An Empirical Evaluation of Energy Consumption Across Web Browsers

Web browsers are among the most widely used software applications on modern devices, making their energy efficiency a critical factor for both battery life and environmental sustainability. Edge computing improves browser energy efficiency by reducing data transmission, optimizing resource usage, and offloading intensive tasks, ultimately improving user experience while reducing overall energy consumption. In this paper, we present an empirical study that compares the power efficiency of seven major web browsers. Firefox, Chrome, Chromium, Brave, Opera, Edge, and Vivaldi. We evaluated their energy consumption across five common usage scenarios that include video playback, CSS animation rendering, JavaScript computation, static webpage browsing, and multi-tab usage. Our findings reveal significant differences in energy consumption between browsers, with variations of up to 13.9 % in certain test scenarios. Vivaldi demonstrated the highest overall energy efficiency, achieving a power efficiency index of 78.2 out of 100, followed by Brave (68.2) and Opera (62.0). Unexpectedly, Chrome exhibited the lowest efficiency, scoring only 22.6. This research provides valuable insights for users concerned about energy consumption and for developers aiming to optimize browser performance for better efficiency.