Just under a year ago I wrote about the my experience using Google Chrome and Microsoft Edge on my Microsoft Surface Pro 3 (it can be found here). Several months later once I purchased my Microsoft Surface Book 2 I did a very similar comparison between the two browsers (it can be found here). Now I am revisiting my experience using Google Chrome and Microsoft Edge on the same Microsoft Surface Book 2. The good news I can tell you is that Google has caught back up to Microsoft in my books.
With my original Microsoft Surface Book 2 (and Microsoft Surface Pro 3) experiences blog posts there were two areas that I was fairly critical of Google’s Chrome browser when comparing it to Microsoft’s Edge browser and why I chose to use Microsoft Edge over Google Chrome. Those were (and I am not the only one to notice these pain points when using Google Chrome):
- Negative impact on the device’s battery
- Resource usage and management
The current version of Google Chrome that I am using on my Microsoft Surface Book 2 is version 68.0.3440.106 (Official Build) (64-bit). With this build I can say for 100% certainty that Google has made some improvements in regard to battery life (well I notice better battery performance). Using Microsoft Edge I could easily get 8 hours (1 full work day) of battery life no problem (this includes browsing the web, consuming different media, etc). With the version of Google Chrome I am using now (and the ones in between), I can get roughly the same amount of hours, performing the same tasks. I tested this over a couple of weeks and made sure that I was having my device fully charged before use and browsing roughly the same sites and watching similar content. So kudos to Google in fixing this. If you have a mobile device like a laptop then battery life is very important. The difference between using an application that drains the battery faster than another application that does the same tasks could be whether or not you need to bring your charging cable. I can safely say for me, I don’t need to bring my charging cable with me when I am now using Google Chrome.
Google Chrome is known to be a resource hog as well, and I make note of this in my original experience blog post (there are plenty of memes out there that make fun of Google Chrome and how it handles RAM and CPU usage; this one here is one of my favourites). Has it gotten better with the later releases? Yes, sort of. When I see what processes and services are taking up what resources, I can see that Google Chrome is sitting high on this list compared to Microsoft Edge (even now with the build that I am looking at). However comparing it to the last time I was monitoring my resources, Google Chrome is no where near consuming as much RAM (even with the same extensions, websites, etc running) and the load on the CPU is smaller. Microsoft Edge still uses less resources so in the long term you will get slightly more battery life than if you used Google Chrome (but not by much), and you get slightly more heat generated on the device but nothing that makes it difficult or uncomfortable to use on your lap.
Google Chrome now performing very similar to Microsoft Edge in regards to battery life and resource management, there is very little reason to stay on Microsoft Edge. Google Chrome is leaps and bounds ahead of Microsoft in regard to:
- Extensions – so, much more options. You just get a large number of options. The popular ones are appearing on Microsoft Edge but even the ones that are there, the Google Chrome ones are updated more frequently and seem to be treated like first class citizens compared to the Microsoft Edge counterparts. The situation here is just like any app on the Windows Store in general.
- Rendering web pages – Google Chrome has no issue rendering if not all but most web pages (probably 99.99% of them) whereas Microsoft Edge I find sometimes does not correctly render web pages correctly and I either have to refresh or switch browsers for it to load. I am not the only one to experience this with Microsoft Edge, I have found some friends say the same thing to me when using Microsft Edge.
So in the end, Google Chrome is being used as my primary web browser on my Microsoft Surface Book 2 again, until something breaks the Google Chrome build that returns it to the battery draining and RAM usage hog of the old days. I’m sorry Microsoft, but Microsoft Edge is just not worth using anymore even with all the improvements and changes made (which I really like too). There is nothing wrong with changing what products you use, what products you like, etc. as they are always changing and your situations also change. I constantly switch what Android apps I use and on my Windows PC this is no different. I will continue to use products that help me be more productive, and for longer periods. In this case Google Chrome is that browser. Let me know what you think. Have you seen improvements in the same areas with the later Google Chrome builds? Let me know in the comments.
Christopher Tom Kochovski 