
Better battery life with Microsoft Edge - erentz
https://blogs.windows.com/msedgedev/2017/04/14/better-battery-life-microsoft-edge/
======
bsclifton
Props to the Edge team :)

Only complaint I have about Edge is how Windows pushes it down your throat.
You get while setting a different browser and even AFTER setting a default
browser

More details: [https://github.com/brave/browser-
laptop/issues/7287#issuecom...](https://github.com/brave/browser-
laptop/issues/7287#issuecomment-293642151)

~~~
haspoken
Microsoft can't seem to make something people want, so they have to shove it
down your throat.

Apple built a walled garden to lure people in.

Microsoft is building a walled prison to trap people.

~~~
popey456963
There's also no ability to uninstall Edge, the current way of doing it appears
to be to delete all of the binaries in a specific folder.

~~~
duckmuck
That's a fairly normal thing though, generally every operating system ensures
there is a browser that can always be used for internal functions. Android has
chrome (previously webview I think).

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CSDude
But does Windows still keep being a weirdo and notify every time in the
notification bar when I use Google Chrome? It really feels like its stalking
and makes me irritate.

[http://www.theverge.com/2016/8/3/12369326/microsoft-
windows-...](http://www.theverge.com/2016/8/3/12369326/microsoft-
windows-10-chrome-battery-life-notifications)

~~~
Macha
I mean, as the article points out, I can't help but feel Google brought this
one on themselves with browser ads on the google homepage...

~~~
nol13
not to forget keeps bugging me to make google my default search engine. i mean
if my default was set to ask.com maybe, if i set my default to ddg, it was
probably on purpose..

and on that note, why/how are they able to detect that google isnt my default
search anyway?

~~~
duckmuck
I've seen that message even when google is my default search engine. So I
think it might just be something that shows up for everyone. I was using
firefox though, perhaps Chrome + Default google will get rid of the message.

------
brian_herman
Independent reviews need to be done. I can only assume bias with this post.

~~~
m4x
> These tests are repeatable by other browsers or curious users, backed by
> methodology documents and open source code.

[https://github.com/MicrosoftEdge/BrowserEfficiencyTest/](https://github.com/MicrosoftEdge/BrowserEfficiencyTest/)

They have released their test methodology and code, so you can independently
review to your hearts content.

Despite obviously wanting to be the market leader, they seem to be genuinely
interested in helping everybody else up their game too. It's nice to see from
such a large company

~~~
eps
> _they seem to be genuinely interested in helping everybody else up their
> game too_

No, they are not.

The speed of Microsoft's transformation from universally hated evil FUD
masters to white and fluffy friends of everyone really boggles one's mind.
Just as does the gullibility and naivete of those taking it all for face
value. Microsoft may be missing Balmer as a head figure, but it is the same
old corporation that doesn't give a flying fuck about anything or anyone
except for its own interests, which has been made abundantly clear by their
past and prsent Windows 10 shenannigans. "We hear you loud and clear, you want
to have better control over telemetry, so we included a choice of vaseline
flavours in Creators Update." But, yeah, let's focus on their fresh coat of
marketing paint with liberal sprinkle of github repos and assume that all
these surely come from some other Board of directors and CEO.

Fish rots from the head. Microsoft has never been an ethical company and it
still is not.

~~~
m4x
> it is the same old corporation that doesn't give a flying fuck about
> anything or anyone except for its own interests

No, I don't believe it is. Their actions help themselves, their competitors
_and_ their users. That's really as good as you can hope for with a profit-
driven company.

~~~
cr__
It's marketing.

~~~
m4x
Yes, but they're marketing something which benefits users and competitors.
Unlike, for example, Google's constant in-your-face marketing when you use any
of their services from outside Chrome. That doesn't benefit anybody but Google
(assuming it even benefits them - in my case it causes a loss of respect which
means nobody sees any benefit)

Companies will _always_ engage in marketing and other profit-driven,
competitive activities. Some companies manage to do so while having a positive
effect on the world around them, some do not. Most long-lived companies (such
as MS) will go through all the possible phases at various stages of their
life.

Right now, MS is being a good player. They are releasing useful products and
doing so in a way that benefits more than just themselves. They haven't always
been like this, and won't always be like this, but deserve credit when they
are. Like all other companies.

------
spo81rty
Pretty awesome to see all the hard work they did just to optimize battery
usage.

------
TwoBit
My problem with Edge is that even if it did currently work better than Firefox
and Chrome, I still wouldn't use it, because I don't believe they will respond
to new technology requirements well. They are non-responsive and have a long
history of not doing what users want, but rather doing what they want. The
fact that Edge and IE to this day lack very basic functionality that most
users want but has other whack ass functionality that users don't want is a
testament to this.

Also their handling of security flaws is often terrible.

------
faragon
Edge browser is very fast on low-end devices (e.g. Bay Trail Intel Atom), with
super smooth scroll, and very responsive UI. Better experience than Chrome and
Firefox, on devices with 1GB of RAM.

------
r3bl
Microsoft's marketing strategy is kind of annoying to me: longer battery life
is not even close to being in my top three reasons for choosing a browser.

How about getting somewhere close to supporting U2F? Not even close to
becoming a reality[0]. Working with popular password management solutions in
order to get them to make an Edge extension? Asking the developers for more
extensions?

Any of those three would make Edge seem like a more viable browser in the
future and might actually make me try it out. Battery life? Nice to have, but
nowhere close to being an essential thing to me.

0 -
[https://github.com/MicrosoftEdge/Status/issues/358](https://github.com/MicrosoftEdge/Status/issues/358)

------
notatoad
It's good to see a focus on battery life, but:

1\. using a microsoft computer for the test seems a little unfair. I should
hope that a microsoft browser on a microsoft OS and a microsoft computer can
get the best battery life.

2\. Edge does less than the other browsers. It's not really a fair test when
it's a less capable browser. When they implement ServiceWorker, Shared Web
Workers, WebRTC Data Channels, shadow DOM and position:sticky then let's see
how they do. As long we are comparing two browsers that don't have the same
functionality, i can get even better battery life by turning my computer off
and putting it on a shelf.

------
nunez
I would use Edge a lot more if Google Docs weren't such a mess on it. I would
like to drop Google Docs altogether (I hate products that are tied to one
browser like Google's are), but that isn't feasible right now.

~~~
ktamura
Interesting. How bad is it? I rely a lot on Google Docs, and for this very
reason (and extensions) I stick with Chrome. But that said, GSuite is such a
CPU/memory hog. Gmail, in particular, has been terrible recently to the point
where I went back to using Outlook for the first time in 7-8 years.

~~~
nunez
All of the icons are wrong on Edge. Makes it difficult to navigate around.
Weird UX edge (ha ha ha nope) cases that exist on Edge but not on Chrome or
Firefox.

------
paradite
I am glad to see that there was no auto-update and auto-force-restart during
the time when you are not interacting with the computer in the battery test.
It is the single most annoying feature I have ever seen.

~~~
booleandilemma
I can't stand how Windows makes its own decisions about when to reboot my
laptop. Windows shouldn't be empowered with making this decision. As the owner
of the laptop, it's my call.

------
AdamJacobMuller
How long before Microsoft releases edge on other OSes? Edge for OSX/Linux? I'd
try it.

~~~
TwoBit
You will never see that. I'm not criticizing Microsoft by saying that.

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deno
Someone should look into what kind of impact EME have on battery life.

------
knrz
Can we change the URL to
[https://blogs.windows.com/msedgedev/2017/04/14/better-
batter...](https://blogs.windows.com/msedgedev/2017/04/14/better-battery-life-
microsoft-edge/) ? It's got technical details for us technical types :)

~~~
dang
Ok, changed from [https://blogs.microsoft.com/firehose/2017/04/14/with-
windows...](https://blogs.microsoft.com/firehose/2017/04/14/with-
windows-10-creators-update-microsoft-edge-gives-you-longer-battery-life/).

------
andoon
Very happy to see they've stopped using Channel 9.

~~~
elsurudo
Serious question – what was wrong with Channel 9?

~~~
andoon
The player was worse than that of youtube, and the CDN was worse than that of
youtube.

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downrightmike
Of course they'd find a way to make the battery last longer, that way they can
collect more data.

