Browser Battery Usage

The cluster focuses on discussions about high CPU, memory, and power consumption in web browsers like Chrome compared to Safari and Firefox, and their impact on battery life for laptops, phones, and tablets.

📉 Falling 0.4x Web Development
2,527
Comments
20
Years Active
5
Top Authors
#3932
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Keywords

RAM CPU JS HEAVY LLM SSH PC mozilla.org FvbDrMc.png YouTube cpu battery chrome browser firefox browsing safari tab web browsing javascript

Sample Comments

umanwizard May 14, 2016 View on HN

Are you sure you're not just browsing more complex sites? Modern rich web applications can use a surprisingly high amount of cpu, gpu and ram

melchebo Jul 26, 2025 View on HN

Browser versions tend to burn more power.

mhb Jan 27, 2016 View on HN

Energy usage? What would the difference in energy used be for Chrome vs. Safari vs. Firefox?

daveheq Jan 24, 2017 View on HN

"Browser vendors should be concerned about battery life"... On a desktop or laptop plugged into the wall? Sounds like an incomplete or counter-productive optimization.

danlugo92 Oct 22, 2019 View on HN

Would this bring it up to par with safari's power consumption?

AstralStorm Feb 13, 2018 View on HN

Browsers do not provide such caps for JS CPU usage. Maybe they should.This is extra bad when you're viewing on a phone, tablet or battery powered laptop.

unsupp0rted Oct 18, 2022 View on HN

Will this eat more battery than Chrome does?

freeone3000 Jul 18, 2021 View on HN

Web browsing isn't a light activity anymore. Web pages consume more memory and more CPU than my text editor

andirk Jul 8, 2018 View on HN

Please elborate. Because javascript burns battery om a laptop?

nirvdrum Jan 3, 2012 View on HN

I'll take the network hit over the CPU hit (and thus battery life). This page is constantly using about 45% of a core on my MBP in Firefox 9.