Google Chrome Has More Efficient Flash Video Cache Technique Than IE7 and Firefox 3
First, I would like to say thank you to Nirsofer, a developer of many useful, standalone freeware that I really like to keep along in USB thumb drive.
I left a comment on his ChromeCacheView freeware, suggested him to include flash video cache location used by Google Chrome.
However, his reply really surprise my earlier finding – I said Google Chrome cache folder is defensive! But, it’s not true (I’m sorry).
Indeed, now I believe Google Chrome has more efficient Flash video cache technique than Internet Explorer and Firefox.
After using VideoCacheView (another great standalone freeware of Nirsofer) and verification on the Windows Vista directories, I found that Google Chrome doesn’t have double cache situation as in IE 7 and Firefox 3.
Google Chrome doesn’t cache the flash video, but rely on flash player plugin that automatically caching the flash video in Windows temp folder of user account, with file name appears in flaxxxx.tmp pattern (where xxxx is alpha-numeric).
With IE 7 and Firefox 3 running on Windows Vista Ultimate machine, however, these two web browsers are actually perform double cache!
While the flash player plugin cache a copy in Windows temp folder of user account (Firefox 3) or top-level Low integrity folder (IE 7 running in Protected Mode in Windows Vista), the web browser also keep a copy of the flash video in their legacy TIF folder (a.k.a. Temporarily Internet Files folder or cache folder).
Obviously, IE7 and Firefox 3 take 2x disk space to play a flash video. If the flash video size is 100MB, the IE7 or Firefox 3 takes 200MB of disk space for caching.
Of course, the 200MB used disk space is set to free upon caching period expired, web browser is closed, or user forcibly empties the cache. However, that additional 100MB of I/O could be expensive to CPU utilization and disk defragmentation problem, especially when user actively watching several lengthy flash videos hosted at YouTube, MetaCafe, FLURL, etc.
Although I’ve been actively using Google Chrome for my web activities, I would like to remind myself (and my friends, and you) to watch YouTube / flash movie with Google Chrome (at least for the time being)!
However, his reply really surprise my earlier finding – I said Google Chrome cache folder is defensive! But, it’s not true (I’m sorry).
Indeed, now I believe Google Chrome has more efficient Flash video cache technique than Internet Explorer and Firefox.
After using VideoCacheView (another great standalone freeware of Nirsofer) and verification on the Windows Vista directories, I found that Google Chrome doesn’t have double cache situation as in IE 7 and Firefox 3.
Google Chrome doesn’t cache the flash video, but rely on flash player plugin that automatically caching the flash video in Windows temp folder of user account, with file name appears in flaxxxx.tmp pattern (where xxxx is alpha-numeric).
With IE 7 and Firefox 3 running on Windows Vista Ultimate machine, however, these two web browsers are actually perform double cache!
While the flash player plugin cache a copy in Windows temp folder of user account (Firefox 3) or top-level Low integrity folder (IE 7 running in Protected Mode in Windows Vista), the web browser also keep a copy of the flash video in their legacy TIF folder (a.k.a. Temporarily Internet Files folder or cache folder).
Obviously, IE7 and Firefox 3 take 2x disk space to play a flash video. If the flash video size is 100MB, the IE7 or Firefox 3 takes 200MB of disk space for caching.
Of course, the 200MB used disk space is set to free upon caching period expired, web browser is closed, or user forcibly empties the cache. However, that additional 100MB of I/O could be expensive to CPU utilization and disk defragmentation problem, especially when user actively watching several lengthy flash videos hosted at YouTube, MetaCafe, FLURL, etc.
Although I’ve been actively using Google Chrome for my web activities, I would like to remind myself (and my friends, and you) to watch YouTube / flash movie with Google Chrome (at least for the time being)!
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Hi again…
The reason why they use the Temp directory is because HTTP-FLV videos can be anywhere from 1kb up to 2 GB. Try loading 2 GB of HTTP content into memory… It has to dump it somewhere while the Flash control renders the video.
Flash creates the Temp file as so [pseudo]:
szTempDirectory = GetTempPath();
szTempFile = GetTempFileName(szTempDirectory,”fla”);
hFile = CreateFile(szTempFile,NO_SHARING,FILE_FLAG_DELETE_ON_CLOSE);
// read/write to file
CloseHandle(hFile);
// file is deleted automatically
Flash has been doing it this way since day one. It’s how most software will do temporary files. If you don’t want your users to experience this type of disk-usage, use RTMP.
Hey I tried installing VideoCacheFlow on XP, installed fine, but now when I ran it it is just sitting there ‘NOT RESPONDING’ and I can’t even kill the process.
So now I have to reboot so I can get rid of this “fine piece of software” … please XP users BEWARE!! this videocacheflow thing may freeze your machine.
still can’t save the chrome flv file either … it would be nice if there was info related to XP out there somewhere, (ie;) where does Chrome store its temp files in XP … just three paths…