Biz & IT —

Chrome may have improved, but Edge still lasts longer according to Microsoft

Microsoft says its browser uses less power, lasts longer.


In June, Microsoft started to make aggressive claims about the battery life of its Edge browser, especially in streaming media scenarios. Opera fought back, claiming that its battery saver mode pushed it ahead of Microsoft's browser. With the release of Chrome 53, Google is claiming substantial improvements in battery life, too.

Microsoft isn't willing to drop the battery life issue, however, and the company has published new scores that show the latest version of Edge in the Windows 10 Anniversary Update maintains a considerable advantage, at least in the company's Netflix-based streaming media test. Playing a video repeatedly, Edge lasted 527 minutes, compared to 429 minutes in Opera with battery saver, 365 in Chrome 53, and a measly 312 in Firefox 48.

The testing also suggested that the Windows 10 Anniversary Update itself may be helping computers use less power. The difference wasn't great, but Opera 39 on the Anniversary Update beat Opera 38 on the 2015 Fall Update, suggesting that the operating system is being more frugal.

In a second test that measures energy usage in the CPU, GPU, and Wi-Fi chip during some simple browsing scenarios, Microsoft again claims that Edge is more energy-efficient than its competition.

Battery life is unlikely to be the sole concern when picking a browser, and Edge still falls behind the competition when it comes to things like breadth of extension support and, arguably, stability. But for mobile users everywhere, this focus on efficiency feels a lot more valuable than the JavaScript benchmarking of yesteryear. It's hard to feel the difference of an incrementally faster script, but a system that can go the distance even when watching videos on a long-haul flight offers something much more tangible.

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Channel Ars Technica