Hey, I would if I could 🙂

did you clear history and data from your Android install since it sounds like you’d normally use that?

I didn’t for the Chrome/Firefox comparison I did in my post, but I rarely use either browser as a default, so I doubt it would have a huge impact.

I’m curious to know the impact of ad-blockers

I’ve tested a ton of Chromium derivatives with built-in adblocking (e.g. Brave, Vivaldi, Cromite), and all of them were substantially the same as Chrome. Firefox with uBlock Origin seemed to be mostly the same, but I admit that impression is anecdotal - I haven’t done a direct comparison.

Either way, I don’t think adblocking is bad, so if you want to block ads go for it.

I actually did manage to pass it along to Firefox’s CTO as part of their recent Reddit AMA! They indicated they’re investigating power consumption in general, so I hope my work is useful to them.

Tests on however many devices you’re comfortable with would be super appreciated!!

do you get any meaningful difference in the browser engine family? Like between Chromium, Brave and Vivaldi for example?

All those examples are Chromium derived, and all have more or less identical battery characteristics. Some may score slightly higher on benchmarks than others, but they all consume roughly the same amount of power.

Please report back on the Github discussion if you do!

Happy to share!

Oh, also:

but with Chrome being about 10x more efficient on P8P than P4a

I wouldn’t make that conclusion. My Pixel 4a 5G is four years old at this point. The battery is not what it used to be.

I ran the same benchmark about a year ago (back when it was my daily driver) and the consumption percentages were more like 2.75% on both browsers.

This is why I added that first caveat in my post.

Thank you for reading!

Actually, refresh rate isn’t a factor! I tested with smooth display off on the 8 Pro and the power consumption was roughly the same.

It’s worth noting that the numbers I got from Battery Historian are the app’s power consumption alone. It tracks display/system power consumption separately.

I’ve been running these tests on and off for months with different browsers. On my Pixel 8 Pro, the different Firefox variants are all more or less the same (which is to say tremendous battery hogs). I also tried with Ublock Origin enabled and it didn’t make an appreciable difference.