Opera 38’s Battery Saver Leaves Dev Channel, Available For All Desktop Users
You can browse cute cat pictures for longer than ever before, now that Opera has released a new battery saver that claims to increase battery life by about 50% compared to other browsers like Google Chrome. So far the feedback from Twitter has been positive with comments from users like @jonathanhaslett exclaiming “Somehow @opera became the best desktop web browser without anyone noticing.”
Opera started testing this update in May via its developer channel. Opera Software stated, “It took us quite some time to normalize our test environments, but still the challenge was to be able to repeat the tests multiple times in order to get statistically meaningful results. Draining battery fully takes time, recharging takes time as well. Therefore, we have been working on estimating battery lifetime from shorter tests that we can do now with a pretty high degree of confidence.”
Test results with the new battery saver enabled showed that Opera can keep laptops on average 3 degrees C cooler. Opera was able to achieve these results by reducing activity in background tabs, waking CPU less often due to optimal scheduling of JavaScript timers, automatically pausing unused plug-ins, and reducing video to 30 frames per second. It also tuned video-playback parameters and forced usage of hardware accelerated video codecs, paused animations of browser themes, and included ad blocker.
Once a laptop’s battery is unplugged, a battery icon will appear next to the search and address field in the Opera browser. Users can click on the battery icon to activate the power saver mode. The browser will also detect when the laptop’s battery is running low and will suggest enabling power saver mode.
Opera 38 also includes a customizable ad blocker, customizable photo themes, speed dial improvements, Extension button visible in the Speed Dial side panel, and Change in version support for OS X. The Opera browser is available for all major computing platforms.
Opera started testing this update in May via its developer channel. Opera Software stated, “It took us quite some time to normalize our test environments, but still the challenge was to be able to repeat the tests multiple times in order to get statistically meaningful results. Draining battery fully takes time, recharging takes time as well. Therefore, we have been working on estimating battery lifetime from shorter tests that we can do now with a pretty high degree of confidence.”
Test results with the new battery saver enabled showed that Opera can keep laptops on average 3 degrees C cooler. Opera was able to achieve these results by reducing activity in background tabs, waking CPU less often due to optimal scheduling of JavaScript timers, automatically pausing unused plug-ins, and reducing video to 30 frames per second. It also tuned video-playback parameters and forced usage of hardware accelerated video codecs, paused animations of browser themes, and included ad blocker.
Once a laptop’s battery is unplugged, a battery icon will appear next to the search and address field in the Opera browser. Users can click on the battery icon to activate the power saver mode. The browser will also detect when the laptop’s battery is running low and will suggest enabling power saver mode.
Opera 38 also includes a customizable ad blocker, customizable photo themes, speed dial improvements, Extension button visible in the Speed Dial side panel, and Change in version support for OS X. The Opera browser is available for all major computing platforms.
