On World Environment Day we have an opportunity to reflect on the progress made toward decreasing our environmental footprint and the environmental impact of our products. At Microsoft, we’re committed to developing software and technology that helps people and organizations reduce their impact on the environment, and today we’re proud to announce that Internet Explorer continues to be the most energy-efficient browser on Windows 8.
According to the Center for Sustainable Energy Systems at Fraunhofer USA, when compared to Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox, Internet Explorer uses up to 18 percent less energy. We know 18 percent energy savings is hard to quantify, so consider this: if every Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox user in the United States switched to Internet Explorer 10 for just one week, the energy saved could power over 10,000 households in the United States for an entire year and prevent over 85,000 metric tons of carbon emissions.
For their study, researchers from Fraunhofer USA tested Internet Explorer 10, Google Chrome 26 and Mozilla Firefox 21 for their energy consumption on Windows 8 when each of the browsers were being used for website browsing, playing video content using Adobe Flash and using HTML5 video. In all of these scenarios, Internet Explorer 10 exhibited the lowest energy consumption. Power consumption is often overlooked, but it’s an important consideration for us when building a modern browser. Efficient browsers lead to longer battery life in mobile devices, lower electricity costs and smaller environmental impacts.
For most of us, the environment is not usually on our minds when we fire up our preferred browser. But at Microsoft we believe it’s important to help consumers understand the energy impacts of the products they use. We’re proud to have made strides in the power requirements of our browser, and we invite everyone to join us in using technology that decreases environmental impacts around the world.
Learn more about the efficiency of Internet Explorer 10 on the Internet Explorer blog, and follow us on Twitter (@Microsoft_Green) for more sustainability news.