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So much hate for Flash. Yes it has regular security holes, is CPU hungry and a lot of people used it to create some mightily annoying things.... But Flash was

by jarym 9y ago

So much hate for Flash. Yes it has regular security holes, is CPU hungry and a lot of people used it to create some mightily annoying things.... But Flash was a gift from the gods back in the early days of IE and most people forget that. If you wanted to make some HTML look nice you had little more than the dreaded 'blink' tag to work with. If it weren't for Flash I doubt we'd have anywhere near as advanced CSS, SVG, Canvas and HTML5 bells and whistles that designers can actually use now. I doubt Adobe will open source it though. They probably know there's a whole heap of other security issues in it that'll get found and exploited as soon as they release it. Your average user won't be able to patch fast enough!

Ajedi32 9y ago
> They probably know there's a whole heap of other security issues in it that'll get found and exploited as soon as they release it. So wait until 2020, after all major browsers have dropped support for it. No reason to worry about vulnerabilities in software that nobody's using in production anymore. If anyone still cares, they can always fix the security problems themselves.
riffraff 9y ago
I had browser games in flash that worked, now I have unity games that don't. I honestly wish we'd stuck with flash.
mawburn 9y ago
It's ok to dislike something and recognize how poor it is compared to better implementations it helped inspire, but still respect what it did for us in the past. Flash, Java Applets, and jQuery all changed the web for the better and were amazing things at one time. But we should move on.
- baby 9y ago
  What's the point of moving on from jQuery? Does plain javascript now offers the same functionalities?
  - mawburn 9y ago
    For the most part for common tasks supporting IE10+, yes. There are still some things it will do for you that can be tedious with vanilla and arguments could still be made to use it as a dependency. But imho, it should be treated more of as an optional dependency that you use when/if you need it, rather than a cross browser compatibility crutch. http://youmightnotneedjquery.com/ http://youmightnotneedjquery.com/ helped me out quite a bit as I transitioned away from using it for day to day. It's not exactly 1-to-1, but it helped ease the initial pain.
  - heartbreak 9y ago
    There’s nothing wrong with jQuery. It’s a perfectly good library to use if that’s what you know. Get your code shipped.
tjoff 9y ago
If it weren't for Flash I doubt we'd have anywhere near as advanced CSS, SVG, Canvas and HTML5 bells and whistles that designers can actually use now. And the web is much worse because of it. The one thing that was excellent about flash was that you could easily disable it and all the security issues and annoying crap would disappear. You can't do that today without breaking stuff.
notacoward 9y ago
As the currently-most-upvoted hater, I kind of agree. Flash was fantastic back in the day. I played many games and movies that way, and was thusly enriched. But the Sega Genesis was also great in its day. So was the vinyl record. Those days are gone. Flash has accrued negatives, which now outweigh the positives.
- xupybd 9y ago
  Sega has emulators, vinyl record players still exist. Open sourcing flash doesn't mean it will stay mainstream, it probably shouldn't. But there is valuable flash content. If they kill flash and don't open source it, the only way to run flash will be on old browsers possible in old operating systems. This will put a big burden on businesses requiring old flash apps.
  - notacoward 9y ago
    Flash has emulators too. I think you just made my point.
    - xupybd 9y ago
      Actually if there is a good emulator, I'm happy.
  - slantyyz 9y ago
    >> This will put a big burden on businesses requiring old flash apps. And also consumers who may have devices like webcams that require flash to view the video feeds from a browser.
- fenomas 9y ago
  If Sega suddenly open-sourced the Genesis hardware, all it would do is make the emulators better. It wouldn't make people start writing new Genesis games, or whatever it is you're worried about happening here. Whatever negatives there are to Flash, they would not be affected in any way by the player becoming open sourced.

by jarym 9y ago

Ajedi32 9y ago

> They probably know there's a whole heap of other security issues in it that'll get found and exploited as soon as they release it. So wait until 2020, after all major browsers have dropped support for it. No reason to worry about vulnerabilities in software that nobody's using in production anymore. If anyone still cares, they can always fix the security problems themselves.

riffraff 9y ago

I had browser games in flash that worked, now I have unity games that don't. I honestly wish we'd stuck with flash.

mawburn 9y ago

It's ok to dislike something and recognize how poor it is compared to better implementations it helped inspire, but still respect what it did for us in the past. Flash, Java Applets, and jQuery all changed the web for the better and were amazing things at one time. But we should move on.

baby 9y ago
What's the point of moving on from jQuery? Does plain javascript now offers the same functionalities?
- mawburn 9y ago
  For the most part for common tasks supporting IE10+, yes. There are still some things it will do for you that can be tedious with vanilla and arguments could still be made to use it as a dependency. But imho, it should be treated more of as an optional dependency that you use when/if you need it, rather than a cross browser compatibility crutch. http://youmightnotneedjquery.com/ http://youmightnotneedjquery.com/ helped me out quite a bit as I transitioned away from using it for day to day. It's not exactly 1-to-1, but it helped ease the initial pain.
- heartbreak 9y ago
  There’s nothing wrong with jQuery. It’s a perfectly good library to use if that’s what you know. Get your code shipped.

tjoff 9y ago

If it weren't for Flash I doubt we'd have anywhere near as advanced CSS, SVG, Canvas and HTML5 bells and whistles that designers can actually use now. And the web is much worse because of it. The one thing that was excellent about flash was that you could easily disable it and all the security issues and annoying crap would disappear. You can't do that today without breaking stuff.

notacoward 9y ago

As the currently-most-upvoted hater, I kind of agree. Flash was fantastic back in the day. I played many games and movies that way, and was thusly enriched. But the Sega Genesis was also great in its day. So was the vinyl record. Those days are gone. Flash has accrued negatives, which now outweigh the positives.

xupybd 9y ago
Sega has emulators, vinyl record players still exist. Open sourcing flash doesn't mean it will stay mainstream, it probably shouldn't. But there is valuable flash content. If they kill flash and don't open source it, the only way to run flash will be on old browsers possible in old operating systems. This will put a big burden on businesses requiring old flash apps.
- notacoward 9y ago
  Flash has emulators too. I think you just made my point.
  - xupybd 9y ago
    Actually if there is a good emulator, I'm happy.
- slantyyz 9y ago
  >> This will put a big burden on businesses requiring old flash apps. And also consumers who may have devices like webcams that require flash to view the video feeds from a browser.
fenomas 9y ago
If Sega suddenly open-sourced the Genesis hardware, all it would do is make the emulators better. It wouldn't make people start writing new Genesis games, or whatever it is you're worried about happening here. Whatever negatives there are to Flash, they would not be affected in any way by the player becoming open sourced.