back to article Chrome and Firefox are planet-wreckers, IE cuddles dolphins

Every one of us can do their bit to “save the planet”, whatever that means, and Microsoft has jumped aboard that bandwagon by commissioning a new study that investigates just how much electricity browsers consume when running on desktop and notebook computers. The Fraunhofer Center for Sustainable Energy Systems put its name …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Coat

    I'm not surprised

    The IE machines didn't have to do much. The connected and then spent the entire 6 minutes displaying a pop up asking if you wanted to download a more modern browser.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Especially

      When they don't have to bother will implementing all those troublesome security measures and such.

    2. Neil Charles

      Re: I'm not surprised

      Yep, a set time period seems like a thoroughly unfair test to me.

      “We then measured the average power draw over one-second intervals for a six-minute period with each of the individual browsers open"

      If I open IE on my work machine (which is the only time I open it), it huffs and puffs for a good while before it finally sorts itself out and loads the local intranet homepage.

      A fairer test might be the total power draw over the time it takes to open the browser, load gmail, open and read a message, load YouTube, play one video and close again.

      Never mind the power stats, I reckon IE on anything but a box fresh laptop would lose by about three minutes.

  2. DAN*tastik
    Holmes

    Any power consumption results by OS?

    I have friends who run Linux distros on relatively old hardware ( coincidentally, they are the ones who asked me to install a good antivirus, Libre / Open office depending on how long ago it was, or just if I could make their boxes go a little faster ). They perform as well as newer hardware with Windows on it, but my guess is that they are less power hungry. Would Microsoft care to do a little research on that too?

    It would also be interesting to see if there are variations when it comes to typing a text document or creating a spreadsheet...

  3. M Gale
    Holmes

    “installed three popular browsers, Google Chrome, Microsoft Internet Explorer, and Mozilla Firefox, on six new notebook and four desktop computers running Windows 8.”

    Running Windows 8. That's your problem right there.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Indeed… they should try booting up a Linux distribution, and see what Chrome and Firefox are like there compared to the Linux baseline.

      Okay, we can't easily test what IE would be like under Linux since IE doesn't easily run under Linux (well, IE6 does... I've done it before and you can find instructions here), but it'd be interesting to see if the overheads of Firefox and Chrome running on Windows are anything like that on Linux.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Ohh, and if people are trying to reach the page in that screenshot, it's here.

        When I ran that test, I found IE used more CPU time, while Firefox used more memory. Chrome didn't exist back then, in fact I think that test predates Webkit... although Webkit's daddy (KHTML; part of the Konqueror web browser) was lurking on that computer so I could've tried it at the time.

    2. JDX Gold badge

      Yeah because W8 isn't more resource-efficient than W7, which was better than Vista. Oh wait, it is.

      And good job for failing at science, when they eliminate the baseline the fact it's W8 is not a factor.

      1. M Gale

        Yeah because W8 isn't more resource-efficient than W7, which was better than Vista. Oh wait, it is.

        Yes because half the guts of IE aren't part of the OS and already running in the background, and Microsoft don't have a bunch of hidden API calls that other browser manufacturers can't reliably use.

        Oh wait, they do.

        And yet they can still only manage such slim margins over the browser with the renowned weight problem, Firefox? This... is not impressive.

    3. Fatman

      Running Windows 8. That's your problem right there.

      FTFY!

  4. Neil Barnes Silver badge
    Boffin

    WIthout a lot more details of the testing process

    that whole comparison is pretty pointless.

    I can't help feeling that a better comparison would be between browsers running out of the box, and browsers run with the minimum of scripts (ideally none) and with the adverts blocked... it's hard to see how much power is required to display a static image...

    1. Richard 81

      Re: WIthout a lot more details of the testing process

      Research published by a vendor, in a public journal, that shows the vendor's product is best? Be critical.

      Research published by a vendor, in a press release, that shows the vendor's product is best? Be thoroughly skeptical.

      Research published by a vendor, in a press release, that shows the vendor's product is best but doesn't describe the method used? Ignore it, as it probably came straight from the marketing department with no actually research being carried out.

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Yeah right...

    ... and that tiny power saving is nothing compared to the power spent thrashing the hard drive for 4 minutes as my laptop starts up....

    Frankly if this is how far MS have sunk then god help everyone.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Start up

      You might want to look into the use of the hibernation feature. It is very useful.

      Less than ten seconds from cold to working with all of your programs still running as you left them. Much less wear on your disk.

      My computers both desktop and laptop hardly ever need to be booted any more.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Hibernation

        How do people still not know about this and somehow not find out about it when they are moaning about boot-up times?

        The technology has been supported since Windows 95.

        Maybe, if you have a problem, rather than bleating moronically you could alternatively use the same general-purpose computing device you are sitting at or holding to perform a web search that may help you to solve the issue?

        1. This post has been deleted by its author

        2. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Hibernation

          Yes. 20 people were happy to 'me too' when a comment is MS-bashing. Not one reader thought to suggest the appropriate use of well-established power management features or to question that a four-minute boot time is by no means normal on modern hardware and might indicate some kind of more serious fault.

          Your machine did not take that long to start when it was new. The company that wrote the operating system software installed on your computer are not responsible for the durability of your hardware. All of the cruft and possibly malware you have installed since then is not their fault. The onus falls on you as the owner to perform suitable periodic maintenance.

          Hell, a good start might be to defrag the disc - there's a boot-time optimisation switch for just this purpose.

          I'm pretty sure that you actually have a brain - how about putting it to some use? It's amazing what one can achieve when one puts his or her mind to solving problems, rather than always expecting someone else to change your nappy for you.

          Are they really that stupid? Yes. That is why we call them "commentards".

  6. Neoc

    Browser setup?

    Hmmm... First of all, how about running on Windows7 (or even XP)?

    Second - I couldn't see what configurations they used for the various browsers. Were they running with plugins? If so, which? Did they represent a standard home setup?

    Inquiring minds want to-... ah, who cares - it's an MS propaganda piece. Never trust a paid-for piece that says the paid-for item is better than the others. I'll wait for independent testing, TYVM.

    1. JDX Gold badge

      Re: Browser setup?

      Well IE9/10 doesn't run on XP for a start.

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Incomplete

    The experiment only seems to measure power consumption in a static situation. Most browser use involves opening the browser, spending a period of time actually using the browser to achieve an aim and then closing it. The overall energy consumption is then significantly affected by how efficient the browser is - but that isn't tested.

    So no : it's an interesting result, but not detailed enough to justify any meaningful conclusions.

    1. Ole Juul

      Re: Incomplete

      I'm not sure why someone would open a browser, except if the power went off and they had to reboot. In any case, I just turned off JavaScript and the lights in the room got brighter, so you're probably right about the results not being detailed enough to justify any meaningful conclusions.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Incomplete

        I'm the sort that doesn't leave things running in the background unless I actually want to use them in the near future, particularly browsers. Granted, if I'm in the minority then efficiency isn't necessarily significant.

        I would have liked to have seen results based on representative operational scenarios, and these graphs sure aren't that.

        It's all a bit academic, mind - (most) people choose browsers for what they do, not to be eco-friendly.

        1. JDX Gold badge

          Re: Incomplete

          Do you also make sure to turn off unused power sockets so the electricity doesn't leak out?

  8. Tom 7

    Sitting in the office in the dark saves power too.

    Hardly fruitful though.

    Same goes for IE - it needs a more power hungry OS to host it - or at least I assume it does: W8 requires at least a 1Mhz processor. I've used firefox on a 90Mhz pentium so that suggests it can run on 1/10th the power. This is a valid comparison as the above test.

    1. M Gale
      Coffee/keyboard

      Re: W8 on a 1Mhz processor

      Now that I would like to see.

      1. Fatman
        FAIL

        Re: W8 on a 1Mhz processor

        Now that I would like to see.

        Time from cold power on to full desktop - 15 years!!!!

    2. Teleporter
      Thumb Down

      Re: Sitting in the office in the dark saves power too.

      1/10th Clock Cycle != 1/10th power consumption.

    3. Fatman

      Re: Sitting in the office in the dark saves power too.

      Also, getting rid of that 100w power sucking incandescent, and replacing it with a 15w CFL does the same thing.

      </sarcasm>

  9. John Doe 6

    Awsome, now we only need...

    ...a version for OS X and another for Linux.

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Flame

    Muhahahaha

    I have firefox/Adblock/flashblock and Internet Explorer on this corpo PC. The Internet Explorer "experience" is royal shit, because I can't block all those CPU-hungry flash ads, animated GIFs and all those other distractions. Just scrolling up and down with IE is a mess because it has to render some stupid commercial and it has to move that portion of the screen up and down.

    Rendering movies and animated ads clearly is as power-hungry as it can get. So, factoing in Adblock and Flashblock, my guess is that firefox takes about 1/10th of energy consumption compared to Internet Explorer.

    Regarding Fraunhofer, they are supposed to finance themselves by 70% from commercial funding and 30% from public funding. They had some massive successes in the past (e.g. MP3), but this smells of being the sales-bitch of M$. Nor much science to see here.

    If they wanted to do real science, they should compare Flash player with VLC. I recently ran youtube videos properly using VLC, which would not run properly on the weak celeron Under Test using Flash Player.

    1. dogged

      Re: Muhahahaha

      You can block most of the shit with a few TPLs.

      Personally, I too run Firefox but let's not pretend IE = ads. It only does that if you're clueless.

  11. Flocke Kroes Silver badge

    The report is

    During initial testing, we found that a variety of programs pre-installed by the computer manufacturers were resulting in significant fluctuations in computer power draw. Consequently, we removed all preinstalled software from all computers prior to testing and did a “clean” install of the operating system, Windows 8.

    So the results are for computers maintained by a skilled Windows user, which is a tiny fraction of the installed base of home computers.

    The dynamic benchmark test uses Microsoft's FishBowl benchmark, with 5 fish. Presumably this benchmark was optimised for IE, and not the others. The frame was not controlled. For all we know, Chrome and Firefox used more power because they had a higher frame rate.

    (BTW, a Raspberry Pi uses at most 3.5Watts, and can update the FishBowl every 5 seconds at 1080p. Clearly Iceweasel on a Pi uses the least power ;-)

  12. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Bing vs. Google

    Have you noticed in the graphs how much less all the browsers (even IE) use when using Google instead of Bing?

    So please be nice to your planet and avoid the Microsoft search engine.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Bing vs. Google

      Probably because google has a very plain homepage whereas bing has a nice, big picture with links in it, etc.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      FAIL

      Re: Bing vs. Google

      Erm no, Bing is more efficient than google on chrome and ff but slightly less with IE. Save your criticisms for Yahoo.

      1. Mattjimf

        Re: Bing vs. Google

        It would help if you both pointed out which graph you are referring to. The notebook graph shows Google to be less power hungry then Bing, whereas the desktop graph shows the opposite.

        Which makes me wonder, why exactly that is the case?

  13. DrXym

    So what's the reason for this

    Assuming the premise to be true, is it because Firefox are hitting the CPU more, making more use of the GPU, triggering the OS to go into a higher power consumption state, thrashing memory / disk more, or what?

    1. mark l 2 Silver badge

      Re: So what's the reason for this

      I assume Its because IE has the advantage of undocumented API's that Microsoft can use that aren't available to Chrome and Firefox developers.

      Noticed Opera wasn't included in the test, does that mean Opera wasn't tested or out performed IE i wonder?

      1. DrXym

        Re: So what's the reason for this

        I doubt it has anything to do with undocumented APIs. Perhaps IE engineers have performance tuned their browser with respect to power consumption to look good in this study, or the other browsers are doing something which makes them look worse. I wouldn't leap to a conspiracy until such times as I knew the underlying reason.

    2. Birdulon
      Linux

      Re: So what's the reason for this

      From what I've seen, Firefox does this (excess wakeups) a lot on Android and Linux. Not so much on Windows though. I wish that discrepancy would get sorted out (hopefully by fixing the Linux builds and not breaking the Windows ones)

  14. Mark Simon

    Might offset some of the Energy wasted trying to get things to work in IE

    Any web developer knows that to finish a web project, you need to get it to work in modern browsers, an then to try to get it to work in IE10, then in IE9 then in IE8, then in IE7 then in IE6 …

    Not to mention that one reason we can’t all use HTML5 is because Certain Legacy Browsers can’t handle it.

    1. M Gale

      Re: Might offset some of the Energy wasted trying to get things to work in IE

      To be honest, there's a lot of sites now that are made to give up and gracefully degrade as best they can while warning you that you're using a POS* browser.

      Granted, IE still has its, erm, ways.

      *Particularly Obsolete Software

  15. Mark Broadhurst
    FAIL

    1 Watt ?

    1 Freaking Watt ? It takes IE longer to render a page than other browsers so you will be consuming that one watt less for longer using IE.

    Now I'm the biggest M$ fan but this just is a petty fail.

  16. ukgnome
    Trollface

    Bigger Picture Please

    It may be less power hungry on a client PC but what is the overall cost in terms of power?

    How much power does the development office use compared to the others?

    How much power do the development servers use compared to the other?

    How much power is used in getting the developers to work?

    Do the developers take pack up? Or do they use a canteen?

  17. Birdulon

    Methodology

    > Baseline: No browsers or other windows open

    It is my understanding that Internet Explorer is so tightly integrated into Windows that parts of it are always running, which is often brought up in cold start comparisons between browsers. If this is the case then it would imply part of Internet Explorer's resource usage is included in the baseline. Perhaps further tests should be conducted with all three browsers open at the same time, and only one visiting a site at any given time?

    >In addition, at the request of Microsoft we set the JavaScript timer frequency to “conserve power” in

    the Windows power options. We found, however, that the default Javascript time frequency for all

    computers tested was set to “maximum performance.” We did not investigate the impact of this setting

    upon browser power draw.

    I have to wonder if Firefox and Chrome use this system setting. It seems odd that they wouldn't run another set of tests at the default setting if nothing else.

  18. koma
    FAIL

    of course

    If you render only half the featurers...

    1. Destroy All Monsters Silver badge
      Paris Hilton

      Re: of course

      Who are those "featurers", why do they need to be rendered and has FÜHRERPRESIDENT Obama been informed by the CIA about this?

  19. Dodgy Geezer Silver badge
    Linux

    A few points:

    1 - This was Microsoft commissioned. And Microsoft seem to have influenced the tests at a technical level. The test report specifically states:

    a) ...We purchased 10 computers specified by Microsoft...

    b) ...At the request of Microsoft we set the Javascript timer frequency to 'conserve power' in the Windows Power options....

    One wonders why Microsoft were so anxious for THOSE computers to be used...?

    2 - There is NO indication that the tests actually measured like-for-like. For instance, Chrome might actually be doing more work in caching and preparing the web site for better presentation than IE - which would naturally result in a slightly increased power draw.

    3 - I use Opera, so I don't need to get involved in silly prick-measuring contests :)

    1. Matthew 3

      Re: A few points:

      I've used lots of browsers over the years and not one of them has asked for a prick measurement. Are you sure that you're visiting the right websites?

      1. Francis Boyle Silver badge

        I installed the prick measuring extension for Firefox

        but I got rid of it when for some reason it sent me here.

  20. Lunatik
    Devil

    Microsoft's secret?

    An undocumented Windows 8 feature spawns a svchost thread grabbing 100% CPU when a non-IE browser is being used.

    Concocted by MS Marketing precisely for this purpose.

    Would not surprise me in the slightest.

  21. Senior Ugli

    Is this the only positive thing IE has to brag about?

  22. Amorous Cowherder
    Facepalm

    Well bugger me with a fishfork!

    So MS are basically saying that you're less likely to kill lovely fluffy polar bears and penguins by running IE than if you run those nasty other ( non-MS ) browsers?

  23. DarkStranger

    Keep Mom Happy, Use Chrome!

    My mom is 73 and has been bashing my because her computer has slowed to a crawl. She's still running XP on a dual core 3.4GHz P4 with 4 GB ram and less that 15% of her 480GB hard disk has been used. I've been racking my brains trying to figure out what's been going on.

    I noticed that she was spending most of her time using IE and I suggested that she stop using IE and start using FF or Chrome and I set Chrome as her default browser. Now she is happy and content. Her computer no longer hangs and zips through her favorite web tasks. She says it faster than ever and she thinks that I am a computer Jedi again.

    The moral of the story is keep your mom happy and use Chrome!

  24. big_D Silver badge

    Power? Speed!

    What surprised me, being a Firefox user since it was called Phoenix, is how good IE has become.

    I still use Firefox as my main browser on my notebook, my desktop and my iMac, but on my Windows 8 tablet, an Atom powered ATIV, it crawls along and judders when trying to scroll. Chrome is even worse. On the other hand, IE is really fast and smooth in operation.

    I prefer to use Firefox where I can, as I use NoScript, FlashBlock and LastPass, but on an Atom tablet, IE walks away with the crown - now, if only NoScript was available for IE...

  25. darklordsid
    Trollface

    IE is perfect. For downloading Chrome or Firefox.

  26. MACWINLINO
    Devil

    Reaching new lows

    Surely someone at MS must realise something is wrong; when they have to say that IE is the most power efficient browser? Is that it, surely there is something else to brag about?

    Microsoft do you guys think that more people would use IE if it was available on OS X and Linux?

  27. Vanir

    Does not IE ..

    come with an operating systems which uses energy? I remember MS arguing that the application IE was part of the Windows operating system.

    Funny how things are - conveniently - forgotten.

    1. Fatman

      Re: Funny how things are - conveniently - forgotten.

      NO You got it wrong!!!

      The Windows/IE integration claim was made by Microsoft's legal team; while this claim probably comes out of the marketing department.

      Two distinctly different (but both slimy) animals.

  28. El Andy

    Haters gonna hate

    I notice that in the rush to hate on IE, everyone seems to have missed that Apple basically made the same statement yesterday: Chrome and Firefox are massive power hogs compared to Safari. Maybe, just maybe, the FOSS solutions aren't always the bestest at everything ever, eh?

  29. Flippit

    I love funded studies

    Was there ever a funded study that didn't put the interested parties product on top? I merely point to Gartner or Forrester for many solid examples... it would be more (I use the term loosely) interesting to see which browser contributed more to the total productivity of a user over an 8 hour day, and subsequently allowed that user to turn off their PC overnight sooner. Which, I'd imagine, might save a heap load more energy... just a thought...

    #bootnote : I wonder how many people would need to switch to IE in a month to reclaim the power consumed by running and writing up the 'analysis'? ;-)

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re:"Turn off your PC overnight"

      Do not shut down your computer daily.

      Every day you ask your computer to load the same thousands of files from the disk and perform the same processing in order to present you with a desktop?

      Does this not strike you as possibly being a little inefficient?

      Think of all that wear on your hard drives!

      You see, there's this feature called hibernation, it's been available since Windows 95, sometimes it was called 'suspend-to-disk'.

      It allows you to power off your computer whilst saving state. Maybe you should look it up (all of you...!)

      At the end of the day the computer powers down in about 30 seconds. When I arrive in the morning it is ready to use again in ten seconds. No thrashing, and my programs are just how I left them.

      I very rarely have to actually reboot, only usually for important updates.

      How has this passed you by?

  30. Henry Wertz 1 Gold badge

    What I want fixed...

    What I want fixed in Firefox is on some pages, where firefox will just sit there and use like 10 or 20% of the CPU while doing nothing (I suppose the pages have some crap javascript ? ), and the CPU usage used while downloading is most excessive.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      This is not a Firefox problem

      There is something wrong if you are seeing this behaviour.

      Try NoScript and see if that helps.

  31. mikebartnz
    FAIL

    But IE

    But IE already has half of it preloaded because it is so tied to the system so that is not a true comparison.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: But IE

      Yes... that's what I set out to prove back in 2006 on another forum after debate as to whether Firefox or IE used more resources. (See my earlier posts on the previous page.)

      Running IE under WINE (on Linux), suggested that IE6 at the time used more CPU resources while Firefox 1.5 used more RAM … upgrading RAM in my experience I find is far easier than upgrading CPUs.

      It's never going to be an apples for apples comparison since big portions of IE are used to render parts the desktop.

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