How to get longer life out of your laptop battery

While it’s no secret that Google’s Chrome is the biggest battery draining web browser on the market, what’s relatively unknown is by how much. 

Well, thanks to the folks at Microsoft, we now know that answer. The company performed two tests to measure browser power consumption — the first was done in a lab-controlled environment measuring typical browsing behavior on top-visited sites; the second experiment recorded how long the laptop battery lasted while streaming HD video on Chrome, Microsoft’s new Edge browser, Mozilla’s Firefox, and Opera.

To no one’s surprise, Microsoft Edge came out on top.

In an attempt to further prove the company’s point — that it has created a browser superior to all the rest — Microsoft will also release telemetry data from millions of Windows 10 machines, which will detail how much more energy efficient Edge and Firefox are than Chrome. 

It is interesting the amount of additional power that is required to run Chrome and Firefox than Opera and Edge. In fact, Chrome’s issues are so well known, Google has already released several updates in an attempt to improve its performance. None have made a significant difference yet. 

So how do you get longer life out of your laptop battery? Simple — you pick a better browser. Or, if you are a Chrome devotee, make sure to exit the browser when closing the laptop. 

Now, it is worth pointing out that while this report might provide some good, valuable information, Microsoft has been looking for ways to create buzz around its new Edge browser because it has not really taken off yet. One of the biggest things holding it back is the fact that the browser lacks support for extensions, and will not have this feature available until later in the summer, when it will launch alongside the Anniversary Update to Windows 10. 

The company has promised even more power-saving features with the update to Edge, including fewer CPU cycles and less memory consumption, as well as controls on background activity and Flash ads. 

As to whether this becomes a bigger issue remains to be seen – Chrome has skyrocketed in popularity since its initial launch, and its battery drainage issues, while a headache, appears to be a non-issue to its users. 

Reports like that which Microsoft has put together here are interesting, but at the end of the day, they probably won’t make much of a difference.

Via The Windows Blog