Article by George Norman

On 02 Dec 2008

Flash Player 10, which Adobe launched back in October, even though is a big hit with people all over the world (mainly because you need it to watch videos online), is not as eco-minded as some of us would like it to be. According to a recent study conducted by SecTheory which concentrated on methods one can employ to cut down on power consumption, Flash and AJAX consume unnecessarily large amounts of power.

The problem with Flash and AJAX is this: they require more power when you initially access a web page, and they continue to drain power even after the page has fully and completely loaded. There are three main reasons why one would want to cut down on power usage. First of all, less power consumption equals less strain on your machine’s power supply. Secondly, the less you consume, the less you have to pay in terms of power bills. Thirdly, and probably most importantly of all, less power consumption means a lower carbon footprint.


“The number one most abusive technology appeared to be Flash banner ads. For the most part they are no different than the rest of the site, except that they continue to rotate. They could have easily been programmed to stop rotating after a few seconds, to return the site to a conservative power usage, but they weren't. While other technologies can and did cause power spikes, they caused issues far less often than Flash, making it the least "green" technology we came across,” says Robert Hansen.

He goes on to say that the blame for this excessive power usage should not be place solely on the shoulders of Flash; JavaScript, Java, VBScript and Silverlight share in the culpability. When Robert Hansen ran the tests on the Firefox 3.0 browser, this time having installed the NoScript and Adblock Plus plug-ins, a significant power usage reduction was detected.

If you would like to get NoScript, a download location is available here.
If you would like to get Adblock Plus, a download location is available here.



Tags: Adobe, Flash

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