Battery Life Dismal? CPU Going Wonky? Here’s How To Fight Flash On A Mac

For better or worse, Apple is all about the user experience. That explains why Flash is no longer shipped with new Macs (and isn’t even available for iPhone or iPad).

What’s wrong with Flash? Puhleeze. It’s a memory hog, a relic from the last century, and the best way to crash your browser tabs, suck the juice out of the CPU, reduce your Mac’s battery life, and give you a seizure. How do you fight Flash?

FlareFighter Fights Flash Fast

Flash video and animation were once the de facto standard for the internet, despite the proprietary nature of the technology. Thanks to Apple’s Steve Jobs, the popularity of the iPhone, and Adobe’s inability to make Flash an energy sipper and stable, Flash is on the way out.

Unfortunately, Flash itself hasn’t hear the news. There are still half a gazillion web sites which stream videos in Flash.

Worse, there are umpteen twenty eleven web sites which have animated advertisements which use Flash.

One video or one animated ad does not suck up much of your Mac’s CPU or drain the battery, but we’re a society of people who want it all right now, so we open up a dozen tabs, with a dozen web sites, and each one has half a dozen Flash ads.

Combined with Flash video, all that Flash begins to make Safari unstable, uses all the available RAM, most of the CPU, and flushes battery energy like a digital enema.

Enter FlareFighter, the Flash fighter. Click the Pause button in the Menubar, and no more Flash.

Here’s the deal, folks. Flash anything uses battery and CPU, and seems to love RAM.

But Flash is still everywhere, and if you need Flash videos, you need the Flash plugin for Safari.

FlareFighter gives you a Menubar control to pause Flash when you’re not watching a Flash video in Safari. Switch to another app, and no more CPU sucking, battery draining Flash.

Oh, how does Flash give you a seizure? Well, I don’t have any direct proof, of course, as it’s all speculation on my part, but it seems logical that all those flashing Flash animated advertisements could cause photosensitive epilepsy.

That must be the case because my husband looks like he’s in a trance when he was watching the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show video (Flash required, of course).

From Appletown

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On a lighter note, and one that's certainly more fun, Tera shows us How To Use Your iPhone To Scare Store Employees When You Shop. The folks at Boomer show us How Shopping For Bargains Starts With What’s In Your Hand (plus Want, Need, Love). And, just in case you forgot, here's How To Use Your Mac And Scapple To Learn To Think Visually, Take Freeform Notes, And Mind Map.

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