Opera Browser (Photo : Facebook)
Opera has announced a brand new power-saving mode on the developer version of the company's web browser. It has made the audacious claim its product makes a laptop's battery's life last up to 50 percent longer than Google's Chrome. After users unplug the portable computers from mains power a small icon that appears in the browser must be clicked on to activate the power-saving mode.
Opera claims the new tech's power saving comes from several tweaks it has made. They include background tabs using less memory, optimized video playback, and paused unused plug-ins, according to The Verge.
The company has just made some bold claims. However, it is unclear how the browser functions in real world environments since the figures are from lab tests.
Opera ran its tests on a Lenovo X250 laptop running Windows 10 that contained an Intel Core i7 processor and 16 gigabytes of RAM.
The company's testing software opened 11 "popular" websites in the web browser, which included the video-sharing site YouTube. They scrolled each website five times, left them for one minute, then closed the tab. The company repeated the steps until the laptop's battery ran out of juice.
It does not seem that Opera has compared how its browser works on different operating systems. The company repeated its test three times. It is possible the power-saving mode being tested with ad blockers boosted the browser's functionality and helped provide the extra battery life.
Opera might move its power-saving mode to its main browser. It has recently added native ad-blocking to mobile devices and desktops, and free virtual private networks (VPNs).
Last year Google was highly criticized for its Chrome browser draining laptops' battery life. The Alphabet company made changes in September to boost its performance.
In related news, Apple's MacBook recently received a longer battery life, according to Engadget. The laptop also now includes better CPUs, faster solid state drives (SSD), and rose-gold option.
MacBook now includes a one-quarter boost in graphics performance and one extra hour of battery life. It is almost the same machine as last year's model. However, the screen quality and portability are still strong points of the Apple laptop.
Here are 2015 laptops with the longest battery life:
