Opera has introduced yet another new feature for its multifunctional browser. After the company revealed a built-in VPN in April, and its integrated ad-blocking technology got a stable release last week, the Norwegian firm has just unveiled a power-saving mode that will let users browse for longer.
The company claims that its new feature will be able to extend a laptop's battery life by 50 percent compared to using other browsers such as Chrome, Firefox, and earlier versions of Opera.
Opera's figures come from tests performed on a Lenovo X250 laptop, running Windows 10 with a Core i7 processor and 16GB of RAM. The company opening up 11 "popular websites," scrolled through each one five times, left them for a minute, closed the tabs, then repeated the process until the battery died. Opera claims that the laptop lasted 1 hour 54 minutes when performing the experiment with Chrome. When used with Opera's power-saving mode, it ran for 2 hours 56 minutes.
The new feature, which is available in the developer edition of the Opera 39 browser starting today, uses a variety of energy-saving methods. These include reducing activity from background tabs, waking the CPU less often by optimizing JavaScript timers, adapting page-redrawing frequency, and tuning video playback paramaters.
"It's extremely frustrating to run out of battery on your computer, whether you are out traveling, watching videos, or you have just left your charger behind," said Krystian Kolondra, the senior vice president of engineering for Opera, in a statement. "Our new power-saving mode will nudge you when the laptop starts to consume battery, and, when enabled, it can increase the battery life by as much as 50 percent."
Once a laptop has been unplugged from a power source, the icon for the power-saving mode appears as a small battery in the browser's top right corner. Clicking on it will bring up a settings menu where the feature can be toggled on and off. Additionally, once the browser detects that a laptop's battery is running low, it will suggest enabling the mode to conserve power.
There's no word when the power-saving mode will be rolled out to everyone. It took two months for the ad-blocking tech to move from the developer edition to a stable desktop release, so the new feature could arrive sometime in July.