Microsoft Edge Beats Chrome By Over Three Hours In New Battery Usage Test (bleepingcomputer.com) 236
An anonymous reader writes: With the launch of the Windows 10 Creators Update and Edge 40 (EdgeHTML 15), Microsoft has released a new battery usage test that, naturally, trashes the company's competition. This new test shows that Edge uses less power than both Chrome 57 and Firefox 52, and is bound to draw a response from its competition, especially Google, who doesn't like it when Microsoft takes a jab at Chrome's efficiency. The same thing happened last year, in June, when a similar test showcasing Edge's longer battery life was met with responses from both Google and Opera.
The most recent tests were performed for the launch of Windows 10 Creators Update. Two tests were carried out until a laptop's battery gave out. For each browser, a minimum of 16 iterations were recorded per test. The first test measured normal browsing performance and the second ran a looped Vimeo fullscreen video. In the normal browsing performance test, Microsoft claims Edge used 31% less power than Chrome 57, and 44% less power than Firefox 52. In the second test, Edge played a looped Vimeo video in fullscreen for 751 minutes (12:31:08), while Chrome lasted 557 minutes (9:17:03) and Firefox for only 424 minutes (7:04:19). That's a whopping three hours over Chrome, and five hours above Firefox.
The most recent tests were performed for the launch of Windows 10 Creators Update. Two tests were carried out until a laptop's battery gave out. For each browser, a minimum of 16 iterations were recorded per test. The first test measured normal browsing performance and the second ran a looped Vimeo fullscreen video. In the normal browsing performance test, Microsoft claims Edge used 31% less power than Chrome 57, and 44% less power than Firefox 52. In the second test, Edge played a looped Vimeo video in fullscreen for 751 minutes (12:31:08), while Chrome lasted 557 minutes (9:17:03) and Firefox for only 424 minutes (7:04:19). That's a whopping three hours over Chrome, and five hours above Firefox.
Nobody (Score:5, Insightful)
Nobody believes you, MS. And even if it were true, Edge sucks so fucking bad that I'd rather have a shorter battery life and a decent browser than that worthless piece of shit browser you've produced.
Re: Nobody (Score:5, Interesting)
I actually just reformatted my daily driver desktop PC, installing the creator's update, and the new marketing pressure is real.
The first boot after install loads a cortana screen that doesn't go away until you click the mic mute button, with not one but three prompts to use a Microsoft account.
When you finally get to the desktop and use edge for the one and only purpose that most people use it for, it doesn't stop there. You type "Firefox download" in the search bar, and the first thing you get is a prompt to stick with edge. After you install Firefox and click to set it as default, the windows 10 default settings applet loads a blank screen (this repeated after multiple attempts.) So to change the default browser, you have to open that settings applet manually. Once you try to select Firefox as your default browser, you get another prompt telling you to try edge first, which you then have to dismiss to finally change the default.
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Boy, no wonder Firefox consumes so much power. All those extra screens....
And all the extra processing that goes into checking that firefox is running. Maybe it would be better said that win10 creator edition sucks so bad it loses over 3 hours of battery life when running quality software.
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Surely an 'innocent bug'. Like how the browser choice function in Windows 7 used to routinely fail to work.
I assume there's no Metro version of Chrome or Firefox (yet?... ever?). In any case, I wonder whether 'legacy' win32 apps have to jump through hoops on this version of Windows to access the screen or other system resources that Metro apps do not - and whether those hoops drain the battery. It's either that or the websites they're testing on are getting some kind of native video boost that only Edge
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I'm getting pretty good at hitting the invisible X on the notification to fix my Microsoft account so I can so something with my other Microsoft devices, which number almost but not quite one.
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See this is the problem. Even the self-professed geeks still use Windows and it's the same reason everybody uses Windows, because stuff works on it and it's easier to just use Windows rather than to make those workflows actually work on Linux.
Microsoft stories should barely get a blip of attention here, but they get overwhelming response because most of the people here use Microsoft products rather than contributing to developing or funding those workflows for Linux.
This ultimately comes from the smattering of (as Microsoft terms it) legacy applications out there, and then video games which rely on well optimized video card drivers to run well. This isn't Microsoft's doing so much as it is third party hardware and software developers putting less effort on other platforms. However, I wouldn't necessarily count on this remaining the case forever as Microsoft is already seeing its mindshare seriously take a nosedive over the last decade.
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... and then video games which rely on well optimized video card drivers to run well.
For many years, the video game excuse was that they only ran on Windows.
Then, for many years, that they ran poorly through wine (or various versions of it or winelib), or they were released later than the windows counter part (even if some of them actually ran better on linux).
There's also a fairly large list of games that still require Windows, or run better there, and that can be used as an excuse.
This quote, that they require well optimized video card drivers to run well, this is just stupid.
The majorit
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The test didn't even compare the battery performance while editing code with VIM followed by compiling it with MinGW.
Watching video's for hours on end is not something I do. Coding for hours on end is.
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Re:Nobody (Score:5, Informative)
Nobody believes you, MS. And even if it were true, Edge sucks so fucking bad that I'd rather have a shorter battery life and a decent browser than that worthless piece of shit browser you've produced.
Actually Chrome is an abomination lately. It's a memory hog. Firefox is performing far better now than Chrome. Google is more worried about its performance in the mobile world and less on the PC. Hell they are the only browser that hasn't restricted javascript from launching in it's own tab. 2 years behind...
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Kinda makes sense with Android being the most used OS in the world, though yes, not cool.
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That's fine, memory is cheap. As for Firefox performing far better? We'll have to see some stats. The ones in TFS show Chrome being more efficient already. On the general benchmark category each browser seems to win an equal number. And frankly as someone who uses both, Chrome just seems faster on the interface side.
Being "2 years behind" in something no one gives a crap about and doesn't have any impact is something people in general are okay with. People in general are also okay with high memory usage pro
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Have you even used Edge? because its actually pretty good technology.
Sure, so is Chrome (and Firefox, btw). But that's certainly not a "worthless piece of shit". Very far from it.
Heck these days when a page doesnt work in Chrome I load it in Edge and I don't even mind it.
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Really? What actually sets it apart, or even makes it the equivalent of Chrome or Firefox?
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The whole Windows environment spies on you, and as to battery life, it's not that important to me, and even if it was, Microsoft's history of rigged analyses of the wonders of its own products would hardly convince me they're telling me the truth this time.
Re: Nobody (Score:2)
You should probably pay attention to Microsoft's latest privacy disclosure. Edge and IE BOTH very much do spy on you. Microsoft records every URL you visit and every search term you type, including in competing search engines. So if you thought you had privacy when searching in duck duck go when used with edge/ie, you are wrong, as Microsoft does and will log it, and presumably even associate it with your name if you use a Microsoft account.
This is actually the whole point of Microsoft pushing edge/IE so ha
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I have, and consider it far, far behind the competition in features.
I'm honestly curious - what features are people talking about?
I don't run Windows, let alone Edge, so I can't compare. However, when it comes to browser features, they all seem to be removing them far faster than adding features. The only features left (by default) seem to be:
* back button
* reload button
* location bar
* tabs
* bookmarks
* incognito / privacy mode
* history / downloads
* print
* settings
I'm digging deep on some of those. There isn't even an OS title bar nor status bar anymore. I have a forward but
Open the source and give it to Tor... (Score:2)
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If you used a decent browser to begin with you wouldn't need the extra 3 hours of battery life to get your work done using Microsoft Edge...
Damn, my modpoints expired yesterday unused (Score:2)
Was out of town for several days, otherwise this would have been modded up some more.
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Google Chrome Beats Edge (Score:2)
>> Microsoft Edge Beats Chrome By Over Three Hours In New Battery Usage Test
Better headline :
"Google Chrome Beats Edge By Over Fifty Percent In New Market Usage Test"
Chrome: ~50%
Edge: ~1,5%
Ouch
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Re: Nobody (Score:5, Insightful)
MS's numbers are clear. I'm not really going to simply believe what MS says about their own browser. They've spent fifteen years exaggerating the wonders of their shitty browsers. As it is, unless battery life is your only concern, Edge just fucking sucks in every other way. The whole browsing experience in Edge just stinks, and the numbers don't lie there either, people simply don't use Edge.
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The numbers may be clear but the test itself is complete bollocks.
The test is 'watching video in Vimeo'. Any efficiency is down to the video codec, not the "browser".
If you think your computer will go three hours longer when you're just generally surfing the web then you're WRONG.
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Hardware acceleration is definitely up to the browser, and that has a huge impact on battery life and video performance. On my shitty AMD APU machine, Chrome chokes when playing video in the browser. For some reason Edge plays them with full hardware acceleration, removing the tearing and stuttering present in Chrome - with the same video. It's not as simple as you seem to assume it is...
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Re: Nobody (Score:4, Insightful)
It wouldn't surprise me if MS has added code into Windows 10 to drain a battery faster if certain conditions are met.
Its not unusual behavior for MS. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
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...and next you're going to imply they also cheat on EPA emission tests, no? :-)
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Great idea! Hobble their whole Surface line of PCs and every single Mac vs PC comparison in order to win a pissing contest over browser efficiency.
Microsoft would be idiots to sabotage Chrome performance when they know that Chrome would be a normal battery benchmark when people reviewed their computers.
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It wouldn't surprise me if MS has added code into Windows 10 to drain a battery faster if certain conditions are met.
If that really were the case it would be trivially easy to prove: Just run the same benchmark on Windows and Linux. No need to speculate.
Re: Nobody (Score:5, Insightful)
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If you really think that then just run the tests on Chrome on the same system in both Windows and Linux and you can prove or disprove your hypothesis.
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Because these facts ignore other problems that Edge has. I've experienced slowdown, improper coloring, improper page layout (to the point of unusable) and a handful of other strange behaviors on a regular basis. I switched to Chrome because it just plain works.
So you can save battery life, but at what other costs? I'd rather get crap done than reload a page 100 times or wait 2 minutes for it to render.
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Re: Nobody (Score:5, Insightful)
"Superior" is a subjective term not at all equivalent with "drains battery less". I do in fact acknowledge that for Vimeo video playback and a "normal browsing" set of tasks Microsoft has come up with, Edge drains less battery than Chrome.
That, in and of itself, doesn't automatically confer the label "superior" to Edge for me. As I value the usability features of Chrome much more than Edge.
Re: Nobody (Score:5, Informative)
Climate change is supported by hundreds of independent studies. There are also some studies funding by the oil companies that cherry pick the data to claim that climate change does not exist or is purely following the natural course of the planet. There are articles that show how the oil companies studies cherry picked data points and why the results are invalid.
This article is based on tests done by Microsoft on their own browser. That is much more like the oil company "studies" than the independent ones. The Microsoft test isn't based on any industry standard benchmark or anything; they designed new tests to show off their browser. If you don't think Microsoft designed the tests to show Edge in the best possible light and the other browsers in the worst; then you are naive. Microsoft has a long history of producing PR that doesn't stand up to independent testing and many articles cover this topic.
The facts here are that Microsoft designed 2 tests that makes their browser look good. I don't think anyone is denying that. The facts we don't know is whether independent testing will show the same results.
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I'm waiting for the large number of peer-reviewed journal articles to have as much confidence in that as I have that AGW is going on. Heck, some independent tests would help.
Leaving the computer off drains the battery even slower. Hence, by your reasoning, leaving the computer off is superior to running Edge. I'm finding that conclusion almost plausible.
Re: Nobody (Score:5, Interesting)
No the numbers are a lie. Why are they are lie because edge is running all of the fucking time, whether you use it or not. So basically the fucking liars are comparing edge running in the background and foreground to edge running in the background and Chrome running in the foreground. A straight up marketing fucking lie. So yes, just running fucking edge uses less power than running edge and chrome, surprise, surprise, surprise. Want a real world comparison for edge versus chrome, compare edge on windows 10 to chrome on linux and then just for fun compare TCO, M$'s favourite total cost of ownership. So conduct a range of internet tasks and then look a data usage will edge on windows 10 not only consume more energy but also how much more network data will be wastefully created.
On Windows 10, the bulk of edge is now running in the background no matter what the fuck you do, you can not stop it wasting power, reducing performance and spying on you.
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That makes no sense. So what if Edge is running in the background? If it's not doing anything it's not doing anything. Chrome also runs in the background on Windows, so I don't know what your point is, and I'm slowly suspecting you don't either...
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You know which browser draws batteries even less than Edge?
Lynx. [browser.org]
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The stats re Edge's uptake are telling. Nobody likes it. MS knows this so they start a PR effort to make people think Edge is remarkable. This is a marketing piece, nothing more. And face it, MS's credibility is weak. They have repeatedly lied to and deceived their customers. I'm astonished that more people haven't abandoned MS's crappy, over-priced products.
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In here, Microsoft is always wrong and bad.
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Just load Task Manager and you'll see why Firefox drains the battery. CPU utilization is crazy with Firefox. Routinely using 2 to 3 of my 4 cores. I'll stop working, with the most trivial of pages loaded, and wait for the CPU storm to die down.
Nothing makes a system feel more bogged down as well.
I forget what I was doing the other day. Nothing fancy, maybe video, and with a single tab the browser was using a gig of memory. Close browser, open it, load same page. Gig of memory.
Suckage, thy name is Fire
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since Mosaic was the only browser in existence.
Minor nitpick, but that's never been the case. You might assume I'm talking about Lynx (which did predate Mosaic, barely) or something similar, but Mosaic wasn't even the first graphical web browser. This is grammar-nazi level nitpicking though... you could have easily said, "I have been using the web since Mosaic was released", and that'd mean the same thing and have the same impact, even if you didn't use it on release day (Mosaic was around for less than 2 years before Netscape Navigator was released, so
Really? (Score:4, Funny)
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Didn't we last month some story about MsDev IDE taking one full core to implement the blinking cursor? They probably tuned the code for this specific test.
That was the IDE. You use that to compile your code. That had no effect on the finished product. Only that the video performance was locked at a higher refresh rate.
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Ironically (or not) it was a chrome bug.
Err... Chromium != Chrome
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Chromium and Google Chrome are identical except for a few proprietary components, mostly Adobe Flash Player and the video DRM stuff. Or are you claiming that one of those proprietary components caused Visual Studio Code's poor performance?
I believe it (Score:4, Funny)
Since I never use Edge, I guess it'll never use the battery.
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This is why I browse Slashdot.
Great (Score:5, Interesting)
So I can now spend 3 hours more using a browser that's unusable.
I kinda fail to see the benefit.
good thing.... (Score:2)
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Screw with the numbers (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm sure the test was perfectly fair and they didn't do anything like ensure Chrome was loading and running flash on a video loop while their own used HTML5 and refused to autoplay. No way Microsoft would be that underhanded.
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It's not like Microsoft would put its thumb on the scales. Remember "Total Cost of Ownership" argument of Windows cost vs Linux cost?
Credit where credit is due (Score:2, Interesting)
No doubt, credit where credit is due and my hats off to MS in their browsers efficiency, however, it still doesn't change the fact that Microsoft's browser will always be seen as inferior like IE. I guess (sadly) the same as many people see Firefox as always bloated and inefficient compared to Chrome.
MS will no doubt use this to their advantage in ads as much as possible, but I don't think it will change the browser war - until perhaps they (like Google) also spend billions in advertising Edge all over the
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No doubt, credit where credit is due and my hats off to MS in their browsers efficiency,/em.
Really no doubt? The summary can be summarised further as "Microsoft says Microsoft is the best". I'd say there's a fair degree of doubt that they are, in fact, the best and I won't be taking their word for it.
To me that means... (Score:2)
Ad blocker (Score:2, Insightful)
In real world, any gain in battery life made by using Edge is more than lost for not having an ad blocker.
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Vendor Paid Test (Score:5, Insightful)
Not to beat a dead horse, but... (Score:3)
...Didn't they integrate some browser into an earlier version of their operating system at some point in the past, and get sued over it?
I wonder what happens if you integrate a running virtualized piece of software, loaded "into the OS" at all times, to remove the conceptual difference between "normal" and "excessive" power usage...?
Oh, and they just set the "new official industry standard for battery usage measurement"; one you must comply with in order to have their "certification".
Ima shut up now. Ahh, mem'ries.
The better tool takes less time. (Score:2)
It doesn't matter if Edge is more battery efficient if it's less time efficient to use it. The extra laptop run time till be lost in having to spend more time to do the same tasks because of lack of add-ons/familiarity with the software. Not to mention that would cost me real world time I could be doing stuff besides the activity that required web browsing to start with.
3 hours! (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes! By completely fucking off on security, we've extended run time by three full hours!
Too bad it only takes someone 15 seconds to break in and corn-hole your device (by accident) or 5 seconds (if they're actually trying).
What about standards? (Score:2)
How does Edge and other browsers do on standards compliance tests? Who cares how long it works if it doesn't work correctly?
Not a valid testing methodology (Score:4, Interesting)
Low hanging fruit (Score:2)
Ignoring the Chrome comparisons, comparing Edge to Firefox just isn't a fair fight. Heck, I believe I could come up with a better browser than Firefox.
Breaking news from the Gee, Ya Think dept. (Score:2)
Energy usage is directly related to memory usage: more memory used means more energy required to access it.
We need to get back to writing efficient code again. By that, code that minimized memory and CPU usage, and is not a bloated multi-process pig like Chrome.
This multi-process crap is the biggest pile of crap, it increases complexity
There is no evidence whatsoever... (Score:2)
... that any representatives of the Trump campaign organization cooperated with, colluded with, or otherwise worked with any Rus--
Oh, wait, sorry, wrong account. Ahem.
There is no evidence whatsoever that Firefox, Chrome, or any other browser is even remotely competitive with the superior battery life and rendering performance available from Microsoft(r) Edge(tm). I just installed the Windows(r) 10 Creators Update(tm) last night, in fact, and was delighted with all aspects of the newly-enhanced customer ex
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Oh sure (Score:2)
Only on Win 10 (Score:2)
At same performance? (Score:2)
It's not a fair comparison if Edge is in effect sacrificing performance - e.g. perhaps the video played smoother and dropped fewer frames on Chrome? We don't know. Could be something as simple as, something in their tests trigger hi-rest timers i.e. timeBeginPeriod to be called on Chrome, e.g.: https://bugs.chromium.org/p/ch... [chromium.org] (this was a known issue in Chrome for a long time, and if you read the "fix", it isn't a 100% fix in that Chrome will still active high-res timers in some conditions) ... if Edge say
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For a bit more info/explanations on the above, see: https://randomascii.wordpress.... [wordpress.com]
That's all well and good... (Score:2)
That's all well and good that they have a lower power demand.
It however does not change the fact that Edge is a browser that wants to do everything but can't do any one thing well. The damn thing wants to be my primary PDF viewer and I've yet to have one single PDF file load in it either from a web page or from a local file. I'm also quite annoyed with the fact that it gets all pouty when you want to make something else your primary handler of a function that it wants to have control of. It begged me when I
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Because it wins in a metric nobody gives a fuck about?
Seriously, if your battery life depends on what browser you use, whatever you're doing with your computer cannot be too important.
Internet Explorer finds something to win at (Score:2)
Ignoring MS history, their Internet Explorer:Edge is at the "edge" of supporting many standards and probably far from supporting as many as the other browsers meaning it does far less work. Besides their advantageous knowledge of their own OS and not needing any portable cross platform code... such as being able to decode video playback thru their OS in ways the others may not do.
I frankly don't care, I will never go back to a corporate controlled browser and support that nightmare again... Including googl
Re:It's clear that Edge is better (Score:5, Interesting)
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I trust neither. Google talked a good game but is now just as evil as the rest.
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IANAL but the information that I see contradicts with what I have read at other dozens of reliable sites:
-- Part of this license states that any changes to the kernel are to be made freely available.
Only true if you are going to distribute kernel outside the company. As long as you use within the company, you don't need to make source code available to anyone.
-- any products compiled with GPL'ed tools - such as gcc - would also have to its source code released:
This is simply not true even if you are doing a
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OP is a dirty unwashed troll, and you, sir have been trolled.
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Absolute bullshit.
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total bullshit.
No MS Troll who's entire career has been spent developing on windoze would know how to or why the kernel should be modified, much less have the chops to do so. Defragging "some stuff"? WTF?
"We were informed by a lawyer...". Bullshit.
Everything by this troll is uninformed marketing drivel. It seems like some shitty essay posted by a marketing droid out of Redmond or some other anti-Libre outfit.
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It's also copypasta that's at least 10 and maybe 15 years old. Pay no heed to it.
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More to the point, tell a story that isn't a complete fabrication. /. really does need to kill the AC.
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Ok I'll bite. What makes edge "incomplete"?
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Debugging console? What's wrong with printfs?
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I didn't realize that pressing the "F12" key on the keyboard took so much longer in Edge than it did in Chrome.
Also, if you were unaware that F12 was the keyboard shortcut for the dev tools window, it is pretty obvious you've never actually USED Edge then, and are just talkin out your ass, since Edge literally calls it the "F12 Develop Tools" in both the context menu option to open the console as well as the title bar of said console.
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If the quality of the browser isn't an obstacle, and battery life is your only really concern, then I'll wager Links [jikos.cz] has everything else beat for battery life. What's more, it's probably the safest browser ever made.
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My gut tells me no one at MS has opened a browser to /. in years now.