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Chrome Microsoft The Internet

Windows 10's Edge vs Chrome: We're Faster and Win in Battery Face-off, Says Microsoft (zdnet.com) 157

Posted by msmash from the browser-war-lives dept.
Microsoft has kicked off 2018 with two new ads promoting Windows 10 Edge's battery efficiency and speed compared with Google Chrome. From a report: Microsoft published the two new ads on New Year's Eve, pitting Edge against Chrome, the world's most popular browser. "Microsoft Edge is up to 48 percent faster than Google Chrome," Microsoft says in one of the 30-second ads. Not only that, but Microsoft argues that Edge is safer too, thanks to SmartScreen, its built-in equivalent of Google's Safe Browsing anti-phishing technology. Microsoft says: "Edge blocks 18 percent more phishing sites than Google Chrome." Microsoft doesn't cite the source of this statistic, but in October, NSS Labs released a report comparing Edge on the locked-down Windows 10 S with Chrome on Chromebooks, suggesting that Edge blocks more phishing URLs than Chrome.
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Windows 10's Edge vs Chrome: We're Faster and Win in Battery Face-off, Says Microsoft More

Windows 10's Edge vs Chrome: We're Faster and Win in Battery Face-off, Says Microsoft

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  • phuck Edge (Score:1, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Edge could cure cancer and I still wouldn't go anywhere near it, MS's IE blunder took care of that in perpetuity.

    • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward

      thanks dude we were all worried about you possibly being an ie fan on slashdot cuz most people here dont like it and we want u to fit in
      does ur blog have rss feed so i can get timely updates on how bad micro$oft is

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by Hylandr ( 813770 )

      You're so Edgy it hurtz.

  • Don't Care (Score:5, Insightful)

    by MightyMartian ( 840721 ) on Wednesday January 03, 2018 @12:25PM (#55856409) Journal

    Edge is still such a piece of crap, the UI so amateurish, that I'd gladly sacrifice a bit of battery life to use Chrome. So far as I'm concerned, Microsoft has lost the browser wars.

    • Battery claim is for when Edge isn't running (Score:5, Interesting)

      by raymorris ( 2726007 ) on Wednesday January 03, 2018 @12:37PM (#55856515) Journal

      Last I checked, Microsoft's battery claim is for sitting there watching a video, without the browser actually doing anything at all.

      • Re:Battery claim is for when Edge isn't running (Score:4, Interesting)

        by Mr.Radar ( 764753 ) on Wednesday January 03, 2018 @12:54PM (#55856637)
        They definitely seem to have heavily optimized for the video playback use-case. On my slow (but cheap) Atom-based notebook video playback is noticeably smoother and uses less CPU than Firefox even though Edge is noticeably slower at actual web rendering.

        • They definitely seem to have heavily optimized for the video playback use-case. On my slow (but cheap) Atom-based notebook video playback is noticeably smoother and uses less CPU than Firefox even though Edge is noticeably slower at actual web rendering.

          Yep, streaming video on my Surface Pro 3 is literally the only thing I switch from Chrome to Edge for. Edge uses about 1/5 of the CPU that Chrome does for that one purpose. Aside from that, it sucks as an actual web browser.

      • Thing is, few give a shit about battery life on laptops or desktops. Even on phones most people don't care.

    • Re:Don't Care (Score:5, Insightful)

      by rogoshen1 ( 2922505 ) on Wednesday January 03, 2018 @12:44PM (#55856563)

      right? the nagging that occasionally pops up when running chrome is the nail in the coffin. So incredibly annoying when MS tries to nudge you into using their bullshit apps that are baked into the OS. Cortana, Skydrive, Edge.. Fuck off. If i had any desire to use these add-ons, I would.

      I abhor ads, especially when it's either impossible to disable/remove, or a convoluted regediting process. I bought the computer, I should get to choose what programs or features I use.

      • right? the nagging that occasionally pops up when running chrome is ...

        Whoa. Someone runs Windows 10 without disabling the Tips and Suggestions features in the settings? What the heck is wrong with you!

      • We could all say the same thing about Google pushing the use of Chrome when using their search engine. I get constant reminders to switch over to Chrome on my Windows RT Tablet, which doesn't even run Chrome. Google is just as bad as Microsoft when it comes to pushing their browser on people.

        • well, you're using google's browser, and search engine which are free. (aside from raping your privacy.. yes, every other tech company does it too.. it's not an excuse)

          for Windows/MS though, you are a paying customer. I get the annoyance factor directed at google, but (to me at least) it seems a slight bit 'different' than an OS .. which should act like an obedient child and not be heard from unless requested.

      • But you didn't buy the operating system. You're just licensing it.

        (Disclaimer: mine is Linux Mint.)

    • It's not like Chrome's interface is any good either. That's why I stick to Firefox, it can be set to a tolerable state.

    • That one annoying bug (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Touvan ( 868256 )

      IE and now Edge have one annoying UI quirk - immediately after you start it, you can click into the address bar, then it almost always takes away focus for some damned reason (actually, Windows does this all over the place - it's the primary reason I can't use that OS).

      If they'd fixed this one problem, I'd probably use it more. I suspect they don't use their own software at Microsoft. They'd surely have noticed and fixed it by now if they did...

    • ... just fuck off already, Microsoft.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by t0qer ( 230538 )

      Well you still need a browser on the OS to download a better browser. At least it serves that purpose.

      • Yes, Edge is just about good enough to be the first stage in a Chrome installation. I certainly don't use it for anything else.

      • At least until Microsoft bundles wget, which will happen sometime after the heat death of the universe.

  • vs Chrome and Edge? Firefox doesn't try to annoy you or nudge you into using any one product, it's fast, configurable, and doesn't ask you to "stink" with their "clown."

    Also: Opera.

  • It's not terrible... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by rwven ( 663186 ) on Wednesday January 03, 2018 @12:27PM (#55856435)

    Edge is OK. Where I think it lacks, in the same way that the latest Firefox lacks, is in its integration support, mobile features, and plugins.

    I use Google services a lot, and the fact that Chrome has native sign-in to Google, makes the integration really clean. Also the plugins on Chrome tend to be a lot more mature and stable than those for the "lesser" browsers. That's less of an issue with FF, but it's still present.

    Edge IS quite fast, and does a good job with proper page rendering.

    I think the problem is that Chrome is just a great browser. It doesn't matter if Edge is "just as great," or even "a little greater in this one area." A ton of people are embedded with Chrome now, and unless there's a REAL incentive to change, why would they?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by rwven ( 663186 )

      As an aside, the reason I haven't swapped to Firefox (their latest release is superb on the desktop) is that their mobile browser is a slob. The interface is decent, but I can't run more than 1-2 tabs without it just becoming totally unresponsive and/or crashing. If their browser ran as well as Chrome did, I would have swapped to FF and probably been pretty happy with it.

      • I currently have 40 tabs open in my Firefox for Android session and I haven't experienced any slowdown or crashes due to it (though Firefox tends to only keep the mostly recently-viewed 2-3 of them loaded at any time to save memory).

        • I currently have 40 tabs open in my Firefox for Android session

          Which Firefox for Android - aren't there several now?

          • I'm using the mainline release version (57.0.1 right now), not Beta, Nightly, or Focus (which is just a Chromium wrapper).

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Touvan ( 868256 )

        Firefox's mobile version isn't super terrible, but it's lacking in some important areas. Their canvas performance is not even close to Chrome for example.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by atrex ( 4811433 )
      I find that MS browsers suck in at least one major area: debugging support.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by rwven ( 663186 )

        Can't argue with this. Their developer tools are lousy compared to Chrome/FF. I would give a slight edge to FF at the moment due to the fact that they support everything chrome does, and they also let you quickly and easily browse all events related to any element you're inspecting.

    • Edge IS quite fast, and does a good job with proper page rendering

      Really? I guess my normal browsing experiences must hit a lot of Edge cases.

      I'd see myself out after that joke, but I'm wearing my serious face right now, I have more trouble rendering pages properly with Edge than any other browser, IE included.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by rwven ( 663186 )

        I'm curious what examples you have of issues with Edge. I've used it on and off, and I've yet to see a single page render improperly.

        • Maybe it's better recently. I haven't used it in well over half a year and ended up purging it from my system. Lots of various login problems, incompatibilities with Sharepoint (LOL), I also remember having difficulties reading the Financial Times.

          In any case I don't miss it. If it weren't for the problems then the infuriating interface would have done just as much to drive me away.

        • Double reply, but maybe it has something to do with Edge ignoring x-ua-compatible headers. According to the documentation on the MSDN if you run Enterprise licenses for Windows 10 you can force Edge to render with the IE11 engine when the x-ua-compatible header is set appropriately, but normal users are SOL.

  • Again with the browser speed... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by QuietLagoon ( 813062 ) on Wednesday January 03, 2018 @12:28PM (#55856441)
    ... the quest for speed caused Firefox to dump much of the useful functionality of the browser. Is browser speed really the issue it is made out to be, or is the quest for speed being done just because browser speed is so easy to measure and compare?

    • the quest for speed caused Firefox to dump much of the useful functionality of the browser

      ... which ones? I've been using the new version since it came out and I haven't noticed any lack of features.

      Granted it broke a bunch of addons when it first came out, but most of them have been updated by this point or replaced with more or less equivalent ones.

      What am I missing?

    • It matters on lower end hardware.

      On high end systems, there's hardly any difference between Edge, Firefox and Chrome speed wise, but on lower end hardware such as older Intel atoms or AMD E series processors with 2GB of RAM, Edge Destroys Chrome in performance with Firefox being in between the two.

      The biggest reason I don't switch to Edge is that its sharing between browsers isn't close. Chrome and Firefox got this nailed down. You login with your sync or Google account and your stuff is there and in the ca

  • Number one concern. (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    How well does it block ads, etc?

    • Not well at all.

  • Who cares (Score:4, Informative)

    by DarkRookie ( 5030953 ) on Wednesday January 03, 2018 @12:41PM (#55856543)
    Edge is still a browser made by MS. Edge, the best browser for downloading other browser in Win 10

    • I disagree. (Score:3, Interesting)

      by pecosdave ( 536896 )

      I added a second HDD to my work laptop and decided it was time to reinstall Windows yesterday.

      Edge is nearly all together broken. Nearly every page I load gives me a disconnected / time out type error. I could bring up the Brave website this morning, but I couldn't actually download brave using Edge.

      That's right - I started Internet Explorer to download another browser because Edge wasn't up to the task.

      It took me nearly an hour to log in, download, and install Office 365 yesterday using Edge as my on-ram

      • This is really weird, I installed Windows 10 fresh on an Optiplex 3010 next to me this morning and Edge is working fine, I decided to try downloading Brave with Edge again just to test, it tried to convince me to make it my default browser just fine, but when I hit download the fans spun up and it's like it's pegging the CPU. It's a Thinkpad W540. I haven't installed anything from the Lenovo site on it - it's just plain Windows 10 with a month or two old install image, all available patches installed, no

      • Edge has it's issues (UI, web rendering, the way it handles forms), but your example is completely FUBAR and unheard of. I would wager something went wrong during your install.

        I wouldn't say that there's anything that Edge can do that's better than Chrome or Firefox, but it's a far cry from unusable and I know a couple of people who use it without issue for Office 365 (though they are too stubborn to believe it would work better with something else.)

        • I was just using Edge to login and get the installer yesterday.

          On occasion I do load up the web version of Office 365 on my Linux system at home. Last time I did it I was still using Firefox. I haven't tried it with Brave yet.

          Considering the system is perfectly fine otherwise I figure a patch will eventually come along that fixes Edge and I won't even notice for months...

      • So the laptop in question is nearly four years old and has had the same SSD the whole time.

        The SSD died last week, probably because the install flipped bits that hadn't been flipped in a long time.

        I reinstalled the OS from scratch AGAIN on a new SSD of the same size.

        Edge is working fine, I was able to download and install Brave without issue - all other hardware is the same and I used the same methodology and even the same install media to rebuild.

    • Edge, the best browser for downloading other browser in Win 10

      For now. In the long term, that depends on how long Microsoft continues to offer Windows 10 Home to OEMs. If Microsoft were to replace Windows 10 Home with Windows 10 S, that would put other browsers behind a $50 paywall to upgrade to Windows 10 Pro.

      • And would likely, in the EU, at least, lead to Microsoft being financially punished and being forced on threat of even greater monetary fines to open up Windows S to other browsers. I don't think Microsoft has the guts to do it anymore. This isn't the MS of Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer. Not that I think it isn't run by a pack of evil sociopaths, but Microsoft no longer has the operating system dominance to bully its way back up that way.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Merk42 ( 1906718 )

          And would likely, in the EU, at least, lead to Microsoft being financially punished...

          Why doesn't the EU punish Apple for forcing Safari (or technically, its rendering engine) on iOS?

          • Because Apple doesn't have anything like a dominant position on mobile devices (that would be Android), whereas Microsoft still has that level of dominance on PCs.

            In other words; apples and oranges.

      • Which would force me to stop using Windows 10 altogether. I would really miss some of the games I play and do not look forward to the effort of migrating my wife from one particular piece of software she uses which only comes in a Windows version (there exists an open source alternative which runs on Linux or Windows, but I do not want to go through the effort of learning the software she uses so that I can learn this other software well enough to teach her how to use it as proficiently as she does the curr
  • If Microsoft makes an announcement in the forest and there is no one heard it, did it make a sound?

    How sad! How the mighty have fallen!! There was a time Microsoft will make an announcement, hinting at the possibility of someday releasing a product to do X. And boom! venture capital will vanish for any company working on a product that does X. Even companies that have a viable product already in the market to do X, working hard to maintain the foothold and expand will sink. Sometimes Microsoft will deign t

  • When Chrome is running, Windows continues to run background processes like system updates.

    When Edge is running instead, I noticed the CPU and network usage of those background processes to drop to near 0.

    This is the exact same type of b.s. that got them sued by the DOJ 23 years ago.

    • I'm inclined to believe that Edge's advantage comes from its ability to utilize [GPU] hardware acceleration better and not from cheating on Microsoft's part.

    • This is the exact same type of b.s. that got them sued by the DOJ 23 years ago.

      It is? The real world impact of this throttling of background processes, and these marketing claims by MS, are likely to approach zero. No special treatment is going to make Edge the more desirable browser. Besides, Google is not the best comparison to make for non-monopolistic behavior.

    • This is the exact same type of b.s. that got them sued by the DOJ 23 years ago.

      But since Microsoft dodged any meaningful penalties for that bad behavior, they have no reason to stop doing it.

  • Which browser subjectively does a better job at rendering content. My money is on Chrome.

    Personally I wouldn't use either because I don't really appreciate behemoths hoovering up all my web activity.

    • Yeah, my wife hates Chrome for some reason and doesn't realize Edge isn't Internet Explorer somehow so she uses it, but there are a number of times where I'm called in to ask why a page isn't loading right and just tell her to use Chrome.

      • Why not use Firefox?

        • That is what I suggested when she expressed her loathing for Chrome; I usually don't notice what browser I'm using unless there are problems, I'm not so sure what she finds objectionable about the relatively small UI differences.

          • Maybe what she finds objectionable is not the UI but using a browser made by a company whose business is to track your every move for advertising purposes. But you know your wife more than me.

  • It's gotta be tough being in the marketing department at Microsoft because you have to invent all these bizarre scenarios where an inferior product actually performs marginally better. Obviously, Edge is slower at loading websites and uses more electricity in the process so they resorted to the least realistic usage scenario: playing a video from disk for 15 hours.

    The truth of the matter is that they are all using hardware based video decoding which means all three browsers should have nearly equal run-tim

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Merk42 ( 1906718 )
      It's gotta be tough being in the marketing department at Microsoft because of people like here in Slashdot.

      Literally nothing is good enough. Edge could have 100% compatibility with CSS3, CSS4 HTML5 and HTML5.1, render faster and use less battery than other browsers, but no, it's "Micro$oft" so therefore bad!!

    • The motto is, if you can't win, change the rules.

      Has been for decades.

  • "Up to" (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Solandri ( 704621 ) on Wednesday January 03, 2018 @01:08PM (#55856763)

    "Microsoft Edge is up to 48 percent faster than Google Chrome," Microsoft says in one of the 30-second ads

    "Up to" is a useless marketing term when only a single benchmark is given. Edge could be slower than Chrome at everything except one test, and you could still truthfully state that it was "up to 48%" faster than Chrome.

    For a one-line statement like that to be meaningful, it has to refer to average speed, or "at least".

  • Stop grasping at straws! (Score:4, Insightful)

    by King_TJ ( 85913 ) on Wednesday January 03, 2018 @01:09PM (#55856777) Journal

    You know what people NEED in a browser? Compatibility with every web site they visit and flexibility to install extensions or plug-ins that make it a more useful tool for them!

    Speed is always a good thing, but it's got to be viewed as relative to the capability of the product. Right now, with Edge not supporting extensions or plug-ins, it's not even if the same league as the browsers it compares speeds with.

    I don't know anyone using Windows 10 who doesn't view Edge as the lightweight default browser you ignore except for the times Windows wants to open it to render something that was generated by clicking on an option in Windows itself.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Merk42 ( 1906718 )

      Speed is always a good thing, but it's got to be viewed as relative to the capability of the product. Right now, with Edge not supporting extensions or plug-ins, it's not even if the same league as the browsers it compares speeds with.

      Edge supports extensions [microsoft.com], by Plug-ins, do you mean something like Flash [adobe.com] which is also supported?

  • Faster? With 99 billion ad-flash-whatnot bullshit loading before the content I came for gets loaded? Are you trying to be funny?

    Which browser loads less bullshit is the question I'd care about. Which browser discards tracking cookies by default and protects my privacy better is the question I care about. But I have the suspicion NEITHER of those two will do EITHER of those things.

  • Performance as a metric doesn't tell me squat on its own, as it's pretty damn easy to have better performance by ignoring standards compliance, and Microsoft doesn't exactly have the best track record when it comes to fully complying to web standards.

    I'm sure that elinks renders even faster than Edge, but that fact on its own isn't all that helpful if you expect ECMAScript and full CSS support.

    Yaz

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Merk42 ( 1906718 )

      Performance as a metric doesn't tell me squat on its own, as it's pretty damn easy to have better performance by ignoring standards compliance, and Microsoft doesn't exactly have the best track record when it comes to fully complying to web standards.

      I'm sure that elinks renders even faster than Edge, but that fact on its own isn't all that helpful if you expect ECMAScript and full CSS support.

      Yaz

      Maybe with IE, but Edge currently is about the same as Firefox and better than Safari when it comes to standards compliance

  • OMG teh M$!! Edge is bad!! I've never used it but it's bad because M$!!!!!
  • The killer feature that made millions to swtich to Firefox from InternetExplorer was the pop-up blocker, and the pop-under blocker, I still can not all those X-10 video surveillance camera ads.

    Today what we need is a way to simply and cleanly stop all the auto play videos and all the auto play sounds. Google has no interest in developing the feature. NoScript, AdBlock, FlashBlock all have issues on chrome. Even when you set all the possible settings for autoplay video, it still happens.

    If MS wants to g

  • I had my first experience setting up Windows 10 the other day for a friend, I had been avoiding it all this time. Anyway the experience was horrible, first of all during the install Cortana starts talking to me, WTF? I don't like talking to AI's especially during setup when I didn't even turn Cortana on, so turn it off as soon as I can but it still seemed to be "listening" and picked up dialog from the TV going in the background and started selecting the wrong language setting because of the TV, what's up

  • If only speed was the primary factor (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Ngarrang ( 1023425 ) on Wednesday January 03, 2018 @01:43PM (#55857053) Journal

    If speed was the most important factor for choosing software, I would be running Linux instead of Windows 10.

    • Depends on your metric of speed. Personally I don't like giving up modern design for speed, and if you compare modern with modern the snappyness of Windows 10 lays the default Gnome 3 / Unity interfaces many people will first see on Linux to waste, and let's not even begin to talk about games.

      That said fluxbox is where it's at if speed is the only metric. :-)

  • I tried to use Edge to install software for the new Vive I got for Christmas. Edge wouldn't allow me to install anything. I couldn't even install DDU in order to install the Nvidia GTX 1060 I got to drive the Vive.

    Since it won't do anything, I guess that you could say that it is safe.

  • Battery claims don't matter when your browser royally sucks like Edge does. I will take a 50% loss of battery time if it means I can use a browser that can right-click and "save image" or "view image" or "copy image location." Edge can't even be used to save a copy of the current page. What a total piece of crap. Useless for any kind of real work.

    BUT IT MAKES YER BATTERY LAST LONGER WHILE YOU GET NOTHING DONE, HURR DURR HURRRRRRRRRRRRRRR
  • Title corrected to more accurately reflect the reality.

  • In a contest to see which browser is the fastest to track every single thing you do on-line, plus pull down your computer's pants and rape it for every bit of private information it can gather about you, your friends, your family and your business associates, and report all of the above to its master, the winner is...

    May I have the envelope, please...

    Well, ladies and gentlemen, I've never seen anything like this before. Ladies and gentlemen, we have a tie!

  • I don't care.
    Not what you claim, nor whether or not it is true.

    You ruined your reputation through decades of being evil. It won't recover anytime soon, no matter what. Especially not as long as you don't admit to the massive damage you have done to computing. We would be 10 years into the future without you, so for at least that time, suck it up and stop crying.

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