Google has been working with Adobe to improve battery life drain caused by Flash and today flipped the switch on a new Chrome feature that does exactly that. The new feature aims to detect Flash on a webpage that is actually important to the main content and “intelligently pause content” that isn’t as important. The result is to hopefully make the web experience with Flash more power efficient to improve battery life on your laptop. Here’s how it works:
When you’re on a webpage that runs Flash, we’ll intelligently pause content (like Flash animations) that aren’t central to the webpage, while keeping central content (like a video) playing without interruption. If we accidentally pause something you were interested in, you can just click it to resume playback. This update significantly reduces power consumption, allowing you to surf the web longer before having to hunt for a power outlet.
The feature is already available by default on Google’s latest beta build of Chrome, and the company says it will soon roll out to all. But you can also enable it manually in Chrome’s settings (as pictured above). The new “Detect and run important plugin content” option is an alternative to “Run all plugin content” and manually choosing when to run plugin content. Google didn’t offer any estimates in terms of how much the new feature might improve battery life for the average user.
Lastly, Google teases that more Chrome power improvements are headed our way over the coming months.
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I find Chrome unusable on a MBA. Fan and battery killer.
Maybe Google should first work with Adobe on making flash suck less. Although, Adobe’s had so many years to do just that and proven incapable, maybe they should just work together on destroying that God-awful piece of software.
Or maybe they should try to kill Flash, like Apple is, with Safari Power Saver, that basically kills Flash ads.
That’s basically what I was saying. They should work together on destroying it.
Chrome for OS X is the biggest battery killer across every single Mac notebook and OS X version; I find that on average I get 3-4 hours more battery life when using Safari compared to Chrome. The thing that most people say is that for a majority of internet video, Chrome gets VP8/9 instead of H264, and apparently this is hard on the CPU in terms of decoding compared to H264 with Safari which has offloading / acceleration plus power saving tech built in when it’s on battery…I’ve also heard that Chrome in general is designed to just be as fast as possible without caring about system resources. Dunno if I believe that one…The video thing make sense though, unfortunately.
It’s bad on Windows too. It’s a resource hog wherever it lives.
There’s an extension to for H.264 video… If you have a few extensions installed to force h.264 and html5 video, then Chrome isn’t that bad at all. If you’re looking for a browser that uses the least amount of resources, then you should use Firefox. If I wasn’t on Chrome, I would use Firefox before Safari.
Isn’t this exactly what Safari did 1-2 years ago?
How about doing the MOST sensible thing, and just murdering Flash altogether??? All that Flash is used for these days is freaking BANNER ADS!
Oh, that’s right, I forgot… Banner ads are Google’s bread & butter on the desktop platform! They can’t possible kill one of their main revenue streams!
That is assuming the cause is Flash but even with Flash installed with Safari I find that Safari still is more efficient than Chrome. The problem with Chrome isn’t Flash but the design of the browser itself and until it addresses that fundamental problem, all the tweaking around the edge is really just putting off the inevitable.
Why not just get rid of Flash? It’s crap. Anyone still using it should be slapped into the 21st century.
Yes this is surprising. I am without Flash for last 3 years. Don’t have any problems without it.
Why does Apple need to be the inventor for the rest of the world?
Intelligent and Flash shouldn’t be used in the same story.
Maybe Google could improve Laptop battery life by intelligently removing Flash completely.
Just do this…
How To Nuke Adobe Flash But Still Access Content http://wp.me/p39S4V-xs via @BriarKitEsme
…and you never need to see Flash again.
What Flash?? AdBlock and ClickToFlash installed on my machine. ;)
Safari user here. :)
I’m waiting for times when we don’t read about any tricks to improve battery life or performance by like 2%. It’s so embarrassing in 21st century. We should already have batteries and performance that are good enough to avoid those kind of tricks. Applications would be more stable and just better without all those trickery.
If you have not already installed “Click to Flash” I highly recommend you do it now!! :-)
It keeps all flash from playing and you only click what you want to play. Has many options on it too. It is a Safari extension.
Yeah lets invest more times in managing a failed software instead of using a working alternative..
Safari already does this