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Safari is more energy-efficient than Chrome and Firefox on OS X

blog.getbatterybox.com

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Re: Safari is more energy-efficient than Chrome and Firefox on OS X

#51

Post by wyager »

dgrab24 wrote: post #48
andreasley wrote: post #8

Note that these tests were conducted on a MacBook – presumably running OS X. Apple invested a lot of time optimizing Safari and OS X for low power usage, so it's not exactly surprising that Safari wins in most cases. It would be very interesting the see a comparison with Windows and Linux (if possible on the same hardware).

Wouldn't surprise me if os x is hard coded to display its own apps more favorably. Brings to mind how apple hard coded the wireless signal bars to display better AT&T signal on the original iPhone to boost sales.

It's not as if the signal bars on a phone have any standardised meaning anyway. That's just clever UX psychology.

Re: Safari is more energy-efficient than Chrome and Firefox on OS X

#52

Post by Menge »

TazeTSchnitzel wrote: post #35
jccalhoun wrote: post #20

Microsoft paid for a similar study a couple years ago. http://blogs.windows.com/ie/2013/06/05/internet-explorer-10-... IE was found to be the most energy efficient. Of course, since MS paid for the study it might not be the least biased study ever done.

I wouldn't be surprised if it were the case, though. IE is tailored to Windows, Windows is tailored to IE, so they can optimise for the best power consumption. Like what Apple does with Safari.

Forgive my cynicism, but I see searches for alternate metrics as probable fishing expeditions for silver linings on falling behind.

Looking at the results, and the above example of IE doing well in the past, everything seems to neatly inversely correlate with my experiences when checking caniuse.com for recent standards. (At the few sites where firefox does worse than chrome, I would wonder if the site is written for firefox then made adequate on the others == less -webkit-css and more attentions to the "best" -moz-css animations, etc.)

Since IE was the biggest failure on caniuse but is rapidly being eclipsed by safari, naturally they must pass the best power usage baton as well if they can be coaxed into otherwise equivalent environments.

A standard to handle graceful prioritization and intentional degradation for power saving could perhaps put this trick to sleep.

Re: Safari is more energy-efficient than Chrome and Firefox on OS X

#53

Post by droopyEyelids »

FroshKiller wrote: post #2

I found this title misleading. I thought this would be an article about how much power is consumed by the browsers of visitors to popular sites, e.g. the energy footprint of one day of Reddit's users based on the length of time of the average daily visit and how much battery each of the major browsers consumes in that time or something. What it's actually about is how much power is consumed by different browsers usin…

"Misleading" implies someone is trying to make you believe something that they know is not true.

"Confusing" implies something that is difficult to properly interpret, with or without the intention of the author.

Re: Safari is more energy-efficient than Chrome and Firefox on OS X

#54

Post by orbitur »

closetnerd wrote: post #49
cptskippy wrote: post #46

No surprises there, Apple controls both Safari and OS X. Microsoft has done the same thing with Edge on Windows 10. Does that mean I use Safari on my Mac or Edge on my Windows 10 machine? No.

Why not use Safari? I find the UI to be leaner, frugal energy usage as well as being faster in loading many of the websites I normally browse. The only exception is that I use Chrome when developing.

For me the killer feature would be some form of user profile, with segregated history and cookies.

I use Chrome because I can have two browser windows, one where I'm logged in to all my work tools and my work Gmail account, and another window where I look at Twitter and HN and I can have my personal Gmail account open.

I'll happily switch to Safari if they give me that. Chrome's general CPU usage aside, it performs especially terrible when using Google's very own products: video Hangouts (for work) and YouTube.

Google Hangouts in Chrome will set my Retina MBP on fire, but if I log in and join the Hangout in Safari, all is well again.

Re: Safari is more energy-efficient than Chrome and Firefox on OS X

#55

Post by gyc »

closetnerd wrote: post #49
cptskippy wrote: post #46

No surprises there, Apple controls both Safari and OS X. Microsoft has done the same thing with Edge on Windows 10. Does that mean I use Safari on my Mac or Edge on my Windows 10 machine? No.

Why not use Safari? I find the UI to be leaner, frugal energy usage as well as being faster in loading many of the websites I normally browse. The only exception is that I use Chrome when developing.

I experience so many more random beach balls using Safari that I never experience using Chrome. That is why I use Chrome.

Re: Safari is more energy-efficient than Chrome and Firefox on OS X

#56

Post by diminish »

aaronbee wrote: post #40

The Chrome team has been working on power efficiency improvements [1], some of them have gone into the already released Chrome 44. [1] https://plus.google.com/+PeterKasting/posts/GpL63A1K2TF

Eww on emacs is also quite efficient, if power efficiency is a concern for you especially in low battery conditions.

Re: Safari is more energy-efficient than Chrome and Firefox on OS X

#57

Post by kitsunesoba »

I think it's important to highlight that these benefits aren't exclusive to Safari; they encompass all of WebKit on OS X. Unlike Google who has inexorably tied Blink to Chrome, Apple pours most of its efforts into WebKit itself. As such, any developer using WebKit, especially on OS X, gets these benefits.

A great example is how each browser handles per-tab processes: with Chrome, this architecture is part of Chrome itself. In contrast, Safari's implementation is baked in at the framework level with WebKit.

The WebKit dev team really pushes for power efficiency in a much bigger way than the Chrome dev team does. Things like heavy JS and content blocking lists getting compiled down into bytecode via LLVM are both products of the WebKit dev team's focus on the race to idle.

I think it's also worth noting that there is a large difference in the two companies' vision for the web: Apple sees the browser as a vehicle for viewing websites. Google sees it as something more akin to an operating system. As such, it's only natural that their end goals are different.

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