AfterDawn: News

Chrome really is eating all your battery life

Thanks to a new report, we have some more proof that Google's Chrome browser is killing your battery life, and in some cases, to a huge degree.

Testing different browsers with different Windows 10 notebooks/2-in-1s, Chrome actually killed overall battery life by as much as 28 percent compared to Microsoft Internet Explorer, a scary figure.



In the report, the tester used an Asus Zenbook UX305F, a Surface Pro 3 and a Toshiba Portege Z20t-B, while testing IE11, Chrome 46, Firefox 41 and Microsoft Edge 20. All browsers were on default configurations. They ran the Peacekeeper battery test twice and averaged the battery time.

Microsoft's browsers were unquestionably the top dogs, saving 30-59 minutes in battery life depending on the device.

Here were the full results:

Asus:


Surface:


Toshiba:


Read the full report here: Digital Citizen


Written by: Andre Yoskowitz @ 20 Oct 2015 22:01

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• 9 comments

• hearme0

  HA! I always knew Chrome sucked and this is just concrete proof.
  
  This and its general incompatibilities and separate procs for each tab???
  
  Waterfox all the way......Firefox at the very least.

  21.10.2015 00:05 #1

• audvare

  Doesn't change things for me very much. Too tied into Google products to move to another browser, especially Chrome Sync. Sounds weird I know.
  

  21.10.2015 01:11 #2

• Bozobub

  I prefer Pale Moon (another FF variant) but for once, I completely agree with you, hearme0.

  21.10.2015 01:11 #3

• zxe45

  Originally posted by hearme0: HA! I always knew Chrome sucked and this is just concrete proof.
  
  This and its general incompatibilities and separate procs for each tab???
  
  Waterfox all the way......Firefox at the very least. Same here, you can set it not to do separate procs, but annoying
  

  21.10.2015 07:04 #4

• Mysttic

  I presume then, that's the cause of android devices batteries draining fast.

  21.10.2015 09:44 #5

• PraisesToAllah

  I'm already too tied to Chrome and that anything different will just make me inefficient. I guess I'll just wait until Google fixes it.

  21.10.2015 10:48 #6

• hearme0

  Originally posted by Bozobub: I prefer Pale Moon (another FF variant) but for once, I completely agree with you, hearme0. Cool...a little props is better than none at all.

  21.10.2015 12:41 #7

• Bozobub

  Originally posted by Mysttic: I presume then, that's the cause of android devices batteries draining fast.
  This can happen for a rather large number of reasons, including (but not limited to):
  - Badly-written OS-level or bundled programs.
  - Badly-written 3rd-party ROMs, for rooted phones.
  - Excessive syncing to too many online accounts and/or too often. Facebook is a dire offender here.
  - Leaving wifi or GPS on.
  - Heavy use of the CPU/GPU. For example, Goat Simulator for Android, while amusing, sucks down battery power faster than a $20 hooker eats pills. This is becoming more and more common, as apps/games get more elaborate on the Android platform.

  23.10.2015 00:12 #8

• Notcow

  Originally posted by Bozobub: Originally posted by Mysttic: I presume then, that's the cause of android devices batteries draining fast.
  This can happen for a rather large number of reasons, including (but not limited to):
  - Badly-written OS-level or bundled programs.
  - Badly-written 3rd-party ROMs, for rooted phones.
  - Excessive syncing to too many online accounts and/or too often. Facebook is a dire offender here.
  - Leaving wifi or GPS on.
  - Heavy use of the CPU/GPU. For example, Goat Simulator for Android, while amusing, sucks down battery power faster than a $20 hooker eats pills. This is becoming more and more common, as apps/games get more elaborate on the Android platform. I'd agree with all those points, but I downloaded a custom ROM (Edit: I now see you said "badly-coded") because the stock one came with battery-killing bloatware and also sucked down battery quickly without it. The stock ROM is much more battery friendly - at the end of the day, I often still have ~80% charge even after heavy use over 8 hours (WiFi, not data.)
  
  I've also found that WiFi has very little impact on battery life, at least that's my observation. Maintaining cellular signal seems to require more power - when I run my phone in Airplane Mode with just WiFi on, my battery lasts days at low brightness.
  
  Sprint GS5
  

  23.10.2015 19:33 #9