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How do you deal with poor Flash performance?

A

adune

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Aug 24, 2014
16
0
I recently did some research on why the retina MacBook Pro models seem to heat up considerably when simply browsing the Internet. I found that most of the overheating and poor battery life issues stem from poor Flash performance and the necessity of Safari, as Chrome and Firefox destroy MacBook performance.

So I installed YouTube5 in order to play YouTube and other Flash videos as HTML5. I even uninstalled Flash, as this is the only way to make sure that no websites are running Flash ads and still draining battery/causing overheating. I thought this was an acceptable fix until I noticed a lot of websites won't work using YouTube5 (Gamespot, Giantbomb, TheVerge). I also noticed that this only allows YouTube videos to be played at a max resolution of 720p and many other websites that will run using YouTube5, run at very poor resolutions that are nearly unwatchable on retina resolutions.

So I've started to realize that the YouTube5 plugin is far from perfect, but the Flash alternative still seems like a pretty poor option as well. So I've come here to ask you guys how you deal with the terrible Flash performance on your rMBPs or MBPs in general. Are there any other plugins I could try? I can't imagine everyone here just runs Flash and puts up with 50% of the advertised battery life and burnt legs.
 
Don't install Flash.

Install Chrome (which has Flash built in) and for any websites you want view with Flash content open them up in Chrome.
 
use clickToPlugin for safari, problem solved. It uses quicktime as video player and works on a good range of websites.
 
pknz said:
Don't install Flash.

Install Chrome (which has Flash built in) and for any websites you want view with Flash content open them up in Chrome.
Click to expand...

...and clobber the battery by running Chrome

Better to use Safari and the Click-to-Flash extension so it only runs the flash you want to, when you want to.
 
simonsi said:
...and clobber the battery by running Chrome

Better to use Safari and the Click-to-Flash extension so it only runs the flash you want to, when you want to.
Click to expand...

This.

I also use(d) the chrome://flags menu to turn on click-to-play flash but I think they have now moved it to the content settings->plugins in settings.

I use chrome, safari, and firefox in that order and I have not had any heat issues and I watch a decent amount of flash video. Battery life is no 8 hours but then I don't sit on the computer for 8 hours a day lol Even if I did I think there are other variables that could account for that like screen brightness, and apps etc.
 
ClayMac said:
This.

I also use(d) the chrome://flags menu to turn on click-to-play flash but I think they have now moved it to the content settings->plugins in settings.

I use chrome, safari, and firefox in that order and I have not had any heat issues and I watch a decent amount of flash video. Battery life is no 8 hours but then I don't sit on the computer for 8 hours a day lol Even if I did I think there are other variables that could account for that like screen brightness, and apps etc.
Click to expand...

You don't experience heat problems always using Chrome?
 
I use NoScript for Firefox, prevents Flash based ads from dragging my Mac or even older work notebook PC to its knees and selective "temp allow scripting" helps dodge the minefield of loading everything. Flash playback isn't too bad on a Mac unless you play 720/1080p stuff, sometimes you need to pause for it to buffer ~1 minute to avoid the random micro-stall/audio-video out of sync issues which Flash for OS X has been famous for since the PPC era(480p was prone to lag/out-of-sync on PPCs until Flash 9). In my experience Firefox is the least demanding if you use the proper add-ons like Safari. (I hate Safari since the PPC era, memory leaks soiled my opinion of it and UI wise it hasn't changed/improved much)

Chrome for OS X/Windows is just plain awful for notebooks, besides being a battery hog, the way it manages the unlimited "caching" of sites ruins performance and bogs notebook down(excessive CPU usage). On a 13" MBP it quickly becomes scorching hot like an ancient 12" PowerBook G4.

...often I find it amusing Chromebooks aren't as screwed up as Chrome for OS X/Windows.
 
I found that just scrolling continously is one source of a lot of heat.
If you scroll however little, the GPU jumps to 15-20W power consumption. It goes back down quickly but if you keep scrolling with the page you read it creates quite a bit of heat, in all browsers. The only solution is to scroll less frequently. I feel like browsers do something wrong here. There should be more overdraw on desktop browsers.

HTML5 got much better but I dispise using youtube on Safari because of how it switches into that aweful full screen mode. There was a time when Chrome did it and Safari did not. Now Chrome full screens quick and Safari uses this slow to full screen space animation. Does anybody know how to tell Safari you just use full screen like a flash video goes to full screen or Chrom does on youtube.

BTW Youtube should play in HTML5 by default. There should be no plugin needed unless one has opted out and the HTML5 player got much better since last but it is significantly less power hungry on Safari. Chrome has the better UX though. Apple should hire some Opera guys and fix their browsers UX.
 
Might not be adding much to this - but FWIW - uninstalled Flash on my MBP almost 2 years ago.

Have a workflow set-up in Alfred, where I can simply invoke a keyboard shortcut to have it open Chrome with the same webpage I'm currently trying to view in Safari, and have it run. Useful when I was checking out a particular page that maybe had a short clip on it, requiring Flash.

Point I'd like to make, is that I hardly ever use the workflow anymore. Did so quite frequently initially, but it's only once in a while now - it really does appear as if, by and large, HTML5 is increasingly coming to the party, so to speak. Which is, obviously, great.
That and my never having to worry about those constant updates/having websites crash etc, because Flashplayer needed to be updated... Used to drive me mad!
 
I removed All Google apps from my Mac when I saw the Chrome Folder at excess 5 GB just to find out that it automaticlaly udpates itslef and doesnt remove the old junk.

Although its a matter of taste for most people, but to me Chrome on OSX is just aweful. Firefox/Safari does it for me.

Adblock plus + FlashBlock does the job for me. If I want to see a flash content its just another extra click.

I have also tried the HTML5 player on YouTube, but think it needs to mature before I switch to it.
 
Cassady said:
Might not be adding much to this - but FWIW - uninstalled Flash on my MBP almost 2 years ago.

Have a workflow set-up in Alfred, where I can simply invoke a keyboard shortcut to have it open Chrome with the same webpage I'm currently trying to view in Safari, and have it run. Useful when I was checking out a particular page that maybe had a short clip on it, requiring Flash.

Point I'd like to make, is that I hardly ever use the workflow anymore. Did so quite frequently initially, but it's only once in a while now - it really does appear as if, by and large, HTML5 is increasingly coming to the party, so to speak. Which is, obviously, great.
That and my never having to worry about those constant updates/having websites crash etc, because Flashplayer needed to be updated... Used to drive me mad!
Click to expand...

I have the same setup and use the Alfred extension like you described and my experience is the same.... fewer and fewer sites require Flash any more. This that do I just use the workflow to pop open Chrome on that page then quit Chrome when I am done.

You are better of not having Flash installed vs. using Flash with Clicktoflash or other similar extensions. If you have Flash installed (even with Clicktoflash) the site will see you have Flash installed and try to serve you the Flash version of the site. If the same site sees you do not have Flash at all it will serve you a HTML5 version of the site. So the experience without Flash in Safari at all is better.
 
That bloody VMware vSphere web-client is flash, and I need it. So no-flash doesnt work for me.
 
adune said:
You don't experience heat problems always using Chrome?
Click to expand...

Nope not heat issues at all and no fan either. This is regular browsing. Watching youtube, and other ordinary web scrolling though news and FB and whatnot.
 
simonsi said:
...and clobber the battery by running Chrome

Better to use Safari and the Click-to-Flash extension so it only runs the flash you want to, when you want to.
Click to expand...

You only use Chrome when you need to view Flash content.
 
Click to flash works great. The only time I use flash is on amazon instant video or the rare YouTube video that isn't in HTML5. Battery and Internet browsing is so much better.

People were critical of Steve Jobs about many things, but he got it right about Flash. It sucks!
 
Flash always sends my MBP to oven mode, so I uninstalled it a while ago. Now I just fire up Chrome if I need to watch flash videos. Or switch to my desktop if I can.
 
I thought native flash was less resource intensive when compared to Chrome. Is that not the case?
 
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