Google Chrome bad for laptop battery

California: A regular user of Google's Chrome browser is probably aware of the effect it has on their laptop battery life. Microsoft, however, has been busy conducting its own series of battery test experiments in the meantime, to prove what we already know: Chrome drains your battery.

Google has previously promised to improve battery life with Chrome, but most of the quick fixes haven’t made a big difference yet. Microsoft has created two tests to measure the power consumption by browsers. The first is a test in a lab-controlled environment measuring typical browsing behavior on popular sites, while the second experiment times how long streaming HD video lasts. Chrome lasts just four hours and 19 minutes on the streaming video test, compared to seven hours and 22 minutes for Microsoft’s Edge browser.

The lab-controlled tests also show that Chrome, Opera, and Firefox all use more battery power than Edge during an automated cycle of opening sites, scrolling articles, watching videos, and opening new tabs. To further prove its point, Microsoft is also releasing aggregated telemetry data from millions of Windows 10 machines that show Microsoft Edge and Firefox are both more power efficient than Google's Chrome browser.

Microsoft is clearly attempting to win people over to Edge, but the company’s new browser still lacks some features that can be found in Chrome and Firefox. Browser extensions aren’t available in Edge just yet, but they will launch alongside the Anniversary Update to Windows 10 this summer. Microsoft is also promising even more power-saving enhancements with the Anniversary Update to Edge.