Adobe Flash keeps running slow, crashing in Google Chrome

I have two computers running Windows 8.1 and have Google Chrome, with latest updates.

Over the past months I've been running into problems when the Adobe Flash plug-in runs. I've seen it notoriously bad on forums and on photo sharing sites (like Photobucket).

Symptom:

• Initial page load will be fine.
• As site Flash media begins to execute, the browser page will become sluggish.
• Scrolling will become increasingly slow and unresponsive.
• Eventually a warning appears at the top that Flash is running slowly and if I wish to stop it.
• Stopping it will trigger a reload.
• Often Flash will end up crashing altogether.

This behavior won't be cleared until the browser is completely stopped and restarted. There does seem to be a worsening if multiple tabs on the same site are opened, but even still, crashes will happen with just a few tabs open.

My browser has only one instance of the Flash plug-in (there are numerous tips about checking Chrome plug-ins, finding 2 Flash entries, and disabling one). There is nothing else added that could be doing anything to interfere with Flash. I have Avast Anti-virus, but disabling it doesn't seem to affect Flash reliability.

I have reproduced this easily on two completely separate computers running Windows 8.1 on Google Chrome. I've searched on-line but haven't turned up much help at all.

Any advice on how to deal with this would be much appreciated. Thanks!

I should add that I'm a big fan of multiple tabs. I do try to keep them under 10 though. But what I have discovered is that with some forums, when I've got more than a couple of tabs open reading different subforums, my browser will slow to a crawl... and then I start getting Adobe Flash issues.

This feels like a more recent manifestation. I recall at least a year ago or more being able to do this without much lag at all. And it's not my specific computer suffering the problem. I've got a spare laptop that encounters the same issue, and the laptops of relatives exhibit the same problem.

Is there something that can be done to facilitate better Adobe Flash performance? Are there any other configuration tweaks that can be done to improve browser performance? Does blocking 3rd-party cookies cause delays?