Hi Peter,
On Oct 3, 2008, at 12:21 PM, Rob Burns wrote:
On Oct 2, 2008, at 6:28 PM, Peter Kasting wrote:
On Thu, Oct 2, 2008 at 3:23 AM, Rob Burns <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
As another drastic anecdotal step, I've turned off javascript on
Safari (my main browser) and turn to other browsers when I find a
site
that requires javascript. If I don't do that, I find my Macbook Air
battery eaten away in under an hour just because I left pages open
that use setTimeout inappropriately.
Safari doesn't have a lower setTimeout() cap than Firefox, so I
don't think this data point is meaningful.
This wasn't a comparison of the handling of different browsers. I
was saying that this is a rather drastic measure that users have to
take in order to avoid errant javascripts from eating away battery
storage. It might make sense to allow users to disable timers
separately from disabling javascript in total. In that way it might
also encourage authors to use timers appropriately when they might
not be able to count on timers being enabled always (using them
only when appropriate then).
Since I fear the logic here has been lost let me try to summarize what
I'm trying to say on this topic.
• setTimeout gets used in cases where it is not always the best
solution for authors: i.e., using for polling when a specified event
would be a better way to provide interactivity
• setTimeout is probably most often tested on IE with a clamp of
15ms and any author testing elsewhere does not focus on power
consumption issues
• for these cases where it is not being used correctly, a user of
Chrome (with a 1ms clamp) will experience 15X processor use over a
user of IE (with 15ms clamp)
• the 15x processor utilization will result in an accelerated power
drain on mobile devices running Chrome compared to those running IE
• most users will not diagnose the issue down to a specific tab or a
specific page, but may at times identify the browser or the platform
as the problem
My approach to dealing with this is to leave any number of pages I
desire open in Safari my main browser and avoid flash and javascript
entirely there. If a page requires javascript, I fire up Shira or
Opera or another browser with javascript and flash enabled and make
sure I quit the application before I go on battery or immediately
after viewing the page. This gives me immensely more battery life than
I would otherwise have given my usage patterns (like having a second
or even a third battery).
Take care,
Rob
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