Comments on: Use Firefox, Save the Planet

By: Josh Catone

Josh Catone — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 04:17:00 +0000

@Kalyan: It is probably important to point out a few things:

1. I didn’t do the actual testing — Robert Hansen at SecTheory did. I merely reported on it.
2. It is not meant to be a comparison of IE to Firefox. I think if you actually read Hansen’s article you’ll see this. Rather, Hansen was comparing power consumption of sites with heavy JavaScript or Flash components vs. power consumption on the same sites with those components blocked. His choice of Firefox for the latter part of the comparison is, I would surmise, due it probably being his browser of choice. Note that I did theorize at the end of the article that users would likely notice a similar result using advert and JavaScript blocking plugins on other browsers.

@ Everyone else:

3. My headline is a catchy headline, nothing more. It seems like a lot of commenters didn’t bother to read the accompanying article before leaving a comment.
4. Nowhere did I (or Hansen for that matter) advocate one type of browsing over another. We merely reported the findings of a casual test.
5. Chill out. Seriously.

By: Kalyan

Kalyan — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 04:08:57 +0000

I would say this is not a proper comparison, you are not comparing apples to apples. Did you try IE with adblock pro / super ad blocker / IEJet – Popup Killer & Ad Stopper / Adpurger / Ad Annihilator / AdsCleaner extensions ? BTW this is not a browser to browser comparison. It is a browser + addons vs browser comparison.

And as above people mentioned the difference you are showing is within the margin of error. And you did not describe your test machine / software used, there could be a problem in your setup itself, overall I can say your comparison is good for nothing. Good luck next time.

By: anon

anon — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 13:57:49 +0000

bullshit

By: djc

djc — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 08:46:59 +0000

You’re not kidding that it isn’t ’scientific research’ — it’s simply a bunch of numbers with some conclusions drawn that don’t actually fit the figures. Even ignoring the glaring error of referring to a measurement in amps as ‘power consumption’ (power is measured in watts; current is measured in amps) the range for normal normal operating current of .36 to .39 gives an error margin of .03A, whereas the difference between IE and FF in both examples is well within this (.006 and .013). This implies that which comes out ‘best’ is more a matter of luck than scientific fact. And this ignores, as does the ‘article’, issues about what background or foreground processes happen to be running at the same time.

By: all4nerds

all4nerds — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 00:13:14 +0000

f you Josh, i like FF, i think it’s the best browser, but if you don’t know how to drive a sport car like IE <7 stay away from it.

By: cam

cam — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 23:47:40 +0000

This is soooo lame.
Here’s a better idea, Don’t put stupid freakin christmas lights on for the next month!

By: israelisassi

israelisassi — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 22:00:05 +0000

Lies, damn lies, and statistics…

How much could we help the environment if everyone stopped web surfing completely for a month???

By: SimonPhoto

SimonPhoto — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 20:29:12 +0000

This is ridiculous.
Next you’ll be telling me we should be using white-on-black for everything because it takes less energy to display a black pixel than a white one. I guess I’m ahead of the curve using Zenburn in Vi to code.
Furthermore, even the article admits that the testing methodology is nonsense. The variance is only 10% between having the stuff active and not – but it is also about 10% variance in typical power consumption. Give me a break.

By: xyborg

xyborg — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 18:37:34 +0000

have you tried Opera ???