Google Cites Huge Gains In Chrome Battery Performance, Still Won’t Compare To Microsoft Edge

According to tracking website NetMarketShare, Google's Chrome overtook Internet Explorer this past March to become the most widely-used Web browser on the planet. As of just last month, the service pegged Chrome as owning a staggering 54% of the total marketshare, with IE settling with 27%. Firefox, meanwhile, scored about 8%, while Edge took 5%.

With Chrome dominating the market, it must mean that it's the best browser out there, right? While Chrome is definitely doing something right to get to the top, as we've found out in recent months, those reasons have nothing to do with battery life.

As we first reported back in June, Microsoft has been harping on the fact that its Edge browser is great for battery life, and it even has the proof. In an internal test, it was discovered that Edge lasts hours longer than the competition. In this particular case, Firefox and Chrome were not even close, but interestingly, Opera fell just one hour behind.

Those results in themselves are interesting, because Edge and Opera are the least popular browsers of these four, yet both offer the greatest battery life capabilities.

It's probably for that reason why in a brand new blog post, Google calls attention to major improvements seen between Chrome 46 and Chrome 53, but makes no effort to show how the latter now compares to the competition. In fact, we're not given any specific comparisons except the one just mentioned: on Chrome 46, the Chromebook Pixel lasted 8h 27m; on Chrome 53, that jumped to 10h 39m. A major improvement, but considering Microsoft's tests showed Chrome scoring half of that 8h 27m a few months ago, it's hard to tell exactly how impressive these gains actually are.

Google also mentions that Chrome for Mac has seen a 33% decrease in overall power consumption. So don't worry, Apple fans: you've not been forgotten. The company also tells us that overall, its browser has seen a 15% boost in performance on both the desktop and mobile over the past year, so even if Chrome can't beat Edge or other browsers in specific tests, at least things are improving.