And the problem is certainly not confined to my Mac, as OS X Daily recently got Safari to use up 7,909.9 % of its CPU. No, that’s not a typo, they caught Safari using up almost 8,000 % of CPU in what they call an “epic freakout”. Check out the proof below:

More often than not, the culprit is not actually Apple’s Safari browser, but actually Adobe’s Flash plug-in. Oh Flash, can’t browse with you, can’t browse without you. Or can you?

Frack Flash

Sure, many would say just ditch Flash and be done with it, but then you’re also shutting off videos, siFR fonts, and web applications that rely on Flash.

The solution?

ClickToFlash.

Like many Apple applications and plug-ins, ClickToFlash is simple, elegant, and damn useful. Since installing it, Safari loads within 1-2 bounces and doesn’t crash and doesn’t throw up more beach-balls than a rock concert, baseball game and 4th of July party combined.

So, what is ClickToFlash?

Good question. CTF is a plug-in for Safari that prevents any and all Flash from loading. You’d be surprised how often Flash pops up on a site, until you download and install CTF and see that it literally litters the web.

But CTF doesn’t stop there. As it’s name shows, the beauty of CTF is that it enables Flash by clicking on the graphic it uses to mark Flash zones. One click, and your YouTube video, siFR fonts or what have you load up and play like normal. You can spot Flash areas with this nice, pleasant placeholder image:

More than just a Flash blocker

But, ClickToFlash doesn’t stop there. It goes a step further and allows you to load .h264 videos on YouTube instead of Flash, which leads to higher quality. Other features allows you to whitelist sites and load Flash for an entire page, all with one click.

If you don’t have ClickToFlash, do yourself and your web browser a favor and install it now. Seriously. It’s free and has zero downsides and plenty of up.