Microsoft Shames Battery Draining Google Chrome Browser With Windows 10 Popups

Microsoft came out swinging in late June, showing Chrome coming in dead last in battery tests (by a large margin). Microsoft struck again last week with benchmarks showing that Edge far outpaced Chrome in Netflix streaming — Edge came out on top despite the fact that it was streaming in 1080p, while Chrome was streaming in 720p.

Now Microsoft is stepping up its efforts against Chrome with a new popup in Windows 10. Microsoft is well known for its use of popups in Windows 7 and Windows 8.1 urging users to upgrade to Windows 10, but this new popup instead calls out Google Chrome by name.

The popup, which was first picked up on by Windows developer Rudy Huyn, is seen below:

Remember when I spoke about the anti-@googlechrome pop up? It's come back, here is a screenshot! #windows10 pic.twitter.com/FpOjL27srK

— Rudy Huyn (@RudyHuyn) July 18, 2016

Microsoft is really preaching to the choir when it comes to Chrome’s effect on battery life, but popups promoting Microsoft apps are not exactly something that enthusiasts enjoy seeing when they’re trying to get work done. However, this isn’t the first time that we’ve seen Microsoft promote apps within Windows 10; the Anniversary Update doubles the number of recommended apps shown in the Start Menu from 5 to 10. These recommendations, however, can be disabled through the Settings menu.

For its part, Microsoft has not yet made a public statement regarding this latest attack on Google Chrome, but the company will likely just point to its recent benchmark results as reason enough for the existence of these new popups. And Microsoft could use a little help, as Edge has lost momentum in Windows 10 when it comes to browser share.