and aggravating as some of the companies and their products and practices are at times, you have to decide if you want to campaign against the crappy this or that product, object on principles, or just accept that all do a good job with some things, and all are dogs in some ways.
Have all of the browsers installed, and have all accessible from a shortcut, and when one does not render or save a page properly, try the next and then the next if needs be. No single browser can handle the whole internet, regardless what their marketing people say or what each of us thinks about the way things ought to be. Having all three just a click away makes your computing life workable.
I haven't brought up Edge at all ever. I won't willingly use a Microsoft browser again, except briefly to download an alternative browser. (and Windows 10 still for some odd reason has Internet Explorer, which I keep hearing is obsolete.) Microsoft has proven to my satisfaction in past years that they have no intention of creating a browser that adheres to industry standards, except by the market-speak that "we're Microsoft, whatever we decide to do is an industry standard".
Fastest browser? I don't care. Firefox is fast enough and it's far more likely to do what I expect. Best battery life? Still don't care. In my workflow, only a small fraction of my time is spent in a browser, and that's usually only to check my work.
There is always that small urge to try something new, but it's Microsoft -- again, they can't be depended upon to follow standards -- so any time I spend with a Microsoft browser is likely to be a waste.
It's just not worth it. Sorry Microsoft, you've already shat your bed. Putting on a new comforter doesn't do anything about the smell.
And I'll tell you what. Windows 10 continually begging me to try Edge instead because it's faster, or please please please try Cortana or try some other feature I have no interest in, only makes me long for the day when the last few Windows-only apps in my workflow finally have viable Linux alternatives, so I can at long last leave Windows and all its whining behind.
An operating system manages resources and loads applications. I don't want it to be my friend or to help me shop or suggest places I could go on the internet. To the degree it does those things, I feel compelled to find a different operating system.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.