11 ms·

Google is banning Flash from its display ads

446 points by cpeterso 11y ago

diminish 11y ago
Flash ads were a good way to target desktop office day time users for some conversion needs. Anyway had to go ..
Animats 11y ago
I've blocked Google ads for so long I didn't realize they had been allowing Flash ads.
- ChuckMcM 11y ago
  Ha. One of the annoying things about the first x86 Android tablets was that Google would serve up a flash ad which wouldn't work, presumably because it was expecting an ARM processor. As a result a whole slew of apps which had video and ads were unusable.
- Spare_account 11y ago
  Which ad blocker do you use on mobile?
  - Animats 11y ago
    Ghostery on Firefox.
    - dexterdog 11y ago
      I just user the Ghostery browser. Is there any benefit to using Firefox?
      - mintplant 11y ago
        Firefox on Android has full extension support, so you can install things like Self-Destructing Cookies and HTTPS Everywhere as well.
    - mattl 11y ago
      uBlock Origin is nice on Firefox for Android
    - oselhn 11y ago
      Ghostery like protection is already built in. There is no menu option for normal browsing mode but you can turn it on in about:config. Set privacy.trackingprotection.enabled to true.
  - nv-vn 11y ago
    uBlock Origin works well on Firefox IIRC. Alternatively, you could block apps system-wide.
  - kentonv 11y ago
    For Google ads specifically? https://contributor.google.com/ https://contributor.google.com/
    - awqrre 11y ago
      no thanks
    - wdmeldon 11y ago
      That is...a lot more than I expected for what you're getting.
      - HappyTypist 11y ago
        It's not. Google doesn't control all ads on the web. It's basically "hide 90% of Google ads".
    - spacehome 11y ago
      Wow. Their highest tier is $10/month to see 25-50% fewer ads? That seems a bit steep for the minimal reduction you're seeing.
      - ariwilson 11y ago
        I think they're accounting for the fact that Google doesn't control all ads across the web.
        spacehome 11y ago
        Yea, why don't they account for that fact in the $10/month price?
        digbyloftus 11y ago
        They do
      - kentonv 11y ago
  - cazum 11y ago
    If you're rooted, AdAway is fantastic as it not only blocks browser ads, but in-app ads as well.
  - olb 11y ago
    We just (last week) launched an Android ad blocker with Samsung that doesn’t require rooting your device or switching to another browser (our app works with Samsung Internet, which is the default browser on most of their devices): https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.rocketshipapps.adblockfast https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.rocketship... The ad blocker is also open source: https://github.com/rocketshipapps/adblockfast https://github.com/rocketshipapps/adblockfast
    - finnn 11y ago
      >Samsung Internet Ah yes, I'm remembering why I hate non-Nexus Android phones...
      - dingo_bat 11y ago
        Samsung Internet is, surprisingly, faster and smoother than Chrome. They have really optimized it.
        jordanthoms 11y ago
        Or rather, Google Chrome is extremely slow on Android/ARM: https://meta.discourse.org/t/the-state-of-javascript-on-android-in-2015-is-poor/33889 https://meta.discourse.org/t/the-state-of-javascript-on-andr...
  - dingo_bat 11y ago
    Firefox on Android with uBlock Origin.
  - josteink 11y ago
    > Which ad blocker do you use on mobile? Firefox with uBlock. Just plain old FF extensions. No root required. Firefox for Android is seriously underrated IMO.
    - lexicality 11y ago
      Possibly because it was very poor when it first came out? That's certainly why I switched away.
      - _nedR 11y ago
        Me too. Also because the default Chrome was good enough. But i came back to firefox recently and now it is my default. The "Reading list" feature is so good productivity-wise. And using firefox again made me realize that features like Reading-list, Tracking-protection, or even offline-mode would never be implemented in Chrome because of the fundamental conflict of interest between its users and Google
  - flo_23 11y ago
    I'm using Blockr on iOS. It also blocks those cookie warnings! http://blockr-app.com http://blockr-app.com
    - briandear 11y ago
      I use Crystal for iOS.. Works perfectly.
    - qubitcoder 11y ago
      On iOS, using Weblock and Purify in tandem gives you two distinct methods of ad blocking. Albeit, the more powerful blocker is WiFi only.
  - iopq 11y ago
    you can use adblock as a proxy and connect to your wifi through said proxy
- awqrre 11y ago
  The only Google ads that I still get is on the Youtube app on Android... which is one reason why I don't like to install any Google binaries on my computers...
  - throwaway2048 11y ago
    http://forum.xda-developers.com/xposed/modules/app-t2547316 http://forum.xda-developers.com/xposed/modules/app-t2547316 will remove ads in the youtube app if you have a rooted device, just install the xposed framework, then this. Keep in mind you need to update it when the youtube app updates (youtube app might be showing ads, or behaving weirdly/crashing if you don't)
- arrty88 11y ago
  i've blocked flash for so long, most ads dont display for me.
  - erikrothoff 11y ago
    Good for you that they are moving to HTML5 then ;)
    - phpsupport 11y ago
      May be in bootstrap ;)
    - phpsupport 11y ago
      http://www.phpsupport.co/ http://www.phpsupport.co/
- bambax 11y ago
  I bought a new Windows laptop last year. Of course the first thing I did was open IE and search for "download chrome". Stupidly, I clicked on the first link, which was a Google ad for Chrome bundled with some malware. Spent the next few hours getting rid of said malware. I've used adblock (ublock) for a long time, but there was always a little bit of guilt associated with it; that episode cleared the guilt, completely and for ever.
  - phpsupport 11y ago
    bambax, its not malware. when you installed free software they created spam add-on in browser.
    - PhilipA 11y ago
      And how isn't that malware?
  - sshagent 11y ago
    "IE the number 1 browser for downloading Chrome"
  - digitalengineer 11y ago
    Same thing with VLC I (as a Mac user) once installed for a Windows friend... The malware/adware version scored nr 1.
  - tdsamardzhiev 11y ago
    The web can be scary without adblocker. Many people have given similar examples here lately. Here's one from me: I have a certain addiction I cannot control. Tried everything possible without any success at all. It's not as dangerous as drugs, but it's also related to buying a lot of expensive stuff. So, when I disable adblock, every website spams the hell out of me with ads related to my addiction. This is nasty! And disgusting. I'm sure I'm not alone. Also there's probably a huge number of people that get influenced to smaller extent and don't pay attention to it (because it doesn't ruin their lives, y'know).
smaili 11y ago
I wonder if people may begin to go back to older browsers for surfing once ads have completely transitioned to HTML5 :-)
- mschuster91 11y ago
  With people shifting their layouts over to Flexbox, relying on "box-sizing: border-box", "display: table-xxx" and friends, older browsers will mess up the layout beyond belief. IIRC some older browsers even failed to apply an entire CSS file if they couldn't parse a single rule - good luck with ::before, ::after, ::nth-child and friends. CSS, unfortunately, isn't really backwards compatible unless you invest a LOT of effort into testing and development.
  - wlesieutre 11y ago
    Good riddance. Those older browsers are also going to be full of unpatched security holes, and if websites don't work people will eventually quit using them.
  - frik 11y ago
    Many recently updated websites of unicorns/startups look very bad or often completely unreadable on older browsers e.g. IE 9. Can they live without enterprise sales?
- cpncrunch 11y ago
  Just add a bookmark to kill iframes, then you just click the button to instantly remove any iframe adverts (which includes all of google's ads).
  - pdkl95 11y ago
    Why? This still allows the ad tracking and other malicious Javascript, and it still requires you to recognize that there are ads on the page. The cost in mental effort is significant; if you think it isn't, live completely ad free for a month or two to reset your tolerance.
manigandham 11y ago
This is great progress. Google being the biggest ad network and going with a complete ban is probably the only way to move things forward but glad to see it finally being done.
- ktRolster 11y ago
  It sounds like great progress.......until you realize that Google uses Flash everywhere in their own APIs
  - manigandham 11y ago
    Progress = forward movement towards something. This is still great progress, regardless of how much there is left to do. Chrome was even the first browser to stop playing lots of flash ads months ago.
chc4 11y ago
Silly question: Do people not use Click-to-play? I thought it was enabled in browsers by default now, or at least Firefox.
- Doctor_Fegg 11y ago
  I do (even as a sometime Flash developer), but unfortunately it's not always practical. There are plenty of sites, including Vimeo embeds and Vine, which cover the SWF with an HTML element - making it impossible to right-click to play the SWF. So you end up disabling click-to-play just to see the video you wanted.
  - pdkl95 11y ago
    Firefox has had a top-of-the-page notification for click-to-play for a long time, making this a non-issue.
    - Rohansi 11y ago
      Chrome has an icon for this in the address bar. The only problem with this solution is you lose control of which elements you want to allow.
      - cpeterso 11y ago
        I think Firefox's top-of-page notification is just for Flash content that is not large enough for the inline "click to play" UI. It's pretty annoying, though, because it causes the whole page to shift down. Chrome's address bar icon sounds like a good alternative.
  - CamperBob2 11y ago
    Does anyone know why Vimeo does that? I refuse to disable Flashblock to use Vimeo, and I don't understand how requiring me to do so would benefit them.
- jedberg 11y ago
  I use Chrome Canary, which doesn't have flash at all, and it seems that most sites automatically switch to HTML5. Sometimes I'll go to a site in Safari or Chrome and and the flash won't play, but then I load it up in Canary and it works. I don't understand why those same sites don't just start with html5 if they already support it anyway.
pippy 11y ago
One thing HTML5 lacks is the ability to combine all assets into one file. This makes Flash particularly handy for advertisements. Safari almost got there with its .Webarchive format, and Mozilla experimented with a file format but it didn't get anywhere.
- austinheap 11y ago
  Isn't that mostly moot with HTTP 2.0 multiplexing?
  - discreditable 11y ago
    Almost. Compressing all of the files into one archive often results in a smaller file overall. This might work a little differently with brotli, which uses a precomputed dictionary. The advantage of keeping the files separate is that it allows for procedural rendering. Multiplexing gives this a boost by allowing your client to fetch a lot of files at the same time.
- lukeman 11y ago
  Couldn't you use inline scripts and styles with images specified as data uris?
  - bosdev 11y ago
    Yes, I've used bundlers before which package the scripts and styles into a single HTML file.
  - dheera 11y ago
    Data URLs for large images are horribly space-inefficient.
    - kevincox 11y ago
      Once you gzip them they aren't bad.
eveningcoffee 11y ago
They should also bad video ads (including their own).
0x0 11y ago
How can they continue to allow "video ads built in flash"? Isn't a video flash just like any other .swf, that happens to use the NetConnection, NetStream and Video classes? Or will they supply the .swf part and the advertisers just the .flv/.mp4 part? Also, what's to stop a "html5 ad" from inlining swfobject.js? They've fallen for malvertising before, so how could they not fall for an obfuscated swfobject.js? :)
- viraptor 11y ago
  I think there's a lot of confusion in terminology here. "html5 ad" may mean "videos in formats supported by html5 video tag" "video ads built in flash" may mean ".flv in our own player", but also "we're going to unpack your .swf and strip anything apart from <run from frame 0>" Also "From January 2nd next year, Flash ads won't run" does match up with "Google says that Flash video ads aren't included in the cull "at this time."" The article is pretty confusing though...
- jdangu 11y ago
  This is because video ads use an obnoxious ad API called VPAID [1] that is mostly used to track viewability of video ads (which in turn conditions the billing event for advertisers). This is most effectively done with Flash and so 90% of video ads use Flash if given the opportunity. [1] http://www.iab.net/guidelines/508676/digitalvideo/vsuite/vpaid http://www.iab.net/guidelines/508676/digitalvideo/vsuite/vpa...
  - cpeterso 11y ago
    The NY Times' recent post about their transition from Flash to HTML5 video highlighted VPAID as one of their big challenges. It sounds like they had to pull the ad vendors, kicking and screaming, into the HTML5 world. http://open.blogs.nytimes.com/2016/02/08/flash-free-video-in-2016/ http://open.blogs.nytimes.com/2016/02/08/flash-free-video-in...
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
tyingq 11y ago
I suppose this means dropping it altogether (like from Chrome) can't be too far away. My only regret with that would be that we use flash as a way to allow one-button copy to the clipboard (using this http://zeroclipboard.org/ http://zeroclipboard.org/). We had tried non-flash solutions, but none of them worked. This sounds like it might work https://clipboardjs.com/ https://clipboardjs.com/, so I guess I'll be adding a backlog item to look at it.
- zymhan 11y ago
  I use that feature a lot, surely they can't all be Flash based.
  - tyingq 11y ago
    Flash used to be the only thing that worked, cross-browser. Chrome, I know for sure, changed their minds several times on whether they would allow it...security model thing, you could make it work only by tweaking some internal chrome setting. The sales pitch at https://clipboardjs.com/ https://clipboardjs.com/ makes it sound like perhaps things have changed enough that a reasonable cross-browser solution is possible now.
    - ossreality 11y ago
      It's been possible for literally years, but thanks for spreading your out-dated FUD on HN.
- jpwgarrison 11y ago
  re: dropping [flash] from Chrome - NOOOOO this is what Chrome is for! The only flash I have is the built in to chrome flash.
  - sparky_ 11y ago
    I also do this. Firefox is my primary browser but I have Chrome installed solely to view flash-based video sites.
beedogs 11y ago
Good, and good riddance. The less Flash on the Internet, the better.
codazoda 11y ago
I've never installed Flash since it was an ad on (or maybe I just disable it, I can't remember). It's ONLY used for ads these days. I avoid the few video sites that use it.
- lsalvatore2 11y ago
  Nope. The Superbowl was streamed with Flash Player on CBS own website. Hulu still streams with Flash Player. Zynga and King use Flash player in all their multi-million dollar earning Flash games. It's not going anywhere.
  - amdavidson 11y ago
    > ... It's not going anywhere. Yet.
kmfrk 11y ago
Just in time for the launch of AMP.
sandworm101 11y ago
Google does ads? Honestly, it has been a very long while since I've seen ads. Adblock aside, my phone is so old that any significant ads effectively causes a crash, total non-responsive phone. So I still don't see them.
- finnn 11y ago
  How do you think Google makes money if not ads?
  - sandworm101 11y ago
    How do you not get sarcasm?
    - jamespo 11y ago
      Normally there's an element of humour
obelisk_ 11y ago
I haven't had the Flash plugin since 2012 and only a few couple of times I've encountered something I wanted to use which required Flash since when I stopped having Flash. In every case where Flash was required I simply Googled the relevant keywords and found what I was looking for provided by other non-Flash sites.
- luxflux 11y ago
  Twitch is the only thing keeping Flash on my system, and as soon as they make the switch to HTML5 video I'll be uninstalling it completely.
  - AlphaSite 11y ago
    Twitch has run over HTML5 for the better part of a year (maybe longer).
    - Survey_Sez 11y ago
      The controls and chat were upgraded to HTML5 last year but the video will not be converted from Flash to HTML5 until Q2 this year. This was one of the major announcements made during CEO's keynote at TwitchCon. http://blog.twitch.tv/2015/09/twitchcon-2015-keynote-product-round-up/ http://blog.twitch.tv/2015/09/twitchcon-2015-keynote-product...
      - Steko 11y ago
        OS X and iOS streams use HLS (append /hls to url) and you can get the html5 video in various ways (append &html5 or [1]). [1] https://www.reddit.com/r/Kappa/comments/3l01q4/complete_twitch_html5_player_userscript/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Kappa/comments/3l01q4/complete_twit...
  - atomic_cheese 11y ago
    If you use Livestreamer and an IRC client, you can run Twitch streams outside your browser. That's what I've been doing - I haven't had flash installed since that cross-platform RCE bug late last year.
stanley 11y ago
Surprised to see this in the news now. As an advertiser, we received notice from Google around July of 2015 that our flash ads will soon be disabled. Something like a month or two later the change went into effect.
eyeareque 11y ago
I use firefox at the moment and do not have flash installed. In the rare occasion that I cannot view a video because I need flash I will fire up chrome to watch it. Also, I use adblockers.. so I haven't seen a flash ad in ages.
spacehome 11y ago
I beat them to this a loong time ago.
arrty88 11y ago
ive been blocking flash since 2012. no biggie.
bikamonki 11y ago
Flash is like DLLs. Enough said.
Outdoorsman 11y ago
I don't look at ads...that's remiss of me, as some ads probably contribute to my salary... When I see a three column layout on a client's page, with the right column "blinking" I think, usually, that they're probably barely holding on...just from experience...
module17 11y ago
woohoo!
dredmorbius 11y ago
Ironically, one of the very few places I find Flash still used, that I miss it, is in Google Finance pages. They're desperately wanting a rewrite.
osoti 11y ago
What Would Happen to our Earth if the Sun Disappeared? http://goo.gl/Bvpsr1 http://goo.gl/Bvpsr1
phpsupport 11y ago
Google main focus is ADS
ksec 11y ago
( What took you so long? James. ) The sentence that came across my head when i read the title. * Quote from the 007 movie Spectre
k-mcgrady 11y ago
Anyone else see this and think "Why the hell didn't they do this years ago?". I was really surprised it was still allowed.

446 points by cpeterso 11y ago

diminish 11y ago

Flash ads were a good way to target desktop office day time users for some conversion needs. Anyway had to go ..

Animats 11y ago

I've blocked Google ads for so long I didn't realize they had been allowing Flash ads.

ChuckMcM 11y ago
Ha. One of the annoying things about the first x86 Android tablets was that Google would serve up a flash ad which wouldn't work, presumably because it was expecting an ARM processor. As a result a whole slew of apps which had video and ads were unusable.
Spare_account 11y ago
Which ad blocker do you use on mobile?
- Animats 11y ago
  Ghostery on Firefox.
  - dexterdog 11y ago
    I just user the Ghostery browser. Is there any benefit to using Firefox?
    - mintplant 11y ago
      Firefox on Android has full extension support, so you can install things like Self-Destructing Cookies and HTTPS Everywhere as well.
  - mattl 11y ago
    uBlock Origin is nice on Firefox for Android
  - oselhn 11y ago
    Ghostery like protection is already built in. There is no menu option for normal browsing mode but you can turn it on in about:config. Set privacy.trackingprotection.enabled to true.
- nv-vn 11y ago
  uBlock Origin works well on Firefox IIRC. Alternatively, you could block apps system-wide.
- kentonv 11y ago
  For Google ads specifically? https://contributor.google.com/ https://contributor.google.com/
  - awqrre 11y ago
    no thanks
  - wdmeldon 11y ago
    That is...a lot more than I expected for what you're getting.
    - HappyTypist 11y ago
      It's not. Google doesn't control all ads on the web. It's basically "hide 90% of Google ads".
  - spacehome 11y ago
    Wow. Their highest tier is $10/month to see 25-50% fewer ads? That seems a bit steep for the minimal reduction you're seeing.
    - ariwilson 11y ago
      I think they're accounting for the fact that Google doesn't control all ads across the web.
      - spacehome 11y ago
        Yea, why don't they account for that fact in the $10/month price?
        digbyloftus 11y ago
        They do
    - kentonv 11y ago
- cazum 11y ago
  If you're rooted, AdAway is fantastic as it not only blocks browser ads, but in-app ads as well.
- olb 11y ago
  We just (last week) launched an Android ad blocker with Samsung that doesn’t require rooting your device or switching to another browser (our app works with Samsung Internet, which is the default browser on most of their devices): https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.rocketshipapps.adblockfast https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.rocketship... The ad blocker is also open source: https://github.com/rocketshipapps/adblockfast https://github.com/rocketshipapps/adblockfast
  - finnn 11y ago
    >Samsung Internet Ah yes, I'm remembering why I hate non-Nexus Android phones...
    - dingo_bat 11y ago
      Samsung Internet is, surprisingly, faster and smoother than Chrome. They have really optimized it.
      - jordanthoms 11y ago
        Or rather, Google Chrome is extremely slow on Android/ARM: https://meta.discourse.org/t/the-state-of-javascript-on-android-in-2015-is-poor/33889 https://meta.discourse.org/t/the-state-of-javascript-on-andr...
- dingo_bat 11y ago
  Firefox on Android with uBlock Origin.
- josteink 11y ago
  > Which ad blocker do you use on mobile? Firefox with uBlock. Just plain old FF extensions. No root required. Firefox for Android is seriously underrated IMO.
  - lexicality 11y ago
    Possibly because it was very poor when it first came out? That's certainly why I switched away.
    - _nedR 11y ago
      Me too. Also because the default Chrome was good enough. But i came back to firefox recently and now it is my default. The "Reading list" feature is so good productivity-wise. And using firefox again made me realize that features like Reading-list, Tracking-protection, or even offline-mode would never be implemented in Chrome because of the fundamental conflict of interest between its users and Google
- flo_23 11y ago
  I'm using Blockr on iOS. It also blocks those cookie warnings! http://blockr-app.com http://blockr-app.com
  - briandear 11y ago
    I use Crystal for iOS.. Works perfectly.
  - qubitcoder 11y ago
    On iOS, using Weblock and Purify in tandem gives you two distinct methods of ad blocking. Albeit, the more powerful blocker is WiFi only.
- iopq 11y ago
  you can use adblock as a proxy and connect to your wifi through said proxy
awqrre 11y ago
The only Google ads that I still get is on the Youtube app on Android... which is one reason why I don't like to install any Google binaries on my computers...
- throwaway2048 11y ago
  http://forum.xda-developers.com/xposed/modules/app-t2547316 http://forum.xda-developers.com/xposed/modules/app-t2547316 will remove ads in the youtube app if you have a rooted device, just install the xposed framework, then this. Keep in mind you need to update it when the youtube app updates (youtube app might be showing ads, or behaving weirdly/crashing if you don't)
arrty88 11y ago
i've blocked flash for so long, most ads dont display for me.
- erikrothoff 11y ago
  Good for you that they are moving to HTML5 then ;)
  - phpsupport 11y ago
    May be in bootstrap ;)
  - phpsupport 11y ago
    http://www.phpsupport.co/ http://www.phpsupport.co/
bambax 11y ago
I bought a new Windows laptop last year. Of course the first thing I did was open IE and search for "download chrome". Stupidly, I clicked on the first link, which was a Google ad for Chrome bundled with some malware. Spent the next few hours getting rid of said malware. I've used adblock (ublock) for a long time, but there was always a little bit of guilt associated with it; that episode cleared the guilt, completely and for ever.
- phpsupport 11y ago
  bambax, its not malware. when you installed free software they created spam add-on in browser.
  - PhilipA 11y ago
    And how isn't that malware?
- sshagent 11y ago
  "IE the number 1 browser for downloading Chrome"
- digitalengineer 11y ago
  Same thing with VLC I (as a Mac user) once installed for a Windows friend... The malware/adware version scored nr 1.
- tdsamardzhiev 11y ago
  The web can be scary without adblocker. Many people have given similar examples here lately. Here's one from me: I have a certain addiction I cannot control. Tried everything possible without any success at all. It's not as dangerous as drugs, but it's also related to buying a lot of expensive stuff. So, when I disable adblock, every website spams the hell out of me with ads related to my addiction. This is nasty! And disgusting. I'm sure I'm not alone. Also there's probably a huge number of people that get influenced to smaller extent and don't pay attention to it (because it doesn't ruin their lives, y'know).

smaili 11y ago

I wonder if people may begin to go back to older browsers for surfing once ads have completely transitioned to HTML5 :-)

mschuster91 11y ago
With people shifting their layouts over to Flexbox, relying on "box-sizing: border-box", "display: table-xxx" and friends, older browsers will mess up the layout beyond belief. IIRC some older browsers even failed to apply an entire CSS file if they couldn't parse a single rule - good luck with ::before, ::after, ::nth-child and friends. CSS, unfortunately, isn't really backwards compatible unless you invest a LOT of effort into testing and development.
- wlesieutre 11y ago
  Good riddance. Those older browsers are also going to be full of unpatched security holes, and if websites don't work people will eventually quit using them.
- frik 11y ago
  Many recently updated websites of unicorns/startups look very bad or often completely unreadable on older browsers e.g. IE 9. Can they live without enterprise sales?
cpncrunch 11y ago
Just add a bookmark to kill iframes, then you just click the button to instantly remove any iframe adverts (which includes all of google's ads).
- pdkl95 11y ago
  Why? This still allows the ad tracking and other malicious Javascript, and it still requires you to recognize that there are ads on the page. The cost in mental effort is significant; if you think it isn't, live completely ad free for a month or two to reset your tolerance.

manigandham 11y ago

This is great progress. Google being the biggest ad network and going with a complete ban is probably the only way to move things forward but glad to see it finally being done.

ktRolster 11y ago
It sounds like great progress.......until you realize that Google uses Flash everywhere in their own APIs
- manigandham 11y ago
  Progress = forward movement towards something. This is still great progress, regardless of how much there is left to do. Chrome was even the first browser to stop playing lots of flash ads months ago.

chc4 11y ago

Silly question: Do people not use Click-to-play? I thought it was enabled in browsers by default now, or at least Firefox.

Doctor_Fegg 11y ago
I do (even as a sometime Flash developer), but unfortunately it's not always practical. There are plenty of sites, including Vimeo embeds and Vine, which cover the SWF with an HTML element - making it impossible to right-click to play the SWF. So you end up disabling click-to-play just to see the video you wanted.
- pdkl95 11y ago
  Firefox has had a top-of-the-page notification for click-to-play for a long time, making this a non-issue.
  - Rohansi 11y ago
    Chrome has an icon for this in the address bar. The only problem with this solution is you lose control of which elements you want to allow.
    - cpeterso 11y ago
      I think Firefox's top-of-page notification is just for Flash content that is not large enough for the inline "click to play" UI. It's pretty annoying, though, because it causes the whole page to shift down. Chrome's address bar icon sounds like a good alternative.
- CamperBob2 11y ago
  Does anyone know why Vimeo does that? I refuse to disable Flashblock to use Vimeo, and I don't understand how requiring me to do so would benefit them.
jedberg 11y ago
I use Chrome Canary, which doesn't have flash at all, and it seems that most sites automatically switch to HTML5. Sometimes I'll go to a site in Safari or Chrome and and the flash won't play, but then I load it up in Canary and it works. I don't understand why those same sites don't just start with html5 if they already support it anyway.

pippy 11y ago

One thing HTML5 lacks is the ability to combine all assets into one file. This makes Flash particularly handy for advertisements. Safari almost got there with its .Webarchive format, and Mozilla experimented with a file format but it didn't get anywhere.

austinheap 11y ago
Isn't that mostly moot with HTTP 2.0 multiplexing?
- discreditable 11y ago
  Almost. Compressing all of the files into one archive often results in a smaller file overall. This might work a little differently with brotli, which uses a precomputed dictionary. The advantage of keeping the files separate is that it allows for procedural rendering. Multiplexing gives this a boost by allowing your client to fetch a lot of files at the same time.
lukeman 11y ago
Couldn't you use inline scripts and styles with images specified as data uris?
- bosdev 11y ago
  Yes, I've used bundlers before which package the scripts and styles into a single HTML file.
- dheera 11y ago
  Data URLs for large images are horribly space-inefficient.
  - kevincox 11y ago
    Once you gzip them they aren't bad.

eveningcoffee 11y ago

They should also bad video ads (including their own).

0x0 11y ago

How can they continue to allow "video ads built in flash"? Isn't a video flash just like any other .swf, that happens to use the NetConnection, NetStream and Video classes? Or will they supply the .swf part and the advertisers just the .flv/.mp4 part? Also, what's to stop a "html5 ad" from inlining swfobject.js? They've fallen for malvertising before, so how could they not fall for an obfuscated swfobject.js? :)

viraptor 11y ago
I think there's a lot of confusion in terminology here. "html5 ad" may mean "videos in formats supported by html5 video tag" "video ads built in flash" may mean ".flv in our own player", but also "we're going to unpack your .swf and strip anything apart from <run from frame 0>" Also "From January 2nd next year, Flash ads won't run" does match up with "Google says that Flash video ads aren't included in the cull "at this time."" The article is pretty confusing though...
jdangu 11y ago
This is because video ads use an obnoxious ad API called VPAID [1] that is mostly used to track viewability of video ads (which in turn conditions the billing event for advertisers). This is most effectively done with Flash and so 90% of video ads use Flash if given the opportunity. [1] http://www.iab.net/guidelines/508676/digitalvideo/vsuite/vpaid http://www.iab.net/guidelines/508676/digitalvideo/vsuite/vpa...
- cpeterso 11y ago
  The NY Times' recent post about their transition from Flash to HTML5 video highlighted VPAID as one of their big challenges. It sounds like they had to pull the ad vendors, kicking and screaming, into the HTML5 world. http://open.blogs.nytimes.com/2016/02/08/flash-free-video-in-2016/ http://open.blogs.nytimes.com/2016/02/08/flash-free-video-in...
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]

tyingq 11y ago

I suppose this means dropping it altogether (like from Chrome) can't be too far away. My only regret with that would be that we use flash as a way to allow one-button copy to the clipboard (using this http://zeroclipboard.org/ http://zeroclipboard.org/). We had tried non-flash solutions, but none of them worked. This sounds like it might work https://clipboardjs.com/ https://clipboardjs.com/, so I guess I'll be adding a backlog item to look at it.

zymhan 11y ago
I use that feature a lot, surely they can't all be Flash based.
- tyingq 11y ago
  Flash used to be the only thing that worked, cross-browser. Chrome, I know for sure, changed their minds several times on whether they would allow it...security model thing, you could make it work only by tweaking some internal chrome setting. The sales pitch at https://clipboardjs.com/ https://clipboardjs.com/ makes it sound like perhaps things have changed enough that a reasonable cross-browser solution is possible now.
  - ossreality 11y ago
    It's been possible for literally years, but thanks for spreading your out-dated FUD on HN.
jpwgarrison 11y ago
re: dropping [flash] from Chrome - NOOOOO this is what Chrome is for! The only flash I have is the built in to chrome flash.
- sparky_ 11y ago
  I also do this. Firefox is my primary browser but I have Chrome installed solely to view flash-based video sites.

beedogs 11y ago

Good, and good riddance. The less Flash on the Internet, the better.

codazoda 11y ago

I've never installed Flash since it was an ad on (or maybe I just disable it, I can't remember). It's ONLY used for ads these days. I avoid the few video sites that use it.

lsalvatore2 11y ago
Nope. The Superbowl was streamed with Flash Player on CBS own website. Hulu still streams with Flash Player. Zynga and King use Flash player in all their multi-million dollar earning Flash games. It's not going anywhere.
- amdavidson 11y ago
  > ... It's not going anywhere. Yet.

kmfrk 11y ago

Just in time for the launch of AMP.

sandworm101 11y ago

Google does ads? Honestly, it has been a very long while since I've seen ads. Adblock aside, my phone is so old that any significant ads effectively causes a crash, total non-responsive phone. So I still don't see them.

finnn 11y ago
How do you think Google makes money if not ads?
- sandworm101 11y ago
  How do you not get sarcasm?
  - jamespo 11y ago
    Normally there's an element of humour

obelisk_ 11y ago

I haven't had the Flash plugin since 2012 and only a few couple of times I've encountered something I wanted to use which required Flash since when I stopped having Flash. In every case where Flash was required I simply Googled the relevant keywords and found what I was looking for provided by other non-Flash sites.

luxflux 11y ago
Twitch is the only thing keeping Flash on my system, and as soon as they make the switch to HTML5 video I'll be uninstalling it completely.
- AlphaSite 11y ago
  Twitch has run over HTML5 for the better part of a year (maybe longer).
  - Survey_Sez 11y ago
    The controls and chat were upgraded to HTML5 last year but the video will not be converted from Flash to HTML5 until Q2 this year. This was one of the major announcements made during CEO's keynote at TwitchCon. http://blog.twitch.tv/2015/09/twitchcon-2015-keynote-product-round-up/ http://blog.twitch.tv/2015/09/twitchcon-2015-keynote-product...
    - Steko 11y ago
      OS X and iOS streams use HLS (append /hls to url) and you can get the html5 video in various ways (append &html5 or [1]). [1] https://www.reddit.com/r/Kappa/comments/3l01q4/complete_twitch_html5_player_userscript/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Kappa/comments/3l01q4/complete_twit...
- atomic_cheese 11y ago
  If you use Livestreamer and an IRC client, you can run Twitch streams outside your browser. That's what I've been doing - I haven't had flash installed since that cross-platform RCE bug late last year.

stanley 11y ago

Surprised to see this in the news now. As an advertiser, we received notice from Google around July of 2015 that our flash ads will soon be disabled. Something like a month or two later the change went into effect.

eyeareque 11y ago

I use firefox at the moment and do not have flash installed. In the rare occasion that I cannot view a video because I need flash I will fire up chrome to watch it. Also, I use adblockers.. so I haven't seen a flash ad in ages.

spacehome 11y ago

I beat them to this a loong time ago.

arrty88 11y ago

ive been blocking flash since 2012. no biggie.

bikamonki 11y ago

Flash is like DLLs. Enough said.

Outdoorsman 11y ago

I don't look at ads...that's remiss of me, as some ads probably contribute to my salary... When I see a three column layout on a client's page, with the right column "blinking" I think, usually, that they're probably barely holding on...just from experience...

module17 11y ago

woohoo!

dredmorbius 11y ago

Ironically, one of the very few places I find Flash still used, that I miss it, is in Google Finance pages. They're desperately wanting a rewrite.

osoti 11y ago

What Would Happen to our Earth if the Sun Disappeared? http://goo.gl/Bvpsr1 http://goo.gl/Bvpsr1

phpsupport 11y ago

Google main focus is ADS

ksec 11y ago

( What took you so long? James. ) The sentence that came across my head when i read the title. * Quote from the 007 movie Spectre

k-mcgrady 11y ago

Anyone else see this and think "Why the hell didn't they do this years ago?". I was really surprised it was still allowed.