“Adobe Flash is under attack again. And you know what that means. Time for more complaining,” MG Siegler writes for TechCrunch. “Today, Adobe CTO Kevin Lynch spoke with Fast Company about the most recent Flash controversy the company has had to deal with. Last week, a report revealed that the lack of Flash on the new MacBook Air may save as much as 2 hours of battery life on that machine. Several subsequent reportsnoticed the same or similar things. Lynch’s response? ‘It’s a false argument to make, of the power usage. When you’re displaying content, any technology will use more power to display, versus not displaying content.'”
“So displaying content uses more power than not displaying content? That’s really the argument he’s using? Why not just say: if your computer is on, it will use more power than if it’s not on?” Siegler writes. “But the real issue here isn’t really using Flash to display content. It’s that when Flash is just running in the background on websites, it is biting off a huge chunk of battery life — up to 33 percent. That’s ridiculous.”
“Lynch continued, ‘If you used HTML5, for example, to display advertisements, that would use as much or more processing power than what Flash uses.’ That’s a pretty bold claim. Conveniently (likely for Lynch), it’s also pretty much impossible to test since very few web ads currently use HTML5,” Siegler writes. “The fact of the matter remains that various reports are showing this Flash/battery life issue to be a very real one. If you simply don’t have Flash installed on your machine, you will see much better battery life.”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Note: Note to advertisers: (including those who advertise via third-party ad networks and become, in effect, our advertisers): Your Flash-based ads are no longer reaching the most well-heeled customers online: 100+ million iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch users. If you care about reaching people with discretionary income, you might want to consider dumping your flash-based ads and moving to a more open format that people with money and the will to spend it can actually see.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “GetMeOnTop” for the heads up.]
You can’t put lipstick on a pig.
Flash is still the king. My agency are still creating ads in Flash. But sooner than later we’ll all switch,
As for you note to advertisers…It’s true… about a third of the ads on this page are now blocked/unseen on my machine.
What’s the name of that flash blocking plug-in again? I’ve used it so long, I’ve forgotten what it’s called.
It’s called MacOS
Once upon a time, flash was brilliant. It was not Adobe’s back then. It was Macromedia’s. Adobe was a dying printing media designer kit, they bought Macromedia realizing there’s a paradigm shift. I think they should wake up and truly evolve and stop relying some other’s blood. Something must grow from the mix or else the dying flock is just sucking the new blood. Another paradigm shift is coming.
I’m a poor mac user. We ain’t all rich like MDN.
@ breeze. yes you can, but it’s still a pig.
Adobe has already lost this war… Time for them to move on Future Splash was promising in a time long before CSS. But after Macromedia and now Adobe’s added bloat it is now destined for the Silicon Valley technology museum so our little sisters can go visit it alongside a TRS-80 and an Apple ][.
Or maybe, Miss Piggy, in drag!
It would be better for Adobe if they had a couple of test results comparing the two options. And of course, he’s missing the point. Displaying content and displaying advertisements are two completely different things.
And advertisements that pointlessly waste CPU cycles and battery life will be blocked whenever possible.
Click to Flash or something like that. Works great.
Adobe FUD. Flash makes it too easy to make garbage banner ads that waste cycles.
I’ve removed Flash plugins, because I don’t want Adobe to tout 99% of desktop computers have Flash installed. Now, there’s one less.
Lynch the Lynch
Funny that I still see Flash ads lining the pages of MDN.
Breeze – “You can’t put lipstick on a pig.”
Webbyswim – “@ breeze. yes you can, but it’s still a pig.”
And I’m not kissing it.
@Tommy Boy
Funny, I don’t see them.
That Flash drains battery has been tested and confirmed. However, this guy claims the same with HTML, which has yet to be determined. So far, nobody ran tests on animated/video content delivered in HTML5, in order to figure out if it drains battery or not.
Common sense tells us that it doesn’t, though, and for two reasons. First, Flash ads another abstraction layer between the OS and the code, which takes up processor cycles. Second, browser developers’ primary goal is to streamline rendering of HTML. Browsers tend to live or die on the speed of delivering that HTML content (in addition to other, less significant reasons, such as standards compliance, etc). Meanwhile, Adobe’s primary concern regarding Flash is adding features to the platform. Streamlining the player/plug-in for the three platforms on which it’s available is definitely NOT that important. Adobe will only sell next version of Flash CS6 if it brings enough interesting new features; NOT if it significantly improves the performance of the free player/plug-in.
Based on core business priorities, Adobe’s Flash plug-ins will NEVER be optimised for best performance. When web browsers are updated, the principal advertised feature will always be “30% faster than previous version!”. It is clear that there’s no way Flash can ever drain battery less than similar content delivered solely via HTML.
@ Apelock,
“I’m a poor mac user. We ain’t all rich like MDN,”
How the hell did you buy a Mac? Did you lie about your income on the Mac Purchase Permission Form?
You Bastard, I bet you bought a used Mac. I shudder just thinking about it. Used Macs, Eeeeewwww!
@Big Als MBP:
It’s not used Macs. It’s refurbished Macs. I aught to know. I bought my MBP that way…back in 12/2006. Still works like a charm.
Flash consumes inordinate amounts of power because it’s programmed by retarded chimpanzees, Kevin. Not because it’s displaying content.
Really, Kevin? I wonder how I’ve been displaying several hours of Netflix content on my iPad then.
But really, I think Apple should make the plugin available for iOS and then we can simply load CtF (what does that stand for again?) and be free of advertising altogether.
” width=”19″ height=”19″ alt=”wink” style=”border:0;” />
If I use Click2Flash and just never click, does that save as much battery power as not installing Flash at all? Anyone?
I notice when I’m using my Acer Aspire (which is a POS) that on websites with a lot of Flash, I’m frequently maxing on CPU usage and regularly running above 80%. It’s also the plugin most likely to cause Chrome to “crash”. Also frequently comes up with the message to abort or leave running Adobe scripts that are causing the computer to be unresponsive or sluggish. I can’t wait to get a new Macbook Pro. My Powerbook’s pretty much given up the ghost, so here I am with this. Death to Flash!
He is right, it is misleading to say that removing Flash lowers battery life. Of course it will, just like NOT playing any media player will consume less battery power that when playing media. Its using the CPU and GPU.
@breeze
“You can’t put lipstick on a pig.”
Sure you can! And in this case – as the pig is dead – it’s even easier as it won’t run away.
“If you simply don’t have Flash installed on your machine, you will see much better battery life.”
WHY is Adobe so F*CKING LAZY that they can’t rewrite Flash to NOT ACCESS THE CPU when it’s NOT playing a video?! WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY?!?!?!?!
Until such time as Adobe FIX their crapware, they themselves are required to STFU!!!
Bite me Adobe for stating the facts. Get bent for replying with LIES.
[Notice how I am sick of Adobe bullshit?]