4 ms·

I'm not sure that "browsing the internet and being shown advertisements on web pages" should be considered a task whose intensiveness is on-par with 3D renderin

I'm not sure that "browsing the internet and being shown advertisements on web pages" should be considered a task whose intensiveness is on-par with 3D rendering, 1080p decoding, or encoding. Or rather, I think it isn't a flattering comment on Flash's efficiency that having it display ads on webpages requires that much processing power.

deleted 16y ago
[deleted]
pavlov 16y ago
I don't understand why people think Flash itself is somehow responsible for content that is CPU-intensive (as evidenced by the number of upvotes on your comment). Flash is a Turing-complete runtime that executes 3rd party content, and the environment that hosts Flash doesn't place any restrictions on how much resources it can use. With such liberties, it's completely expected that some people will produce banner ads that consume 99% of CPU time. CSS+JavaScript has the same exact problem, so getting rid of Flash wouldn't solve anything. (You may think it does because you're running a Flash blocker, but that's just because the offending content producers haven't migrated to your preferred solution yet.)
- boltofblue 16y ago
  Webit is starting to provide rendering and animation that is more native and more efficient. Simple fact is, Flash is not as good as we need it to be.
- wonderzombie 16y ago
  "CSS+JavaScript has the same exact problem" I don't have anything but anecdotal data to back this up, which is a huge caveat. Please feel free to knock this down. But I have to ask: have we seen as much improvement in Flash performance as we have in plain old browser performance? Browsers are improving by leaps and bounds. I'm skeptical that Flash has had a similar performance renaissance. For one thing, who've they had to compete with until recently? Browser vendors are tripping over one another to improve speed. Until HTML5, you were out of luck for rich content if you didn't want to use Flash. Now, I agree that eliminating Flash won't solve ads in one stroke of JS. Even so, moving that stuff out of Flash (which browser vendors have little control over) into the browser itself enables vendors to improve whatever performance-troubled cases that HTML5 ads provide. And, most importantly, improving HTML5 performance, ads or no, is a win across the board, IMO. A faster browser means faster ads AND apps.
- tomlin 16y ago
  It seems that if you own a Mac and like Flash you "need to be converted" in the same way a dogmatic religious person sells you a life of enlightenment. If you don't like Flash, fine. Just stop selling this fallacy that Flash has some universal special power to drain battery power, or has some special ability to empower the worst ads. It's patently absurd.
  - Yaggo 16y ago
    Apparently you don't use a Macbook with Flash enabled. The difference is significance. You don't even have to open Activity monitor to see it – you hear it.
    - deleted 16y ago
      [deleted]
    - tomlin 16y ago
      This didn't fix that? http://www.osnews.com/story/23672/Adobe_Releases_Flash_for_Mac_with_Hardware_Acceleration http://www.osnews.com/story/23672/Adobe_Releases_Flash_for_M...
abstractbill 16y ago
...it isn't a flattering comment on Flash's efficiency that having it display ads on webpages requires that much processing power. Amusing of course, but not even close to being accurate. Take a look at this for example: http://www.unitzeroone.com/labs/alchemyPushingPixels/ http://www.unitzeroone.com/labs/alchemyPushingPixels/ That's rendering about 300,000 particles in 3D, in realtime. On my four-year-old macbook pro, the cpu usage is barely noticeable.
- g_lined 16y ago
  It's very impressive and responsive but takes about 55% on both of my 2.8GHz Pro 2 Duo cores on OS X 10.6. I don't know why our numbers are so different. But I do know that on both my G4 iBook and G4 mac mini, any flash meant that I was maxing out. Since it was a G4, I wasn't surprised. What I was surprised about is that when I got my intel iMac (CPU as above) flash wasn't slow but used most of my CPU power. Edit: removed typo
  - earl 16y ago
    Ditto. I just ran that bit of flash and the whirring noise in the background is the fans in my laptop. Plus 60% cpu usage on each proc.
- bilban 16y ago
  That noticeably hits my cpu. I monitor CPU use in the task bar out the corner of my eye, and that was the very reason I abandoned Flash. Flash ads used to lock up my old G4 frequently. Perhaps if Flash only ran in your active tab - or rather the one you were viewing - it wouldn't be so bad. It's hardly energy efficient - if I was to leave my computer for 20 minutes it would just keep consuming, whereas you'd hope it would throttle power use.
ergo98 16y ago
I'm not sure that "browsing the internet and being shown advertisements on web pages" should be considered a task whose intensiveness is on-par with 3D rendering, 1080p decoding, or encoding. Browsing the modern web is an incredibly complex activity. Many of those Flash ads feature high bitrate videos, sound streams, and complex interactive elements. Of course, maybe advertisers shouldn't be building such overbearing creations to try to grab your attention, but don't blame Flash for their excess.
- elblanco 16y ago
  I can't wait till we all have to install some kind of "canvas" block extension on all our browsers.
elblanco 16y ago
Depends what's on the advertisement. There's nothing that prevents somebody from writing ads in javascript/canvas and using your browser to fold proteins.

I'm not sure that "browsing the internet and being shown advertisements on web pages" should be considered a task whose intensiveness is on-par with 3D rendering, 1080p decoding, or encoding. Or rather, I think it isn't a flattering comment on Flash's efficiency that having it display ads on webpages requires that much processing power.

deleted 16y ago

[deleted]

pavlov 16y ago

I don't understand why people think Flash itself is somehow responsible for content that is CPU-intensive (as evidenced by the number of upvotes on your comment). Flash is a Turing-complete runtime that executes 3rd party content, and the environment that hosts Flash doesn't place any restrictions on how much resources it can use. With such liberties, it's completely expected that some people will produce banner ads that consume 99% of CPU time. CSS+JavaScript has the same exact problem, so getting rid of Flash wouldn't solve anything. (You may think it does because you're running a Flash blocker, but that's just because the offending content producers haven't migrated to your preferred solution yet.)

boltofblue 16y ago
Webit is starting to provide rendering and animation that is more native and more efficient. Simple fact is, Flash is not as good as we need it to be.
wonderzombie 16y ago
"CSS+JavaScript has the same exact problem" I don't have anything but anecdotal data to back this up, which is a huge caveat. Please feel free to knock this down. But I have to ask: have we seen as much improvement in Flash performance as we have in plain old browser performance? Browsers are improving by leaps and bounds. I'm skeptical that Flash has had a similar performance renaissance. For one thing, who've they had to compete with until recently? Browser vendors are tripping over one another to improve speed. Until HTML5, you were out of luck for rich content if you didn't want to use Flash. Now, I agree that eliminating Flash won't solve ads in one stroke of JS. Even so, moving that stuff out of Flash (which browser vendors have little control over) into the browser itself enables vendors to improve whatever performance-troubled cases that HTML5 ads provide. And, most importantly, improving HTML5 performance, ads or no, is a win across the board, IMO. A faster browser means faster ads AND apps.
tomlin 16y ago
It seems that if you own a Mac and like Flash you "need to be converted" in the same way a dogmatic religious person sells you a life of enlightenment. If you don't like Flash, fine. Just stop selling this fallacy that Flash has some universal special power to drain battery power, or has some special ability to empower the worst ads. It's patently absurd.
- Yaggo 16y ago
  Apparently you don't use a Macbook with Flash enabled. The difference is significance. You don't even have to open Activity monitor to see it – you hear it.
  - deleted 16y ago
    [deleted]
  - tomlin 16y ago
    This didn't fix that? http://www.osnews.com/story/23672/Adobe_Releases_Flash_for_Mac_with_Hardware_Acceleration http://www.osnews.com/story/23672/Adobe_Releases_Flash_for_M...

abstractbill 16y ago

...it isn't a flattering comment on Flash's efficiency that having it display ads on webpages requires that much processing power. Amusing of course, but not even close to being accurate. Take a look at this for example: http://www.unitzeroone.com/labs/alchemyPushingPixels/ http://www.unitzeroone.com/labs/alchemyPushingPixels/ That's rendering about 300,000 particles in 3D, in realtime. On my four-year-old macbook pro, the cpu usage is barely noticeable.

g_lined 16y ago
It's very impressive and responsive but takes about 55% on both of my 2.8GHz Pro 2 Duo cores on OS X 10.6. I don't know why our numbers are so different. But I do know that on both my G4 iBook and G4 mac mini, any flash meant that I was maxing out. Since it was a G4, I wasn't surprised. What I was surprised about is that when I got my intel iMac (CPU as above) flash wasn't slow but used most of my CPU power. Edit: removed typo
- earl 16y ago
  Ditto. I just ran that bit of flash and the whirring noise in the background is the fans in my laptop. Plus 60% cpu usage on each proc.
bilban 16y ago
That noticeably hits my cpu. I monitor CPU use in the task bar out the corner of my eye, and that was the very reason I abandoned Flash. Flash ads used to lock up my old G4 frequently. Perhaps if Flash only ran in your active tab - or rather the one you were viewing - it wouldn't be so bad. It's hardly energy efficient - if I was to leave my computer for 20 minutes it would just keep consuming, whereas you'd hope it would throttle power use.

ergo98 16y ago

I'm not sure that "browsing the internet and being shown advertisements on web pages" should be considered a task whose intensiveness is on-par with 3D rendering, 1080p decoding, or encoding. Browsing the modern web is an incredibly complex activity. Many of those Flash ads feature high bitrate videos, sound streams, and complex interactive elements. Of course, maybe advertisers shouldn't be building such overbearing creations to try to grab your attention, but don't blame Flash for their excess.

elblanco 16y ago
I can't wait till we all have to install some kind of "canvas" block extension on all our browsers.

elblanco 16y ago

Depends what's on the advertisement. There's nothing that prevents somebody from writing ads in javascript/canvas and using your browser to fold proteins.