The 2020 Browser Battle: Surfing With Speed
by Brett Howse on September 10, 2020 8:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Software
- Browsers
- Mozilla
- Google Chrome
- Microsoft Edge
HTML 5 Compatibility
Finally, to see how many HTML 5 features are supported by each browser, each one was run against http://html5test.com/ which compiles a score out of 555, with scoring being based on how many HTML5 specifications, popular draft standards, and WebGL, and IndexedDB / Web SQL. A higher score means the browser supports more of the tests, which in theory means that the browser should be more compatible with more websites, although that is certainly not always the case.
Web Browser Battery Life
It would be hard to argue with how pervasive and important the internet is, so “browsing the web” is a critical function for laptops. Gone are the days of browsing static content on Geocities and instead the web is now the home to critical business applications, communication, and of course, entertainment. Finding a few more minutes of battery life just by using a different browser might be the difference between getting through a workday, and not.
To see how each browser performed, the Surface Laptop 3 15-inch had the brightness dialed into 200 nits, and each browser was run through our quite demanding web workload until the system turned off, and then the test was repeated to ensure there were no anomalous results. All the browsers were tested at least twice, with the exception of Internet Explorer 11, which was not tested, because you should really not be using it.
One of the biggest questions going into this was what impact Microsoft would see moving from their EdgeHTML and Chakra based browser in the classic Edge, to the Chromium version. Microsoft touted their battery life significantly when Edge was the new browser on the block, and for good reason. As you can see, classic Edge provided significantly better battery life than any other browser used. When your pool of energy is a fixed size, squeezing out extra runtime is not a trivial undertaking, and Microsoft has certainly given up some battery life to provide a more compatible browser.
Looking at the Chromium based browsers, which are the new Edge, Chrome, and Opera, and they all more or less fall in the same range, with only twenty minutes of runtime between the three, but as we saw with the scripting tests, Edge was able to provide just a bit more battery life than the others.
Firefox, while competitive, is over thirty minutes behind its closest competitor. It is likely not enough of a difference to spur anyone from moving away from Firefox if they are happy with its other features, but the Mozilla team is not quite up to par in terms of energy use.
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Tilmitt - Monday, September 14, 2020 - link
Just defected to Edge. Google's moat is breached.edzieba - Monday, September 14, 2020 - link
I'll be over in the corner with the weirdos using Palemoon.XUL LIVES!
IGnatius T Foobar - Monday, September 14, 2020 - link
Brave and Dissenter are Chromium forks which provide all of the Chrome browsing experience with none of the Google. That's a fantastic value proposition, especially when combined with DuckDuckGo for search.zeeBomb - Monday, September 14, 2020 - link
browser battles in 2020? who would’ve thought!GTVic - Monday, September 14, 2020 - link
I recommend Browser Chooser 2. Lets you pick the best browser for each link.martixy - Tuesday, September 15, 2020 - link
I feel it's mostly about feature set at this point.I use FF on mobile because it supports extensions better, I use chrome on desktop because it supports extensions better.
reheri - Tuesday, September 15, 2020 - link
𝐒𝐭𝐚𝐫𝐭 𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐤𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐚𝐭 𝐡𝐨𝐦𝐞 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐆𝐨𝐨𝐠𝐥𝐞! 𝐈𝐭’𝐬 𝐛𝐲-𝐟𝐚𝐫 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐛𝐞𝐬𝐭 𝐣𝐨𝐛 𝐈’𝐯𝐞 𝐡𝐚𝐝.𝐋𝐚𝐬𝐭 𝐖𝐞𝐝𝐧𝐞𝐬𝐝𝐚𝐲 𝐈 𝐠𝐨𝐭 𝐚 𝐛𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐧𝐞𝐰 𝐁𝐌𝐖 𝐬𝐢𝐧𝐜𝐞 𝐠𝐞𝐭𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐚 𝐜𝐡𝐞𝐜𝐤 𝐟𝐨𝐫 $𝟔𝟒𝟕𝟒.𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐬 - 𝟒 𝐰𝐞𝐞𝐤𝐬 𝐩𝐚𝐬𝐭. 𝐈 𝐛𝐞𝐠𝐚𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝟖-𝐦𝐨𝐧𝐭𝐡𝐬 𝐚𝐠𝐨 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐢𝐦𝐦𝐞𝐝𝐢𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐥𝐲 𝐰𝐚𝐬.𝐛𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐡𝐨𝐦𝐞 𝐚𝐭 𝐥𝐞𝐚𝐬𝐭 $𝟏𝟕𝟕 𝐩𝐞𝐫 𝐡𝐨𝐮𝐫. 𝐈 𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐤 𝐭𝐡𝐫𝐨𝐮𝐠𝐡 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐤 COPY THIS SITE and see video............... cutt.ly/UflNJc9DominionSeraph - Wednesday, September 16, 2020 - link
Edge's translation seems to suck compared to Chrome, and THEY SWITCH THE ORDER OF JAPANESE NAMES.No no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no.
Gastec - Friday, September 18, 2020 - link
I have 600 Mbps internet connection and in Firefox it only goes to 400-420 Mbps on all online speed tests, while on Chrome it reaches full 600 Mbps. Maybe someone can explain to me why?Alien88 - Saturday, September 19, 2020 - link
I used to use firefox but the UI changes were driving me nuts, switched to Opera years back. It has inbuilt mouse gestures, you can install any chrome extension (it's based on chrome), it has an inbuilt VPN, and it all just works. It may be owned by the chinese (not sure if that's the case) but who cares, they datamine constantly anyway, if you think they don't have your data, you are kidding yourself.