In that case you might as well browse different websites because using adblocker makes your browser render different content.

Microsoft is welcome to include a native content blocker in their rendering engine

While I applaud their work and appreciate that there is an extension framework at all, I seriously doubt this will happen unless they plan to also redesign their home pages to remove the ads.

I just loaded up MSN.com and scrolled down the page. I count 3 ads total: one gigantic banner at the very top of the page before all of the content, and two smaller panners that pop into place as you scroll. These are served by AdChoices. When I turn my ad blocker back on, these all disappear, and the site loads much faster.

I think if Microsoft were to release a default ad-blocker, they would need to re-code their own website to use native advertising rather than a third-party network. I believe this to be an excellent practice, but I just don't see Microsoft going this route. I'd love to be pleasantly surprised though.

I assume they would implement a white-list allowing "some non-intrusive adds" similar to Adblock.

Sure, but then my browser with native procrastination protection will beat the pants off both: when you type in a url it just renders "get back to work, maggot."

It even works without a network connection.

Not necessarily true if both ad blockers are using the same filter lists. I find Adblock Plus and uBlock Origin (I prefer the latter) to be relatively on par in terms of things they block and things they tend to miss, even cross browser. I think the initial pageload would be the biggest differnce, as it relies on the performance of the adblocker in applying its filters to the DOM once it's loaded. The underlying extension framework probably affects this a lot too.

I'd think the user agent string is more likely to cause a huge discrepancy, as many frameworks will be utilizing polyfills and employing different technologies depending on what each browser supports. (Or, in the case of the user agent string, what the framework thinks the browser supports, regardless of how correct its assumptions are.)

His point is that only one of the browsers was using an ad blocker so they were rendering different content because one rendered ads and the other did not.

Oh, I totally missed the part where Opera has the ad blocker turned on by default. Ignore my rambling then; my sleepy brain thought he was talking about two browsers that both had different ad blockers installed.

Not sure if Opera has it on by default - all they say is that it is build-in so that somehow makes it okay to use it and compare apples to oranges :)

If I understand both tests correctly, Opera ran with adblock and battery saver enabled (those are apparently not default settings), versus Edge without adblock, on sites which supposedly are ad-heavy - this will bias the results towards browser with adblock enabled.

Exactly, it's like saying your bus with no passengers gets better gas mileage than your competitors bus with 60 passengers.

yeah it's like comparing MPG of similar cars but Opera test is done in the middle of the night and competitors at rush hour

Your analogy collapses then though because you need people to be able to choose whether to travel at day/night at will for the comparison. Perhaps a better (but still flawed) way would be to say if the Opera browser included a free pass for toll roads and Edge didn't - so with the standard Opera offering you'd be getting a faster journey.

The point to me is that the situation is more nuanced than Microsoft apparently chose to present it.

Well, when you are the person performing the test you can somewhat control the conditions. ;) Opera just chose to drive in the night but sent Edge through rush hour.

It's not on by default though.

Their power saver isn't on by default either

Limiting the test to features built into the browser is pointless and doesn't represent real usage. People who turn on the Opera ad-blocker will install an ad-blocker in Chrome, Edge, or Firefox.

They could have turned on an ad blocker for Edge as well.