There may be a new challenger for the title of most efficient browser if the latest update from Microsoft is to be believed.
The computing giant has claimed that its Microsoft Edge offering is saving a mighty amount of RAM usage for users around the world due to one of its most popular tools.
In a tweet (opens in new tab), the Microsoft Edge Dev account revealed that it had seen the browser's Sleeping Tabs tool save users 273 petabytes of RAM over the past 28 days alone.
Use sleeping tabs to save resources? You aren’t alone! Over the past 28 days on Windows devices, we slept 6 billion tabs resulting in a savings of 273.7 Petabytes of RAM. That’s roughly 39.1 megabytes saved per tab. 😲 pic.twitter.com/hgTcpcMwvhJune 6, 2022
Microsoft Edge Sleeping Tabs
The stat is even more impressive due to the fact it appears to be on Windows devices alone, meaning the total figure could be even higher. Microsoft says it is equivalent to around 39.1MB saved per tab, all contributing to better efficiency and battery life on user devices.
Sleeping Tabs for Microsoft Edge (opens in new tab) were first revealed back in December 2020, when the company said that using the feature will help cut down memory usage by 32% on average, and will reduce the browser’s CPU usage by about 37% in most cases.
The tool was given a useful upgrade in August 2021 that meant Edge users can opt for tabs to fall asleep after just one minute of inactivity, minimizing the time before resource savings will begin to take effect compared to the initial two-hour time period.
Microsoft also gave users the ability to view specific memory savings by hovering over a sleeping tab at the top of the browser window.
The company will now be hoping that this news is enough to help bring users back to Microsoft Edge following a stagnation of user numbers in recent months.
The most recent Statcounter figures showed Microsoft Edge has either lost or failed to gain market share in four of the last six months.
It put Edge at a 4.05% share of the market (across both desktop and mobile platforms), which equates to an estimated 200 million users – a long way shy of both Google Chrome (64.34%) and Apple’s Safari (19.16%), but ahead of Firefox (3.41%).
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