Is Adobe Flash Killing MacBook Air Battery Life?

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Ars Technica stumbled upon an interesting tidbit while reviewing their 11-inch MacBook Air.  They found a compelling reason for Apple to not install Adobe Flash on the MacBook Air and it wasn’t just because they wanted to make sure users always had the latest version of Flash.

It’s because Ars Technica discovered that with Flash installed on their 11-inch MacBook Air the battery life of the notebook was reduced by 33%. During their tests this reduced the notebooks run time from approximately six hours to only four hours. Ouch! That is pretty significant drop in  battery life.

Ironically, I also installed Adobe Flash on my 13-inch Macbook Air this week and subsequently noted a serious reduction in battery life since then. Therefore, I plan on uninstalling Flash tonight and we’ll see what happens. I hope I see the battery life I saw during the first week I had my MacBook Air when Flash wasn’t installed.

I’ll update this post with my results later on. In the meantime, I’d appreciate it if some of you would consider uninstalling Flash and sharing your results with all of us in the comments.

[via Ars Technica]

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