Love my new MBA but hate how the fan goes crazy whenever I watch flash videos. Is there anything I can do or is flash really that horrible?
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Macbook Air and Flash Videos don't mix
- Thread starter BlackMamba14
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You can try installing clicktoflash which whenever it's available, plays the html5 version instead of flash
Ensure that both your Mac and Flash Player are kept up to date.
If your Mac model doesn't support hardware accelerated rendering or decoding in Flash, you'll get poor performance in most videos.
It's not Flash. It's the accumulated effect of downloading the video data for streaming, decoding the video data, and showing it on the screen.
Even if you use HTML5 container, it wouldn't be a lot better.
Either live with it, or try not to stream videos too often.
Even if you use HTML5 container, it wouldn't be a lot better.
Either live with it, or try not to stream videos too often.
You must have had an incredibly old or corrupted Windows Laptop.
I've been running flash for years on my various ThinkPad Laptops, as have my fellow engineers at work and our laptops run cool, fast and stable. I haven't had a crash on a Windows laptop in over two years.
In fact the topic of flash never comes up. Our training videos are flash based, we run them for hours with no problems whatsoever.
In fact the only time flash came up was when Steve Jobs came out bitching and moaning and bad mouthing Adobe about it on his machines.
However I wasn't surprised as I have been an Apple enthusiast and user for years.
I understand that in AppleLand we are stuck with what Uncle Steve thinks is best for us, even when it's not.
Thanks for that, I had no idea that was available.
For anyone else interested, go to www.youtube.com/html5 and click the link at the bottom.
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You must have had an incredibly old or corrupted Windows Laptop.
I've been running flash for years on my various ThinkPad Laptops, as have my fellow engineers at work and our laptops run cool, fast and stable. I haven't had a crash on a Windows laptop in over two years.
In fact the topic of flash never comes up. Our training videos are flash based, we run them for hours with no problems whatsoever.
In fact the only time flash came up was when Steve Jobs came out bitching and moaning and bad mouthing Adobe about it on his machines.
However I wasn't surprised as I have been an Apple enthusiast and user for years.
I understand that in AppleLand we are stuck with what Uncle Steve thinks is best for us, even when it's not.
Hardly ever do I hear truth in these forums... well put!
Html5 is rubbish compared to Flash I think. You get none of the feature you get with Flash. I have never had any problems with Flash until I bought a Mac. And i wouldn't even call them problems. It just takes a little more processing power to run them on a Mac. My Windows laptop has never had any issues with Flash. Seems like it is Macs with the problem, not Flash.
Maybe, but this issue definitely doesn't exist with my PC. My vaio's temp goes up from 45 to 55 when watching flash. In this MBA it goes from 45 to 85.
Exactly. Flash is so poorly optimized for the Mac it's nothing short of criminal (ok, that's more than a bit of hyperbole...). There's no reason why playing a low-res Flash video should use 90% CPU time while a higher-res .m4v uses maybe 15%.
It's Adobe's lack of either skill or interest in optimizing for the Mac. Unfortunately it's because of this that Flash has earned such a bad reputation, which is leading to its loss of marketshare.
Flash works perfectly on windows.
Flash does not work properly on macs.
Can you say the quoted line again after I made those 2 correct statements?
How long has it been since you used a windows machine? Because I've used windows for many years, and most of my family and friends too, and noone had any problems with flash/youtube.
So keep your mac and cry about having a sucky flash, cry about html5 being sucky too. Guess what, you have no other options.
Adobe is too lazy to make flash run properly on Mac OSX. There is nothing Apple can do about it. So, yes, it is Adobe's problem. Its got nothing to do with OSX or Windows.
Dude, first of all I don't really feel like having yet another Mac versus PC debate. This is not 1993. I'm not 13. I don't really care if you prefer Windows. I use a Mac and I guaranty I make more money on my Mac than you do on your PC. However, just because Flash is well-coded for Windows doesn't mean Adobe has put as much care in to the Mac version. Safari works pretty damn well on the Mac, but not so much on the PC. So do PCs suck at browsing the internet? Maybe. Or maybe Apple didn't code Safari as well on Windows as they did on the Mac (or maybe they do suck for web browsing as compared to the Mac).
Second of all, if you're hanging out on a Mac-based message board to show everyone how much better you are because you use a PC, you can leave now. Because we don't really care.
I'm now done feeding the troll.
If this was 2008, sure - I'd say blame Adobe.
But now? Don't you think they'd WANT to stop all the complaining and have Flash run equally as well? What possible reason would they have to *not* put good resources into making that happen? Sorry, I don't buy it.
In the end it's likely a combination of both OSX being more challenging/restricted (with Apple responsible to some degree) and Adobe having dragged their feet in the past more than they should.
Possible reason: Apple is pushing HTML5, and they would likely succeed. Adobe can choose to continue updating and pushing Flash as the sole supporter, but when the world transitions over to HTML5, they'd be left behind. So would it make more sense for Adobe to consider HTML5 authoring tools, or would it make more sense for Adobe to continue pushing on with Flash and hope that it'll somehow be able to pull equal performance on phones, tablets, Macs, and PCs?
Apple pushing HTML5 really will have no effect on wether or not Flash survies. Sure it will keep people from using Flash on their Macs but what does that matter when ~90% (Source) of people are using some other OS where Flash runs fine. The only way Flash will die if Microsoft makes some move to eliminate Flash. Seeing as they have the majority when it comes to the computer world.
I don't want a debate either. I'm not a pc fan. I'm a mac fan. Yes you make more money because I don't work yet. And the fact that you make more money has nothing to do with you using a mac.
I'm just saying that flash and adobe don't suck, it's only their mac version that sucks. I don't know who's fault it is, but it can't be all adobe's. And how exactly did I try to show I'm better because I use a PC? I'm pointing out that flash works fine on windows, and it doesn't suck.
Also, why would adobe put any effort on flash for mac while apple doesn't support it in any way? And it's not only they're not supporting it, they're even blocking them out of their environment (iOS). The fact that the air comes without flash doesn't seem that weird, it's just an extension... It's not the OS's part. But banning flash from iOS unless you jailbreak it? Come on!
Flash doesn't suck exclusively on the Mac, it sucks on Linux as well. And Linux is arguably as open as it gets.
The reason Flash is banned from iOS is because it murders the battery life. Macs usually have power adapters and Apple has no business banning apps for it anyway.
I never had problems using flash in linux in the past (except flash 8 of course). It's been a few year though, I'll have to load up a distro on my pc and on the MBA to compare...
And Windows 8 in Metro UI is banning Flash in IE... so Microsoft has already made the move.
The only OS where Flash actually runs fine is Windows. It's very bad in everything else.
But as I mentioned, poor battery life while playing back video is not Flash's fault. Even HTML5 videos pull battery life figures down exponentially.