Opera Battery Saver Extends Laptop Battery Life By 50 Percent

Opera has introduced a new battery saving feature to its desktop browser, claiming it can extend the battery life of a laptop by half when paired with native ad blocking.

The feature had been tested in the beta version of Opera 38 and achieves the savings by reducing the activity of background tabs, waking the CPU less due to better scheduling of JavaScript timers, pausing unused plugins, browser animations and tuning video settings.

Download: Opera for computers

Opera battery saver

“We used a Dell Inspiron 7559, 15,6″, i7-6700HQ, 16GB, 256GB SSD, Win10, GTX960M using the Balanced power profile,” said the company in a blog explaining how Opera was able to run for 50 percent longer than Google Chrome.

“The backlight was set to 100 percent all the time, Wi-Fi was running in 802.11n mode with RSSI -53 dBm. There was no other software running in the foreground; indexing and background services were stopped. Laptops were placed on a wooden surface for similar heat exchange.”

Once a laptop power cable is unplugged, a battery icon appears next to the search and address bar, inviting users to enable the settings. Opera will also suggest using battery saver when just 20 percent of total power is remaining. Battery saver also keeps the laptop cooler by up to three degrees, preventing overheating in the summer.

Opera has added a number of features to its desktop and mobile browsers that improve security and reduce battery use. These include VPN, and native ad blocking, which was introduced to the desktop client in April.

The company says it is not against advertising as such, it wants publishers to recognise the impact bloated ads have on web speeds, privacy and security and use more efficient, safer creatives.

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