Adobe Flash foils MacBook Air battery life
Uninstall Flash, get two more hours' runtime
Why isn't Apple integrating Adobe's Flash plug-in into the version of Mac OS X pre-loaded on the new MacBook Airs? Maybe not for the resulting battery life boost, but it's as good a reason as any.
There certainly is an increase. Website Ars Technica tried out the 13.3in Air with Flash enabled - it's easy enough to download the plug-in - and with the Adobe software absent.
The result? "The best time I recorded with Flash installed was just four hours," says writer Chris Foresman. "After deleting Flash, however, the MacBook Air ran for 6:02."
He adds: "With a handful of websites loaded in Safari, Flash-based ads kept the CPU running far more than seemed necessary." ®
COMMENTS
Warning:
Installing software on your computer can result in shorter battery life.
Ok so I have a laptop and I install a video player. After a few days I realise that by watching a few videos my laptop's battery needs recharging sooner than it did before I installed the video player and started watching videos.
I have a laptop and I install Flash on it. Now when I go to YouTube I get a rich interactive experience instead of static thumbnails and warnings about not having Flash installed. What do you know? Playback of content increases CPU activity and reduces battery life as a consequence!
So the moral of this is that if you want the longest possible battery life then you shouldn't install any software, and then stop using your laptop. Just leave it sitting there, the battery will last ages on standby!
Correlation?
Isn't more a sign that the adverts are wasting battery power rather than Flash. What if the adverts used some other method to continually update themselves. Would they say that it was that technology (ie. Silverlight) that was at fault then?
Would they get the same results of longer battery life with flash installed as well as some ad blocking s/w?
are we surprised?
I run flashblock on every computer I have.
Hahahah
Hahahahah
"Adobe" + "Do work" + "Optimise" + "anything" = no chance in hell.
ClickToFlash
There is indeed a Safari flash blocker, ClickToFlash.
