Running Flash: Is Safari or Chrome better for battery life?

[shellhrs]

From what I've read, Safari is more optimized on Mac than Chrome, therefore better battery life for a Macbook Air.

However, the site I need use Adobe Flash to display graphs, and so I need to the browser to have Flash enabled.

I searced for any comparison between using Chrome (without installing Adobe Flash) to using Safari (with Adobe Flash installed), but couldn't find any, so I tried both myself.

Looking at the Activity Monitor, on the Avg Energy Impact column, Chrome actually only scored 4.15 while Safari scored 6.74. I did the test for just 5 minutes each, so this might not be accurate. I would like to know if anyone else have ever tried this test before.

I would like to use just Safari, but if using Chrome is more energy efficient (to use Flash), I guess that's the way to go. By the way, I'm using Mavericks.

 

[Shrink]

From what I've read, Safari is more optimized on Mac than Chrome, therefore better battery life for a Macbook Air.

However, the site I need use Adobe Flash to display graphs, and so I need to the browser to have Flash enabled.

I searced for any comparison between using Chrome (without installing Adobe Flash) to using Safari (with Adobe Flash installed), but couldn't find any, so I tried both myself.

Looking at the Activity Monitor, on the Avg Energy Impact column, Chrome actually only scored 4.15 while Safari scored 6.74. I did the test for just 5 minutes each, so this might not be accurate. I would like to know if anyone else have ever tried this test before.

I would like to use just Safari, but if using Chrome is more energy efficient (to use Flash), I guess that's the way to go. By the way, I'm using Mavericks.

Just a suggestion (probably not what you're looking for, but what the heck!)...

If you're concerned about energy usage, you can install the Safari Extension ClickToFlash which will cause the Flash not to run (and not use resources) unless you click on it...then it will run. You can also whitelist sites (e.g. YouTube) if you want the Flash to run when you go to the site without any blocking.

 

[bobdamnit]

According to this article by PCMag, Chrome isn't optimised at all.

http://www.pcworld.com/article/2455...-for-years-but-google-promises-to-fix-it.html

The gist of it is that Chrome does not put the CPU back in a "standby" state and will continue to use as much resources as needed as if you were actively using Chrome. It happens on Windows, as far as I can tell, but It might also be a problem on OS X.

I recently started using Safari again (I gave it up back in Snow Leopard) and have been impressed with the improvements they've done with it.

Perform a test. Run Chrome for a week of heavy flash usage on battery and monitor the battery life, then re-perform that test again with Safari and monitor the battery life. It'll at least let you know how long each browser will give you if your using Flash.

 

[shellhrs]

Perform a test. Run Chrome for a week of heavy flash usage on battery and monitor the battery life, then re-perform that test again with Safari and monitor the battery life. It'll at least let you know how long each browser will give you if your using Flash.

Thanks for the advice. Will try that.