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IE9 is Most Energy Efficient Browser, So Says MS

By - Source: Tom's Hardware US | B 41 comments

Microsoft says that it has the fastest horse.

We all know the benefits of having an energy efficient system. Lower energy requirements mean bills, a smaller carbon footprint, and the immediate benefit of longer battery life.

While the first concern of power management is to have energy efficient hardware, there's always the question of what software does with the hardware. Microsoft posted a blog article on its MSDN highlighting how much it feels that Internet Explorer 9 is the winner when it comes to keeping power draw to a minimum.

Through what appears to be testing using fairly involved and reliable apparatus, Internet Explorer 9 unsurprisingly comes out on top when compared against Chrome 10, Safari 5, Opera 11 and Firefox 4. Mozilla's new browser stayed very close to Microsoft's, making it appear to be the most attractive alternative.

Microsoft monitored system power draw over a few situations: letting the browsers sit at about:blank, at a news site, running HTML5, and running the FishIE demo. In all tests, IE9 was at the top of the pack – though consider the source. Notably absent from the test was anything to do with Adobe Flash.

ScenarioIE9Chrome 10Firefox 4Opera 11Safari 5
about:blank10.044 W7.821 W9.570 W7.704 W8.087 W
News Site11.042 W9.951 W10.617 W8.757 W8.835 W
Galactic13.506 W14.150 W14.995 W17.742 W17.817 W
Fish21.408 W24.078 W20.817 W21.769 W21.260 W
Battery Life3:45 hrs2:56 hrs3:35 hrs2:43 hrs2:55 hrs

Check out the full test and charts here.

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  • -2 Hide
    HDmac , April 4, 2011 5:37 AM
    Its obviously that it loads web pages so slowly that the wi-fi card is primarily inactive, thus saving battery life.
  • -4 Hide
    tentaxlbunga , April 4, 2011 6:19 AM
    browsing with IE will put you computer to sleep mode oftenly, that why it safe more energy than the competitor.
    Of course.. most of the time, you will only see black screen on your monitor.
  • 6 Hide
    thorkle , April 4, 2011 6:31 AM
    I agree with those sentiments for past builds, but IE9 is very decent. IE9 has a dark history to overcome lol
  • Display all 41 comments.
  • 2 Hide
    cjl , April 4, 2011 7:16 AM
    Clearly, HDmac and tentaxlbunga haven't used IE9. It's actually quite a decent browser. That having been said, I'll stick with FF4 - I've found FF4 with noscript has an amazingly good battery life due to the elimination of all unnecessary flash.
  • 1 Hide
    Benihana , April 4, 2011 7:30 AM
    That's not bad, this means that I can take a 10 minute hit (out of 3 hours and 45 minutes) of browsing time to use FF and enjoy my browsing experience. Couple that with NoScript (as cjl mentioned) and I'll be computing longer! :) 
  • 3 Hide
    opmopadop , April 4, 2011 7:30 AM
    That last table showing wattage consumed while sitting on certain sites makes absolutely no sense at all. How can "IE9 come out on top of the pack" if it has the highest "W" for two, and middle of the pack for the other two...

    I know Im missing something, I just cant figure out watt[sic]?
  • 0 Hide
    RolandVet , April 4, 2011 8:39 AM
    As opmopadop said the table shows IE9 as the greatest power consumer.

    If you follow the link to the source you'll see completely different results in which IE9 does have the lowest power consumption.
  • 1 Hide
    RolandVet , April 4, 2011 8:42 AM
    Further more, the table show the power consumption of Opera 11 in galactic, whilst Opera does not support Galactic.

    Tom's hardware, I am disappoint!
  • 0 Hide
    opmopadop , April 4, 2011 8:50 AM
    Ty for the heads up RolandVet, individual charts on the link make a bit more sense.
  • 2 Hide
    rantoc , April 4, 2011 9:37 AM
    IE9 is a huge improvement over the IE8, it's almost like it's two differnt browsers with the same interface. It would seem microsoft have rewriten most of the code from scrach and done a good jobb while at it!

    Im considering to switch once the IE9 plugins starts to show up!
  • 0 Hide
    fafkac , April 4, 2011 9:39 AM
    the table looks like it was performed on different notebooks, how in the world can IE got longest battery life when it draw far more than other browsers, that is nonsense
  • 1 Hide
    enzo matrix , April 4, 2011 11:04 AM
    Why isn't tom's responding with their own tests to verify these claims?
  • 0 Hide
    enzo matrix , April 4, 2011 11:08 AM
    Wait WTF. According to the tests, Firefox has the system consuming LESS power in all tests but galactic but they claim that ie will have 10 minutes more battery life? WTF? Am I missing something?
    And chrome is way better than ie in half the tests and comes close in one, only falling really behind in one test, so why the 1 hour difference?
  • 0 Hide
    phatbuddha79 , April 4, 2011 11:51 AM
    Enzo said what was on my mind. It doesn't make any sense to a program to use less energy but have lesser battery life? Only way that's possible is if they were tested on different hardware which kind of defeats the purpose...
  • 0 Hide
    hoofhearted , April 4, 2011 11:59 AM
    Hardware is what I care more about when it comes to power and savings. When it comes to software though, proving you have the most power saving software seems like a justifcation for why yours is the slowest.
  • 0 Hide
    saaiello , April 4, 2011 12:30 PM
    Enzo MatrixWhy isn't tom's responding with their own tests to verify these claims?

    Toms does not do any of their own testing these days. Its a copy and paste site and its sad to see Tom's like this.
  • 0 Hide
    Bolbi , April 4, 2011 12:40 PM
    These results are probably due to the complete (or nearly complete) hardware acceleration in Firefox 4 and IE9. The GPU is much more energy-efficient than the CPU used by the other three browsers in performing rendering tasks like those used in the tests.
  • 0 Hide
    amdfangirl , April 4, 2011 12:42 PM
    fafkacthe table looks like it was performed on different notebooks, how in the world can IE got longest battery life when it draw far more than other browsers, that is nonsense


    Anti-reverse-non-kinda-maybe physics, mate.
  • 0 Hide
    amdfangirl , April 4, 2011 12:56 PM
    cjlClearly, HDmac and tentaxlbunga haven't used IE9. It's actually quite a decent browser. That having been said, I'll stick with FF4 - I've found FF4 with noscript has an amazingly good battery life due to the elimination of all unnecessary flash.


    I find flash isn't too bad at consuming power if you have GPU acceleration. It used to kill my Macbook's battery, now it just eats slowly at my x120e battery (GPU acceleration).
  • 0 Hide
    K2N hater , April 4, 2011 1:45 PM
    It's obvious a test ran and published by MS would never spot different results. This is an advert and adverts are at least biased.
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