Skip to main content
  1. Home
  2. Computing
  3. News

Microsoft once again boasts the Edge browser’s battery life prowess

By
Microsoft Edge Experiment: Battery Life | Windows 10 Fall Creators Update Edition
Although Windows 10 is making progress in becoming the favorite operating system of PC users, Microsoft’s attempt to position its Edge browser as a viable alternative to Google Chrome hasn’t met with as much success. To date, Edge maintains a paltry four percent or so of the browser market, a number that’s remained flat for months. To help bridge the gap, Microsoft has been pushing Edge’s greater efficiency, and it’s just released another video with some lofty claims of battery life superiority.
Recommended Videos

As the video above attests, Edge was able to outlast Mozilla Firefox by 63 percent and Chrome by 19 percent. Microsoft provided few details about the test, only indicating how long each browser was able to “stream video” on identical Surface Book notebooks. The video’s fine print indicates that the test used a continuously looping HD streaming video, but we don’t know what video codec was used nor if it was streaming from a local server or the internet.

Related

In our own testing, Edge was the battery life champ. It beat out all competitors in most of our tests, which included Netflix binging, running the Basemark web benchmark, and simple web browsing. We tested on two machines, the HP Spectre x360 15-inch laptop and the HP EliteBook x360 G2, with mainly consistent results across both. While the differences weren’t always as dramatic as Microsoft’s video attests, they nevertheless largely corroborated Microsoft’s claims that Edge provides a distinct advantage in battery life.

Interestingly, Microsoft did not post results for the Opera browser in this video, which is an unfortunate omission. In our testing, Opera came in second behind Edge, beating out both Firefox and Chrome. In fact, Opera was even more efficient than Edge on the EliteBook, and it was roughly comparable on both test machines in terms of streaming Netflix video.

We should note that Microsoft does not indicate which versions of each browser were used in the test, which could have a significant impact on the overall results. Generally speaking, we’re comfortable agreeing with Microsoft Edge lasts longer on a charge than Firefox and Chrome, while adding that Opera is also a viable option for the energy conscious.

Editors' Recommendations

Topics
Mark Coppock
Mark Coppock
Computing Writer
Mark has been a geek since MS-DOS gave way to Windows and the PalmPilot was a thing. He’s translated his love for…
New phishing method looks just like the real thing, but it steals your passwords
A MacBook with Google Chrome loaded.

Thanks to a new phishing method, hackers could steal all sorts of personal information by simply mimicking real login forms in Application Mode. This is a feature that's available in all Chromium-based browsers, which includes Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge, and Brave.

Using Application Mode allows threat actors to spread highly believable-looking local login forms that look like desktop applications. In reality, all inputs are sent to a malicious attacker.

Read more
Beware: Hackers are using a clever Microsoft Edge malvertising scam
The Microsoft Edge browser is open on a Surface Book 2 in tablet mode.

If you're still using Microsoft Edge, you need to beware -- a new malvertising campaign has just been discovered, and if you fall victim to it, your PC might be at risk.

According to Malwarebytes, the attackers are abusing Microsoft Edge's News Feed feature to target their victims. Here's what we know about this clever new scam.

Read more
Microsoft Edge has a new trick for increased performance
Edge Browser

The Microsoft Edge browser is now even more optimized and has a bit higher performance on Windows. That's thanks to changes in version 102 of the browser, which can now automatically compress disk caches.

Microsoft talked about this in a technical post, explaining that its overall goal is to "deliver the best performing browser possible on Windows and other platforms." In what seems like a shot at Google Chrome, Microsoft also mentioned that they're aware that when a web browser consumed too many resources, the system can be slowed down. That's where disk caching comes into play.

Read more