IE9 is Most Energy Efficient Browser, So Says MS
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.
| Scenario | IE9 | Chrome 10 | Firefox 4 | Opera 11 | Safari 5 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| about:blank | 10.044 W | 7.821 W | 9.570 W | 7.704 W | 8.087 W |
| News Site | 11.042 W | 9.951 W | 10.617 W | 8.757 W | 8.835 W |
| Galactic | 13.506 W | 14.150 W | 14.995 W | 17.742 W | 17.817 W |
| Fish | 21.408 W | 24.078 W | 20.817 W | 21.769 W | 21.260 W |
| Battery Life | 3:45 hrs | 2:56 hrs | 3:35 hrs | 2:43 hrs | 2:55 hrs |
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Its obviously that it loads web pages so slowly that the wi-fi card is primarily inactive, thus saving battery life.
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.
I agree with those sentiments for past builds, but IE9 is very decent. IE9 has a dark history to overcome lol
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.
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!
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]?
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.
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!
Ty for the heads up RolandVet, individual charts on the link make a bit more sense.
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!
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
Why isn't tom's responding with their own tests to verify these claims?
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?
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...
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.
Why 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.
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.
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
Anti-reverse-non-kinda-maybe physics, mate.
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.
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).
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.
I don't use a freaking laptop! I wanna know whats the fastest most powerful most eliteness browser EVARS!
So if you look at the table in this article, then IE is beaten by Firefox for every test except Galactic. Interesting. Perhaps MS is expecting everyone to take their word for it.
this is just MS firing back at the report earlier last week saying that IE9 can't save MS in the browser market..
this is just MS firing back at the report earlier last week saying that IE9 can't save MS in the browser market..
And those reports are correct. MS has dropped the ball on IE for soo long that 3rd party browsers like FireFox, Opera, Chrome, have all surpassed IE in just about everything. Going to any of those 3rd party browsers is like going from a Ford Focus with IE to a Mustang GT 5.0
And those reports are correct. MS has dropped the ball on IE for soo long that 3rd party browsers like FireFox, Opera, Chrome, have all surpassed IE in just about everything. Going to any of those 3rd party browsers is like going from a Ford Focus with IE to a Mustang GT 5.0
the fact that MS is forcing people to win7 when still more than 1/2 of the world is still on XP when IE9 is incompatible with XP
is a bad bad move..
I know what they want and trying to do but someone needs to tell then that you can't always have it your way MS...
the fact that MS is forcing people to win7 when still more than 1/2 of the world is still on XP when IE9 is incompatible with XP is a bad bad move..I know what they want and trying to do but someone needs to tell then that you can't always have it your way MS...
No one is forcing anyone to use Windows 7
Same way no one forced you to upgrade from Windows 95 to Windows XP
You upgraded because it was a better product with more features, more stability and more security
By all means continue to use Windows XP but my personal feeling is that since XP was released in 2001, if you resent paying for seriously powerful upgrade once in 10 years you are just being cheap
No one is forcing anyone to use Windows 7
Same way no one forced you to upgrade from Windows 95 to Windows XP
You upgraded because it was a better product with more features, more stability and more security
By all means continue to use Windows XP but my personal feeling is that since XP was released in 2001, if you resent paying for seriously powerful upgrade once in 10 years you are just being cheap
you have me confused bro...
all my units are win 7 pro or ultimate.
and the reports actually say that MS is trying to force a move to win 7.
read up on it..
people running XP on today's hardware is behind in the times..
almost like someone running a i7-920 with a HD4670..
ooops. (your system configuration)
LOL..
This just in, company says their product is better than the competition's.
On the surface, this test and the results might sound kind of meaningless, but I deploy users to BFE India/China all the time, and I think they might appreciate the 10 minute boost in battery life simply by changing browsers.
Me, I still lean towards Chrome but IE9 is leaps and bounds ahead of its predecessors, and I'm getting more of an appreciation for it the more I use it.
No one is forcing anyone to use Windows 7Same way no one forced you to upgrade from Windows 95 to Windows XPYou upgraded because it was a better product with more features, more stability and more securityBy all means continue to use Windows XP but my personal feeling is that since XP was released in 2001, if you resent paying for seriously powerful upgrade once in 10 years you are just being cheap
I upgrade hardware often, not the OS. I find it much easier to upgrade CPU, RAM or a video card than backing up/reinstalling all the software (upgrading Windows over an older installation often runs into problems and slowdown so even MS recommends a fresh install). It takes no more than 15 minutes to upgrade any piece of hardware with the sole exception of the motherboard.
Though I can't disagree with you concerning Win98 security and stability it didn't take long before viruses and spyware begun to attack XP flaws. So, in the end Win7 can be safer than XP for now but soon it will be the main target of malware.
I'm not surprised. Ever since Firefox 2.2.20 they only became crappier and bulkier.
Firefox is far from the fast browser it was.