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Note that "kill" is just a less ugly way of saying "stop providing security updates for." It's not a SAAS, they can't just snap their fingers, shut down the se

Note that "kill" is just a less ugly way of saying "stop providing security updates for." It's not a SAAS, they can't just snap their fingers, shut down the servers, and have flash actually go away. Even if Adobe actively tried to murder Flash Player, people would still end up pirating copies of the installer from shady sites for their legacy needs.

dispose13432 10y ago
No. Kill is to _only_ add bugfixes for X years and then commit to shutting it down, while creating a migration path (shumway, whatever) for existing code. Windows XP is dead. Windows 7 is dead.
- cm2187 10y ago
  Win 7 is going to be an even bigger die hard than Win XP.
  - cpeterso 10y ago
    Yes. Windows 7, at 45%, is the most common operating system among Firefox users. Only 26% run Windows 10. https://metrics.mozilla.com/firefox-hardware-report/#goto-os-and-architecture https://metrics.mozilla.com/firefox-hardware-report/#goto-os...
  - ConceptJunkie 10y ago
    I'm running Windows 10. If I could pay to go back to Windows 7, I would in a heartbeat.
- camus2 10y ago
  > No. Kill is to _only_ add bugfixes for X years and then commit to shutting it down, while creating a migration path (shumway, whatever) for existing code. Shumway is dead. There is no migration path for existing code. The closest thing that exists is Haxe and OpenFL but it doesn't directly support ActionScript or SWF files. What they need to do is opensource the player.
  - majewsky 10y ago
    I doubt they will open-source the player, for one primary reason: We already know that Flash is hilariously broken wrt security (see for example [1]), and exposing the source code will lead to dozens and dozens of horrible exploits within a few days, thus prompting browser vendors to forcefully lock out Flash in a cloak-and-dagger operation to protect their customers. (Either this, or Adobe will face a shitstorm of unprecedented proportions.) [1] http://www.zdnet.com/article/offensive-security-research-community-helping-bad-guys/ http://www.zdnet.com/article/offensive-security-research-com...
- r0muald 10y ago
  You'd be surprised to know how many millions of people use these dead operating systems on a daily basis.
  - dispose13432 10y ago
    Yes. Dead doesn't mean doesn't work. Dead means EOL.
- Spooky23 10y ago
  No way. My employer finished upgrading 250k devices to Windows 7 early last year. Thanks to the epic fuckup with Windows 8, there's no way that transition to 10 will complete in 2020. My guess is that most large commercial customers will have 20% of users running Windows 7 through at least 2023. VDI or other similar mechanisms will be used to isolate it.
alkonaut 10y ago
If no browsers had support out of the box and even plugins were hard to come by (browsers could actively prevent running anything it thinks is a flash plugin..) the problem might go away.
- chris_wot 10y ago
  Browsers already do this.
- Amezarak 10y ago
  What are we supposed to do about the millions of legacy sites and applications that use Flash, that nobody is going to update? Am I crazy for thinking that Flash being in maintenance mode in perpetuity is a good thing? I want webpages from a decade or two ago to work fine.
  - TheAceOfHearts 10y ago
    I think Chrome is taking a good approach [0]. Disabled by default, but you can optionally enable it on a per-visit / per-site basis. [0] https://blog.chromium.org/2016/12/roll-out-plan-for-html5-by-default.html https://blog.chromium.org/2016/12/roll-out-plan-for-html5-by...
    - GordonS 10y ago
      Firefox does this too; I had assumed all modern browsers did these days
  - aargh_aargh 10y ago
    I don't know, write a JavaScript interpreter of Flash? Or let it die already. Remember VBscript? Neither does anybody else.
- MaulingMonkey 10y ago
  > If no browsers had support out of the box This was the original state of Flash and Java. This is when they grew. Trust me when I say: This would not be a problem. > and even plugins were hard to come by (browsers could actively prevent running anything it thinks is a flash plugin..) This is no longer Adobe 'kill'ing Flash Player, and also how you get a bunch of pissed users switching browsers or sticking to legacy versions. This shit right here is how you get IT departments sticking to IE 6. Although, this is perhaps a golden age of open source. Maybe we'd see hostile forks instead! And, of course, iOS Safari has already 'kill'ed Flash in this sense. On the one hand, it's added some pressure to transition to new tech stacks. On the other, since we're still asking questions about how to kill Flash Player, it clearly didn't do the job ;)

dispose13432 10y ago

No. Kill is to _only_ add bugfixes for X years and then commit to shutting it down, while creating a migration path (shumway, whatever) for existing code. Windows XP is dead. Windows 7 is dead.

cm2187 10y ago
Win 7 is going to be an even bigger die hard than Win XP.
- cpeterso 10y ago
  Yes. Windows 7, at 45%, is the most common operating system among Firefox users. Only 26% run Windows 10. https://metrics.mozilla.com/firefox-hardware-report/#goto-os-and-architecture https://metrics.mozilla.com/firefox-hardware-report/#goto-os...
- ConceptJunkie 10y ago
  I'm running Windows 10. If I could pay to go back to Windows 7, I would in a heartbeat.
camus2 10y ago
> No. Kill is to _only_ add bugfixes for X years and then commit to shutting it down, while creating a migration path (shumway, whatever) for existing code. Shumway is dead. There is no migration path for existing code. The closest thing that exists is Haxe and OpenFL but it doesn't directly support ActionScript or SWF files. What they need to do is opensource the player.
- majewsky 10y ago
  I doubt they will open-source the player, for one primary reason: We already know that Flash is hilariously broken wrt security (see for example [1]), and exposing the source code will lead to dozens and dozens of horrible exploits within a few days, thus prompting browser vendors to forcefully lock out Flash in a cloak-and-dagger operation to protect their customers. (Either this, or Adobe will face a shitstorm of unprecedented proportions.) [1] http://www.zdnet.com/article/offensive-security-research-community-helping-bad-guys/ http://www.zdnet.com/article/offensive-security-research-com...
r0muald 10y ago
You'd be surprised to know how many millions of people use these dead operating systems on a daily basis.
- dispose13432 10y ago
  Yes. Dead doesn't mean doesn't work. Dead means EOL.
Spooky23 10y ago
No way. My employer finished upgrading 250k devices to Windows 7 early last year. Thanks to the epic fuckup with Windows 8, there's no way that transition to 10 will complete in 2020. My guess is that most large commercial customers will have 20% of users running Windows 7 through at least 2023. VDI or other similar mechanisms will be used to isolate it.

alkonaut 10y ago

If no browsers had support out of the box and even plugins were hard to come by (browsers could actively prevent running anything it thinks is a flash plugin..) the problem might go away.

chris_wot 10y ago
Browsers already do this.
Amezarak 10y ago
What are we supposed to do about the millions of legacy sites and applications that use Flash, that nobody is going to update? Am I crazy for thinking that Flash being in maintenance mode in perpetuity is a good thing? I want webpages from a decade or two ago to work fine.
- TheAceOfHearts 10y ago
  I think Chrome is taking a good approach [0]. Disabled by default, but you can optionally enable it on a per-visit / per-site basis. [0] https://blog.chromium.org/2016/12/roll-out-plan-for-html5-by-default.html https://blog.chromium.org/2016/12/roll-out-plan-for-html5-by...
  - GordonS 10y ago
    Firefox does this too; I had assumed all modern browsers did these days
- aargh_aargh 10y ago
  I don't know, write a JavaScript interpreter of Flash? Or let it die already. Remember VBscript? Neither does anybody else.
MaulingMonkey 10y ago
> If no browsers had support out of the box This was the original state of Flash and Java. This is when they grew. Trust me when I say: This would not be a problem. > and even plugins were hard to come by (browsers could actively prevent running anything it thinks is a flash plugin..) This is no longer Adobe 'kill'ing Flash Player, and also how you get a bunch of pissed users switching browsers or sticking to legacy versions. This shit right here is how you get IT departments sticking to IE 6. Although, this is perhaps a golden age of open source. Maybe we'd see hostile forks instead! And, of course, iOS Safari has already 'kill'ed Flash in this sense. On the one hand, it's added some pressure to transition to new tech stacks. On the other, since we're still asking questions about how to kill Flash Player, it clearly didn't do the job ;)