Norway: Countering Microsoft’s bold claims earlier this week that its new ‘Edge’ browser in Windows 10 is better for your laptop's battery life than Opera or Chrome, Opera has said that its latest developer release can run 22 per cent longer than Edge and 35 per cent longer than Chrome.
While everyone is aware of the decreased battery life while using Chrome, what they don’t know is that Opera has introduced a battery saving feature last month to improve things on its own Chromium-based browser, the company said.
"Like most other engineering teams, we love it when someone picks a fight," said Błażej Kaźmierczak, director of software development at Opera.
"If we get beaten in a test like this, we consider it a bug."
Microsoft hasn't revealed exactly what its battery tests consist of, so Opera created its own test using automation to simulate visits to popular websites. Opera claims its latest Developer release (39.0.2248.0) with ad blocking and power saver enabled can run 22 percent longer than Edge and 35 percent longer than Chrome.
Opera has illustrated its exact methodology in a blog post challenging Microsoft to do better. "If Microsoft really wants to prove that its browser performs better than others, the company should be transparent about its methodology so that others can replicate it," says Kaźmierczak. "Better luck next time, Microsoft!"
Kyle Pflug, a Microsoft Edge program manager, has responded on Twitter to Opera's claims. "This test turned on an ad blocker, which is off by default," says Pflug. "Not loading and rendering the same content in all browsers."
While we await Opera's response to this claim, both companies have found a middle ground to agree on one aspect of the browser battery wars - that Chrome is terrible for your laptop battery life. What’s your say on this Google?
