“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.]
@rdbvideo asks: “What’s the name of that flash blocking plug-in again? I’ve used it so long, I’ve forgotten what it’s called.”
For Safari (and works with other browsers) use:
ClickToFlash
For Firefox use:
Flashblock
and/or
NoScript
I’d recommend NoScript at all times in any case. JavaScript (aka ECMAScript) has become the Bubonic Plague of the Internet.
@Davidlow asks: “If I use Click2Flash and just never click, does that save as much battery power as not installing Flash at all?”
YES.
Just keep in mind that when you do click to run a Flash video, the only way to stop the thing is to leave that page in your browser. If the Flash (playing or not!) remains in a background window or tab, it is STILL running and is STILL eating your CPU and therefore your BATTERY. The more Flash pages you have open, the more Flash is chomping your CPU, therefore your battery.
Therefore, close all Flash pages ASAP after you’ve watched them.
And note everyone: Flash still runs like a 1-legged cow on Android. Don’t let Adobe fool you. You don’t want Flash on you iDevices. Be glad you don’t have it.
And one last attempt to make the distinction clear:
Software that is sitting in the background, not being used, is supposed to be silent and not access the CPU. This is what is called “Good Programming”.
Software that sits in the background, not being used, not playing anything, not actually doing anything, that STILL accesses your CPU and eats up CPU cycles is called CRAPWARE. This is called “Bad Programming”.
Flash is Bad Programming.
And no, it’s NOT the fault of the person who wrote the Flash ad or the Flash video or the Flash animation.
It’s ADOBE’S FAULT. Only Adobe can fix it. Adobe refuse to fix it. Adobe are insistently Bad Programmers.
It’s that simple.
Boy Genius Report’s review of the Samsung Galaxy Tab: another damning indictment of Flash on mobile devices.
http://themacadvocate.com/2010/11/09/samsung-galaxy-tab-still-doa/
If Flash drains the battery in a mobile device so fast, can you imagine how much energy is being wasted recharging them and being sucked up by desktop machines running Flash? Adobe alone must account for a serious percentage of imported energy, propping up regimes like Chavez’ in Venezuela plus filtering into terrorist pockets. I say we declare Adobe a terrorist support organization. Outlaw ’em along with anybody who makes those giganormous SUVs and pickups.
@Derek Currie
Isn’t that what Tabs do in Safari? They are continuing to update and thus using cycles. If I’m going to a link that is will be Flash I just open a new window in Safari, play it and close the page.
Does HTML 5 really use as much or more power than Flush? Oooops, I meant Flash.
@Scott in Japan sez: “Does HTML 5 really use as much or more power than Flush?”
No way. An HTML 5 video runs until the video is over or you stop it. The only thing it would continue to do in the background would be loading up the full video to your cache, at which point it stops.
Flush, however, does gawd-knows-what in the background no matter what. You can’t stop it from chewing on the CPU. The only solution is to close that page or move the page on to another URL. The more pages you have open that are running Flush media, the more your CPU is being chewed. NOM NOM NOM!!!
See my diatribes above for further exciting details or my article on the subject at:
MacSmarticles