Android 2.2 slowed down by Flash 10.1 according to tests

29th May, 2010 by adina
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The launch of Flash 10.1 for Android seems to be solely responsible for slowing down the experience of the browser and the Android phone as well, as a test confirms. When Flash is installed, the browser running on a Nexus One becomes slower than on an iPhone or an HTC HD2 to load content. Android 2.2 is much faster without the plugin installed, but the same operating system with Flash installed slows down and produces a low memory error after only a few visits of websites.

The plugin is in beta stage for the moment and there is still room for optimization, but the general opinion is that a part of the slowdown is due to Flash itself. The files sometimes have megabytes instead of kilobytes of normal pages and this takes more time to download and also consume the available memory of the smartphone, which is relatively limited. Although newer Android phones have 512MB or 1GB of RAM, Android’s higher memory usage together with what Flash needs can easily push the platform’s limits.

While dismissing Flash, Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO, has referred to stability and performance as the most important issues of the new version. There were demos showing Flash on Android, but although some websites were running well, it was only for short time and some sites were deliberately excluded. For example, Hulu blocks Android and has the tendency to run slowly when Flash is installed, as it does not have video optimized for processors running at lower speed.


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