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Lose Flash - get an extra hour of battery life

R

re2st

macrumors regular
May 2, 2007
207
4
San Jose, CA
I probably won't be popular here but, I prefer to view websites the way they're intended by the developers.

Flash *maybe* dying, but it's not dead yet. Life is short so I want to enjoy it to the fullest, that includes running flash on my new MacBook Air.

;)
 
gwsat

gwsat

macrumors 68000
Apr 12, 2008
1,920
0
Tulsa
re2st said:
I probably won't be popular here but, I prefer to view websites the way they're intended by the developers.

Flash *maybe* dying, but it's not dead yet. Life is short so I want to enjoy it to the fullest, that includes running flash on my new MacBook Air.

;)
Click to expand...
That's a perfectly understandable point of view if you are satisfied with your MBA's battery life. But if you want to get even better battery performance, a device to limit Flash operations, such the FlashBlock extension for Chrome, will do that for you. That was why I installed FlashBlock. I have no intention of giving up Flash for sites on which I want to watch Flash dependent videos but being able to block Flash dependent ads, which I didn't want to watch anyway, is a nice option.
 
M

miata

macrumors 6502
Oct 22, 2010
499
0
Silicon Valley, Earth
I've been wondering what the big deal is about Flash. I've been using Camino with the integrated Flash blocker for quite a while now. Camino even has a Flash exceptions list for places like Amazon. Just makes browsing the web that much more pleasant.

I never even thought about the battery benefits until the new Airs were released.
 
ReallyBigFeet

ReallyBigFeet

macrumors 68030
Apr 15, 2010
2,956
133
I think its important to keep perspective in mind. I've not seen any studies that claim that running Flash on a MBA is more battery-intensive than running Flash on a MBP or even a ThinkPad or Vaio.

So its not like you have to treat your browsing habits any differently with a MBA than you do with a MBP. Both running Flash will burn more energy than without.

Someone please correct me if I'm wrong. But again, I don't see the issue here. Life is filled with choices. You get the whole internet at the price of less juice, or you can have more juice and less internet.
 
F

foiden

macrumors 6502a
Dec 13, 2008
809
13
True. I think people try to do it differently on the MBA 11" since it's mainly only a 5 hour max battery life. It has a little less impact because pretty much all other Macbooks (like the bigger ones and the 13" Air) are toted for 7hrs or more. That little difference actually makes a lot of difference when considering trying to save battery life. The bigger options are likely to run long enough whether flash is running or not.
 
ReallyBigFeet

ReallyBigFeet

macrumors 68030
Apr 15, 2010
2,956
133
^ The only one I got addicted to was Evony and Travian before that, although Travian was Ajax-based and not Flash so it worked fine under Safari.

Man I wish had all those hours of my life back. I now see ads for these "Free to Play!" games and just cringe. Never understood the allure of these games for me...but damn did they pull me in.
 
C

coochiekuta

macrumors 6502
Nov 6, 2010
258
2
here and there
Hankster said:
I have Flash installed and get just over 5 hours of battery life on a regular basis. Just don't go to crazy flash intensive sites, most reputable sites don't use "blinking ads" and "annoying flash apps".

Now, if I'm streaming video that's a different story. But, then again I'm streaming video so I expect shorter battery life.

Battery life is based on what you do with any notebook. There's no difference between using Flash and running PhotoShop. It's optional.
Click to expand...

thank you.
 
nfl46

nfl46

macrumors G3
Oct 5, 2008
8,537
9,504
Flash was killing my battery on my new 13" Air. I deleted it, and it is way better!
 
Scottsdale

Scottsdale

Suspended
Sep 19, 2008
4,473
283
U.S.A.
gw1 said:
That's my experience so far.

When I heard that there was no flash plug-in already installed, of course I immediately downloaded it. After considering how rarely I use flash, and discovering safari extensions, I've installed ClicktoFlash which switches flash off unless you specifically want to use it.

It works a treat and on my 11" MBA I now get 6-8 hours of battery life - a good hour more than before. Has anyone else noticed this?
Click to expand...

The problem is you're losing out on content by removing Flash too. The Adobe CTO made a great comment today; he said that of course eliminating content that uses resources will use less power, BUT HTML5 content requires more power than Flash.

So what really needs to happen is someone make a site exactly the same with a Flash version and an HTML5 version. Ready, FIGHT!!!

I have tended to believe Adobe when it comes to this stuff as Apple has come up with slanted angles forever about Adobe. Apple denied low-level hardware access to support h.264 acceleration on Mac OS X until this Summer. Before they did that, I could run Flash in Windows 7 and use 1/4th the CPU performance ON THE EXACT SAME MBA as it used in OS X Snow Leopard.

The problem here is we're not getting the big picture ever. SJ hates Adobe, and SJ wants to rule the world, end of story. Adobe has played less games and provided the same level of performance when they have access to it... when Apple denies them low-level hardware access, of course the lack of h.264 is going to hurt Flash performance on Macs.
 
B

barmann

macrumors 6502a
Oct 25, 2010
941
626
Germany
The news on the front page have an article where Adobe is claiming Flash is actually more power efficient than HTML5 .

What makes sense is that any animated content is power hungry .

Blaming Flash for anything is silly to begin with, imho.
Flash is out there, and Apple is supposed to deliver a product that copes with reality.

Or issue a disclaimer : MBA battery life is really good - unless you surf the web . ;)
 
Last edited:
Scottsdale

Scottsdale

Suspended
Sep 19, 2008
4,473
283
U.S.A.
barmann said:
The news on the front page have an article where Adobe is claiming Flash is actually more power efficient than HTML5 .

What makes sense is that any animated content is power hungry .

Blaming Flash for anything is silly to begin with, imho.
Flash is out there, and Apple is supposed to deliver a product that copes with reality.

Or issue a disclaimer : MBA battery life is really good - unless you surf the web . ;)
Click to expand...

Nice to see several people thinking with their brains rather than just accepting everything SJ's says as the word of God himself. What you're saying and several before you makes me think there are Apple product users who can see things objectively... NICE.

I would love to see an independent study, and I tend to believe that Adobe puts far less spin but I would be open to finding out the facts/truth from a third party.
 
E

EggrollShop

macrumors member
Jun 22, 2009
71
0
Tomple said:
Does a program like ClickToFlash work or is it only a full uninstall
Click to expand...

Yes it works but I'm not too sure what your getting at... It does not uninstall flash it just simply blocks flash from being shown and you can tell it to show the flash on the web page or not.
 
gwsat

gwsat

macrumors 68000
Apr 12, 2008
1,920
0
Tulsa
EggrollShop said:
Yes it works but I'm not too sure what your getting at... It does not uninstall flash it just simply blocks flash from being shown and you can tell it to show the flash on the web page or not.
Click to expand...
As I understand it, there is no need to uninstall Flash, so long as you don't enable it to run graphics. I use the AdBlock app in Chrome. When a Flash enabled video popup or page insert comes up, instead of playing, a black screen with a wrench icon in the middle is displayed. If you don't want Flash to hog your resources by watching the video, just don't click the wrench icon. If you want to watch, do click the icon. Works for me.

I also run the FlashBlock extension for Chrome. Just installed it yesterday, so don't really have a handle on how it works yet. I can say, though, that it certainly hasn't hurt anything.
 
G

gw1

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Nov 11, 2007
19
0
ReallyBigFeet said:
This thread title is misleading.

Simply having Flash installed on your Mac doesn't impact battery life. Using Flash most certainly will. Granted, there are those who use it and don't realize that they are using it (ads, etc.) but there is no reason to take Flash off your Mac and get some miracle "boost" to battery life.

Just choose when you use it. I'd rather have it when I need it and take the hickie on battery life than not have it installed on here at all and get the infamous empty video panel.
Click to expand...

Certainly didn't want to mislead you. The issue is being able to selectively use flash, rather than having to have it, which a flash-blocking programme does. Personally, the adverts etc are usually a distraction and certainly not worth the power drain, for me anyway. It also puts the box called "flash" where the flash content was which is aesthetically a bit nicer than just the symbol "?" !
 
ReallyBigFeet

ReallyBigFeet

macrumors 68030
Apr 15, 2010
2,956
133
For those that are misled by the thread title, please note:

You gain NOTHING in the way of additional battery power/duration by simply installing or un-installing Flash. Simply having Flash on your hard drive has no beneficial or detrimental impact to your battery life. Its just an app and it doesn't touch your battery.

However, if you routinely access Flash-enabled sites, by invoking this Flash app to play this Flash content, you will increase your resource demands on your CPU and therefore burn more battery.

Flash doesn't run all the time. It runs on demand. You may or may not realize how many websites make demands for the Flash app, and thats why so many knowledgeable users here are recommending Flash blockers or "Click to Flash" enablers. That gives you control over when Flash is enabled or not.

But you don't GAIN or LOSE anything by merely having Flash installed or not installed on your MBA.

I keep seeing comments in here from users who simply aren't "getting it."
 
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