[Forrest]

The majority of CPU hogging issues come from plugins and from bad scripting. ActionScript 3 helps with Flash quite a bit as it has better garbage collection. Older versions however...

A better way of blocking Flash ads would be a start. But another idea would be to have a preference to throttle CPU usage based on URL, third-party URL, script type, window position (foreground, background...), plug-in type... with some sort of visual indicator that it's happening.

Another similar idea would be to create prefs for JavaScript and Flash that are similar to cookies. For example, an option to only use JavaScript or Flash from the current URL.

This would serve multiple uses. For one, it would tell OW users where the hogging is coming from and it would serve as a tool for developers to test with (eg, yslow.)