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Comment by ProfessorLayton | Hacker News Reader

I never really "switched" to any particular browser, I use Safari/Vivaldi/Firefox concurrently, but have noticed how much better Firefox has gotten recently, after years of painful decline (Speed, and resource hogging being my biggest peeves).

The only major thing I wish it did better is if it conserved battery power as well as Safari does. If I want to maximize my laptop's battery life I don't really have a choice other than Safari on my MBP.

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I don't think that is Firefox's fault vs. Safari being optimized for usage on MacOS machines obviously.

It's a native Mac application. Why shouldn't it be "optimized"?

Because being a native app is not enough. You actually need to do extra work if you want it to be energy efficient.

Portability, I suppose

Firefox has enough features and customization available that it's the only non-native browser that I'll use. I don't think Chrome or the others are worth it.

Otherwise in general, the native browser is usually the best bet for battery life. They render differently and have tighter integration overall as you noted. Firefox or native is the way to go, and if native browsers keep improving, even Firefox should watch out.

I've been using safari for a few months as my main browser and while it does feel quick, I can't say I've noticed a huge difference in battery life compared to chrome or firefox.

Are there any (recent) tests you know of that compare battery life between safari and the other major browsers?

Yeah, they know about this but it’s ignored:

https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1407536

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