Another April 1st joke: Internet Explorer provides best browser battery life

We all know Internet Explorer sucks. We always recommend our readers to use alternatives, e.g., Firefox, Chrome, Opera, SeaMonkey. Even the old Netscape or Mozilla is far better than the IE.

Today, I read a report claiming Internet Explorer provides the best browser battery life (i.e., drain your battery at a slower pace). It sounds like an April 1 joke.

Usually, I did not pay much attention to such benchmarks: I rely on my own “experience”. That’s the major reason I switched from Firefox (which is far better than  Internet Explorer) to Chrome (which is currently my favourite browser). User experience is the key factor to decide which browser is better for you.

Actually, based on the same test, Google Chrome is the fastest since September 19, 2011.  This is consistent with my experience. The battery test results probably indicate that the Internet Explorer draws less juice because it is slower, I guess.

Anyway, the test is not reliable at all. For example, the reported confessed that:

Out of all browsers, Google Chrome stood out as the most troublesome. Most of the tests I made with this browser did not finish successfully. First, I had issues with the browser crashing in the middle of testing. I reinstalled Chrome and the problem was fixed. Then, many tests simply did not end well and Peacekeeper was not able to record the results, for unknown reasons. Also, during most tests, the screen of my laptop was becoming active at random intervals, as if mouse or keyboard movements were detected. I found this strange, as my laptop was simply sitting on a table, not bothered by anyone. This lowered the battery lifetime when testing Google Chrome, as the screen consumed more energy than in the tests made with other browsers. Again, the cause for this behavior is unknown and it was encountered only when testing Google Chrome.

Anyway, if you really want to compare the performance of the browser, just visit web pages and web pages…. Then, you will notice Chrome actually is not only the fastest but also probably the most battery efficient. The browser is built for browsing, not for testing.