This article was published on May 12, 2016

Opera’s browser promises to reduce laptop battery usage by half


Opera’s browser promises to reduce laptop battery usage by half

Opera has updated its browser for Windows and OS X with optimizations to help save battery life on laptops.

The new power saving mode, available for preview in Opera’s latest developer build, is accessible via the battery icon that shows up when your laptop is unplugged from mains power.

The company says its browser does things like reduce activity from background tabs, adapt page-redrawing frequency and tune video playback parameters to cut down on power usage. In addition, there’s a new memory management method at play in this version that helps things along.

Opera says its browser can help reduce battery usage on your laptop by up to 50 percent
Opera says its browser can help reduce battery usage on your laptop by up to 50 percent

It adds that these tweaks, along with the recently-introduced adblocking feature which cuts down on memory use, can help extend battery life by up to 50 percent compared to earlier versions of the browser, as well as its archrival, Chrome.

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The company recently added a free VPN service as well, and with today’s update, Opera is shaping up to be a formidable competitor to Google’s popular browser.

You can try the latest developer build by downloading it from Opera’s site.

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