UPDATE (6/8/16)
Opera's battery-saver feature is now available to all users in the latest release of the Web browser. Based on the experience of developers who tested the feature (below), Opera said in a blog post that a device running Opera with the battery saver and ad blocker turned on will last 49 percent longer on a single charge.
ORIGINAL STORY (5/12/16)
High up on the list of things that cause stress is when your laptop battery is dying and there's nothing you can do about it. Maybe you forgot your charger at home, or just don't have access to power where you're sitting; whatever the reason, you've likely experienced it before. Opera wants to ease this stress.
The company on Thursday introduced what it calls the first major Web browser to include a dedicated power-saving mode. The feature promises to extend your laptop battery life by up to 50 percent compared to competing browsers, such as Google Chrome.
It works by reducing activity in background tabs, waking the CPU less often, automatically pausing unused plug-ins, reducing frame rate to 30fps, tuning video-playback parameters, and pausing animations of browser themes. The optimizations will not, however, compromise your browser speed or functionality.
"Depending on your type of hardware, it can mean several hours more browsing before you need to recharge your laptop," Opera's Pawel Miniewicz wrote in a blog post.
Once your laptop's power cable is unplugged, a battery icon will appear next to the search and address field in the Opera browser; click it to activate power-saving mode. The browser will also suggest you enable power-saving mode when your laptop gets down to 20 percent juice.
"Running out of battery is one of the most frustrating things that can happen to you while browsing," Miniewicz wrote. "The icon showing that your battery is dying is something none of us really want to see when we have important things to do online."
The feature is available in the latest developer version of Opera.