Browser dilemma: crashes, ads or power drain

First of all, thanks a lot for your answer.

Firefox: I agree that I shouldn't be having those problems, but as a heavy flash-video watcher (mostly youtube), it did seem to be the least stable and also slightly slower or less responsive than the other two (I can't put my finger on it, but may be there was something about the full screen mode that didn't work as well, I couldn't really tell).

Concerning Safari, the problems with adblock (not blocking ads, specifically in-video ads on youtube, eg the most annoying and most frequent ones, which never appear in Firefox and Chrome with adblock) is quite well known and documented, and there are several threads here. Some claim to have it solved (I thought so myself, but after a few hours of ad-free youtube, they came back), but other also say they don't use Safari on youtube anymore because of this.

Well, here's the report from EtreCheck:

Hardware Information:

MacBook Pro (Retina, 15-inch, Late 2013)

MacBook Pro - model: MacBookPro11,3

1 2.6 GHz Intel Core i7 CPU: 4 cores

16 GB RAM

Video Information:

Intel Iris Pro - VRAM: 1024 MB

NVIDIA GeForce GT 750M - VRAM: 2048 MB

System Software:

OS X 10.9.2 (13C64) - Uptime: 0 days 0:7:36

Disk Information:

APPLE SSD SM0512F disk0 : (500.28 GB)

EFI (disk0s1) <not mounted>: 209.7 MB

Macintosh HD (disk0s2) / [Startup]: 369.42 GB (163.17 GB free)

Recovery HD (disk0s3) <not mounted>: 650 MB

BOOTCAMP (disk0s4) /Volumes/BOOTCAMP: 130 GB (73.23 GB free)

USB Information:

Apple Internal Memory Card Reader

Apple Inc. Apple Internal Keyboard / Trackpad

Apple Inc. BRCM20702 Hub

Apple Inc. Bluetooth USB Host Controller

FireWire Information:

Thunderbolt Information:

Apple Inc. thunderbolt_bus

Configuration files:

/etc/hosts - Count: 4

Startup Items:

Sudochmod: Path: /Library/StartupItems/Sudochmod

Launch Daemons:

[System] com.adobe.fpsaud.plist 3rd-Party support link

[System] com.oracle.java.Helper-Tool.plist 3rd-Party support link

[System] com.oracle.java.JavaUpdateHelper.plist 3rd-Party support link

[System] com.teamviewer.teamviewer_service.plist 3rd-Party support link

[System] org.tcpdump.chmod_bpf.plist 3rd-Party support link

Launch Agents:

[System] com.brother.LOGINserver.plist 3rd-Party support link

[System] com.citrix.AuthManager_Mac.plist 3rd-Party support link

[System] com.citrix.ReceiverHelper.plist 3rd-Party support link

[System] com.citrix.ServiceRecords.plist 3rd-Party support link

[System] com.oracle.java.Java-Updater.plist 3rd-Party support link

[System] com.teamviewer.teamviewer.plist 3rd-Party support link

[System] com.teamviewer.teamviewer_desktop.plist 3rd-Party support link

User Launch Agents:

[not loaded] com.adobe.ARM.[...].plist 3rd-Party support link

[not loaded] com.google.keystone.agent.plist 3rd-Party support link

User Login Items:

iTunesHelper

USBOverdriveHelper

Internet Plug-ins:

FlashPlayer-10.6: Version: 13.0.0.182 - SDK 10.6 3rd-Party support link

Default Browser: Version: 537 - SDK 10.9

AdobePDFViewerNPAPI: Version: 11.0.06 - SDK 10.6 3rd-Party support link

AdobePDFViewer: Version: 11.0.06 - SDK 10.6 3rd-Party support link

Flash Player: Version: 13.0.0.182 - SDK 10.6 Outdated! Update

QuickTime Plugin: Version: 7.7.3

CitrixICAClientPlugIn: Version: 11.8.2 - SDK 10.7 3rd-Party support link

JavaAppletPlugin: Version: Java 7 Update 55 3rd-Party support link

Safari Extensions:

AdBlock: Version: 2.6.18

Audio Plug-ins:

BluetoothAudioPlugIn: Version: 1.0 - SDK 10.9

AirPlay: Version: 2.0 - SDK 10.9

AppleAVBAudio: Version: 203.2 - SDK 10.9

iSightAudio: Version: 7.7.3 - SDK 10.9

iTunes Plug-ins:

Quartz Composer Visualizer: Version: 1.4 - SDK 10.9

User Internet Plug-ins:

Google Earth Web Plug-in: Version: 7.1 3rd-Party support link

3rd Party Preference Panes:

Flash Player 3rd-Party support link

Java 3rd-Party support link

Perian 3rd-Party support link

Old Applications:

/Library/Printers/Brother/Utilities/Server

NETserver: Version: 1.1.7 - SDK 10.4 3rd-Party support link

USBserver: Version: 1.1.3 - SDK 10.5 3rd-Party support link

Time Machine:

Auto backup: YES

Volumes being backed up:

Destinations:

2 TB WD My Book 1170 [Local] (Last used)

Total size: 2

Total number of backups: 5

Oldest backup: 2014-03-28 23:52:16 +0000

Last backup: 2014-04-13 14:05:22 +0000

Size of backup disk: Excellent

Backup size 2 > (Disk size 0 B X 3)

Time Machine details may not be accurate.

All volumes being backed up may not be listed.

Top Processes by CPU:

12% syncdefaultsd

2% WindowServer

1% EtreCheck

0% taskgated

0% mds

Top Processes by Memory:

197 MB Mail

180 MB Safari

147 MB com.apple.IconServicesAgent

131 MB Dock

98 MB WindowServer

Virtual Memory Information:

10.94 GB Free RAM

3.43 GB Active RAM

529 MB Inactive RAM

1.10 GB Wired RAM

340 MB Page-ins

0 B Page-outs

Again, thanks a lot, I installed the ClickToFlash Plugin. Unfortunately, on the first site I tested it (youtube, of course), after clicking on the "Flash"-symbol, I got the generic "An error has occured"-message from youtube. After reloading the page, the first picture did appear, but it wouldn't play and it said "loading..." in the bar at the bottom, clicking on the "Play" button had no effect. So had to make an exception for youtube in the ClickToFlash settings for youtube, because I still think it's a good idea to be able to automatically block all these unnecessary animations and videos you don't want to see. I'm curious how reliable it will be, after that first failed attempt on youtube (maybe youtube isn't the easiest site to use such a tool, but then I really don't know...)

I have to say that after the one trick I picked up in another thread, I now have very few ads in youtube, it isn't as nearly as bad as having the computer freezing (with Firefox) or the battery draining (with Chrome), so for now, the choice is made. Btw, here's the procedure, that helped with the ads on youtube:

open the file /etc/hosts in Terminal (sudo nano /etc/hosts)

Once that file is open, add a space and copy and paste the following text:

127.0.0.1 ads.youtube.com

127.0.0.1 s0.2mdn.net

127.0.0.1 s1.2mdn.net

127.0.0.1 googleads.g.doubleclick.net

Thanks, this tool looks pretty cool (as a general rule, I don’t install this kind of tools, but I’ll give it a chance, at least for observation purposes). Let me state here that I don’t have a general power consumption problem, it is really just Google Chrome which is consuming a lot more power than Safari (which is also more efficient than Firefox). Also, even with Google Chrome and Firefox, it doesn’t seem to be that bad right away on startup, but surfing on flash-heavy sites seems to drain the battery more and more. That’s just a superficial observation, once I realised that other users had made similar observations with Google Chrome and Mac OS Maverics, I didn’t really look into it anymore, I just switched back to Safari, and the difference was huge.

An update to Safari and youtube ads: I get about 1-2 ads per day on youtube now (the ones at the start of the video, which you can click away after 5 seconds). It’s pretty strange why I get these and not all the others, but I can live with that. Apart from that, Safari hasn’t had any problems with any sites I opened so far, and the clicktoflash-plugin will certainly save even more power. Thanks for your advice, I really appreciate it.

P.S.: I started a new thread with a question about the 2 graphic chips in my MB.

Thanks, I've read it. I had the occasion to see the switching take place, nice to know when it happens.

I just installed Adblock plus, I hope it does a better job than adblock, I just had two ads in a row.

Cheers

Kurt