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MBP '16 and Safari battery drain - Ghostery!

thesaint024

thesaint024

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Nov 14, 2016
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MoF'n Safari is sucking battery like chrome off a trailer hitch! I was noticing this especially on MacRumors site, since I have had a tab open for it since I got this awesome MBP. I just installed the Ghostery extension and it saved me around 2.5-3 watts consumption on the Macrumors site (equates to a couple hours of battery life). I highly recommend it. I am not in any way affiliated with Ghostery, nor do I understand how exactly it is saving power. But I did surmise that ads, tracking, and other trash are drawing power. This varies from site to site. Like everything else on the new MBP, there is big variability of power consumption with these new chips. Just thought I'd pass along the tip for those with Safari specific power issues. If you have general power issues, that other thread has your solutions.
 
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thesaint024 said:
MoF'n Safari is sucking battery like chrome off a trailer hitch! I was noticing this especially on MacRumors site, since I have had a tab open for it since I got this awesome MBP. I just installed the Ghostery extension and it saved me around 2.5-3 watts consumption on the Macrumors site (equates to a couple hours of battery life). I highly recommend it. I am not in any way affiliated with Ghostery, nor do I understand how exactly it is saving power. But I did surmise that ads, tracking, and other trash are drawing power. This varies from site to site. Like everything else on the new MBP, there is big variability of power consumption with these new chips. Just thought I'd pass along the tip for those with Safari specific power issues. If you have general power issues, that other thread has your solutions.
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I also use and recommend ghostery. Too much bandwidth and cpu cycles go to waste in many websites unfortunately.

But one has to be conscious of business models and sustainability of our beloved MacRumors and other sites (so practice whitelisting and subscriptions whenever you see appropriate).
 
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JohnnyGo said:
I also use and recommend ghostery. Too much bandwidth and cpu cycles go to waste in many websites unfortunately.

But one has to be conscious of business models and sustainability of our beloved MacRumors and other sites (so practice whitelisting and subscriptions whenever you see appropriate).
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Agree with supporting frequently visited sites with whitelisting so long as there are no shenanigans. Definitely for this site.
 
I'm not a fan of Ghostery since it has iframe origin policies that can't be turned off without turning off the extension. Whitelisting a site or pausing ghostery, it still breaks some banking sites and Apple's support chat.
 
GBlansten said:
Agree with supporting frequently visited sites with whitelisting so long as there are no shenanigans. Definitely for this site.
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Yes, my bad. I'm not a total cheapass and will pay for things. I just don't want my battery life compromised! Running ghostery, i get up to 17 trackers, ads, etc! Little excessive no?
 
AlanShutko said:
I'm not a fan of Ghostery since it has iframe origin policies that can't be turned off without turning off the extension. Whitelisting a site or pausing ghostery, it still breaks some banking sites and Apple's support chat.
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Any suggestions/alternatives ? Most ad blockers have gone "commercial" selling out to ad networks
 
A few Mac sites that i won't name, whine about anyone running an ad blocker (a "Daily News" one even has 100% blocked access if you have one running) yet the reason I run the ad blocker is because their ADS were redirecting the user to web sites to install software that were known to be scams/spyware/malware.
the websites response was "we are not in control of the ads that are on our websites"

Sorry, I'll run ad blockers (and Ghostery) on those websites.

and don't ever go to some of them on iOS with no ad Blocker of some sort running.... not only will your safari page run like molasses, but the app store opens up every minute or so trying to get you to install some BS app.
 
Wipr is a great extension. Try it. It's easy on resources and gives you a nice protection.
 
JohnnyGo said:
Any suggestions/alternatives ? Most ad blockers have gone "commercial" selling out to ad networks
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Adblock for Safari, uBlock Origin for Chrome/Opera. I have reek's "anti adblock killer" filter enabled in both Adblock and uBlock Origin.

There are several web sites that I pay for access, gladly. There are some websites - like Comcast's Xfinity "Home" (nee ad-spam) site that I use to administer my accounts; I counted over 350 new cookies/caches planted in my browser upon my last session without Adblock installed for Safari - Adblock makes all of that ad/cookie crap disappear.
 
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I put Ghostery on safari on my new MBP 13. Liking how smooth its' made browsing and how clean everything looks, reminds me of early days of web surfing. I can't speak to any increase battery life, in fact I don't notice any difference, but I like the privacy.
 
JohnnyGo said:
Any suggestions/alternatives ? Most ad blockers have gone "commercial" selling out to ad networks
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uBlock Origin. It has replaced Ghostery for me on all my browsers. Breaks fewer sites, takes up fewer resources. That said, I typically don't use Safari...
 
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Update, after some dialogue with @Mac128guy, I started using Chrome with ublock and adblock. Early returns are that this is at least as good on battery as Safari/ghostery, maybe even better. Just fyi if anyone wanted to use Chrome, power consumption on the latest update is MUCH improved.
 
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thesaint024 said:
Update, after some dialogue with @Mac128guy, I started using Chrome with ublock and adblock. Early returns are that this is at least as good on battery as Safari/ghostery, maybe even better. Just fyi if anyone wanted to use Chrome, power consumption on the latest update is MUCH improved.
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I am just discovering adblocking altogether, currently using safari/Ghosetery and loving it. Not sure there is any battery impact one way or the other. But the annoying ads are gone, and other than the occasional pausing to read a review I find it a great add on to Safari. I am going to keep your Chrome advice in the back of my mind, I used Chrome exclusively on my old MB but starting using Safari with this 2016 with all the battery controversy. And I don't hate safari, never have, just got accustomed to Chrome. I however HATE Edge and IE.
 
skids929 said:
I am just discovering adblocking altogether, currently using safari/Ghosetery and loving it. Not sure there is any battery impact one way or the other. But the annoying ads are gone, and other than the occasional pausing to read a review I find it a great add on to Safari. I am going to keep your Chrome advice in the back of my mind, I used Chrome exclusively on my old MB but starting using Safari with this 2016 with all the battery controversy. And I don't hate safari, never have, just got accustomed to Chrome. I however HATE Edge and IE.
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Haha. I actually like Edge, and I don't really know why technically. I like the layout and the tools. I am not a power surfer or anything, just like basic functionality and saving my last open tabs, anything that a modern browser has. I don't know if anyone here has checked out Safari on a PC, but that is the worst browser I've seen. Looks exactly the same from 2003.
 
thesaint024 said:
Haha. I actually like Edge, and I don't really know why technically. I like the layout and the tools. I am not a power surfer or anything, just like basic functionality and saving my last open tabs, anything that a modern browser has. I don't know if anyone here has checked out Safari on a PC, but that is the worst browser I've seen. Looks exactly the same from 2003.
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Yeah, it's been discontinued for ages.
 
thesaint024 said:
Update, after some dialogue with @Mac128guy, I started using Chrome with ublock and adblock. Early returns are that this is at least as good on battery as Safari/ghostery, maybe even better. Just fyi if anyone wanted to use Chrome, power consumption on the latest update is MUCH improved.
Click to expand...

may have to use it to get the java/cookie control I want that Safari simply doesnt have.
 
thesaint024 said:
Update, after some dialogue with @Mac128guy, I started using Chrome with ublock and adblock. Early returns are that this is at least as good on battery as Safari/ghostery, maybe even better. Just fyi if anyone wanted to use Chrome, power consumption on the latest update is MUCH improved.
Click to expand...

Credit goes to Google who made a concerted effort (finally!) to get battery drain under control with Chrome 53. Now if they can keep on tweaking it, all the better for us! Glad it is working out well for you with the ad-blockers. They absolutely make an enormous difference in reducing battery drain.
 
Since Clicktoflash/clicktoplugin are no longer being supported..
Autoplaying of embedded video on websites are annoying the crap outta me. Searched and found an old thread saying you can stop all video from outplaying with "a properly configured ublock"

So... what is the best way to setup ublock to do this? Tired of having to surf with audio muted so a stupid news video doesn't start playing.

Edit: Or JsBlocker
I disabled Javascript in Safari's develop menu and all videos stoped playing, couldn't play them if i wanted.. but was able to stop them.
Just want to play the videos *IF* I want to play them, not autoplay.
 
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