Opera is trying hard to lure desktop users into changing loyalties and shifting to its browser instead. Close on the heel of baking-in free, unlimited VPN support for the Opera Desktop Browser, the company has introduced a new power-saving mode.

On May 12, the company revealed in a blog post that the new "low-power mode" feature for the Opera browser will increase battery life of a laptop by a whopping 50 percent when compared to a rival browser such as Google Chrome.

"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," noted Krystian Kolondra, Opera's SVP of engineering. "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."

Opera claims its browser is the first to feature a devoted power saving mode. The new feature - like all other current releases from the company - will initially be made available as part of the Opera 39 browser's developer edition for both Windows and Mac PCs.

What has made the battery saving possible are the optimizations the company has introduced in the Opera browser. These include tuning the parameters for video playback, decreasing background tab activity, and adaptation of the "page redrawing frequency."

Opera's Test

To support its assertions, Opera shared that it had conducted a test which was designed to show how people deploy browsers in their day-to-day lives. For the purpose of the experiment, it tested 11 popular sites using the automated browser tool Selenium WebDriver.

While conducting the test with the battery mode enabled, Opera enabled the power saving mode as well as the ad blocker.

The test required each page to be opened in a different tab. Opera made sure that the previous tabs were not closed. Each page was scrolled through five times and then left for a minute.

This test pattern was repeated continuously until the laptop's battery was completely drained out.

The results revealed that the developer version of Opera browser ran three hours longer when compared with browsers such as Google Chrome. The laptop used was running on Windows 10, 64-bit.

How Does The Power Saving Mode Work?

Using this new mode is quite simple. Once users have unplugged the power cable of their laptop, the battery icon becomes visible. It is located next to the address and search field in the browser.

One merely needs to click on the battery icon and switch it on. This will activate the power saving mode. The Opera browser has the ability to automatically detect when the device's battery is low, and, therefore, will alert a user to enable the power saving mode when the battery charge remaining is only 20 percent.

Opera did not disclose when the functionality will be made mainstream for the browser's non-developer version.