Most energy-efficient browser

Microsoft has made many claims about IE9′s speed, but now the company is saying the latest version of its browser also bests the competition in terms of energy use.

 

Based on several tests conducted by Microsoft, it would seem that IE9 makes fewer demands on a computer’s battery — at least in certain scenarios. Firefox 4 came in a close second in every test; Opera 11 was the least energy-efficient browser in most tests.

Researchers at Microsoft put Chrome 10, Firefox 4, Safari 5, Opera 11 and Internet Explorer 9 head-to-head in three different test scenarios. First, they measured baseline power consumption with no browser running, then they looked at how much power the browsers used on an about:blank page. Next, they ran a typical news content website, which showcased power consumption in a typical web-browsing situation.

For the final tests, each browser ran Galactic, an HTML5-based browser performance test, and the FishIE Tank, another performance test.

Microsoft ran these tests on an Intel laptop running Windows 7; to make truly definitive statements about browser efficiency, the same tests would have to be run on a variety of devices and OSes. We’d love to know if IE9 holds up as well on an Android tablet, for example.

Here are graphs of the test results:

While it’s nice to know that IE 9 might help your battery last longer, these stats may not have much impact on the ongoing browser wars. Internet Explorer has been losing ground to Chrome and Firefox in particular for far too long; and for most consumers, energy efficiency might not be a deciding factor when choosing a web browser.

What do you think? Do these stats affect your opinion of IE 9? Would they make you want to use this browser over one of its competitors? Give us your opinions in the comments section.