6 ms·

My experience with Flash was that it was a nightmare of crashes and cpu usage on anything but Windows (i.e. Linux desktop, MacOS). I feel like a lot of people

My experience with Flash was that it was a nightmare of crashes and cpu usage on anything but Windows (i.e. Linux desktop, MacOS). I feel like a lot of people have a very rosy "nothing was wrong" view of Flash that I don't share. Jobs' letter was pretty welcome to anyone using a Mac, for one.

Wowfunhappy 6y ago
I can't say I ever had an issue with Flash on Mac or Linux. It was certainly heavier than normal web content, but so is modern html5 stuff.
- sergeykish 6y ago
  Do we have same time period in mind? 2006-2009: Gnash, hardly anything works, 2010: Youtube introduced html5 video
  - Wowfunhappy 6y ago
    My years may be off by one, but iirc I was a Linux user in 2007–2008, switched back to Windows between 2009–2010, and then have used Macs ever since 2011. I recall Flash still being common in 2011.
    - sergeykish 6y ago
      I tried to get some facts. In 2006 I remember Gnash, it supports most SWF v7 features [1]. One could install firefox and flash in wine [2] (didn't know, didn't bother). And in 2008 there was native Linux Flash Player 9 [3] (too late). In 2010 still no hardware acceleration and no 64 bit support on Linux - in comments [4]. So technical availability was issue just in 2006-2007. Yes, I remembered flash was ads so without plugin it was ads free experience before AdBlock. I liked it a lot. The only issue was "copy to clipboard" buttons, but could work around. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gnash_(software) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gnash_(software) [2] http://web.archive.org/web/20061030024511/https://www.howtoforge.com/ubuntu_flash_player http://web.archive.org/web/20061030024511/https://www.howtof... [3] http://web.archive.org/web/20080430162104/https://www.howtoforge.com/native_linux_flash_player9_in_ubuntu http://web.archive.org/web/20080430162104/https://www.howtof... [4] https://web.archive.org/web/20110511095927/http://blogs.adobe.com/flashplayer/2010/06/flash_player_101_now_available.html https://web.archive.org/web/20110511095927/http://blogs.adob...
      - Wowfunhappy 6y ago
        Odd, I explicitly remember using an official version of Adobe Flash in Linux. I can't seem to figure out when Linux support started, but the archived version of Flash Player 7 on Adobe's site[1] appear to include builds for Linux (as well as Solaris!). The earliest Linux installer in the download has a file timestamp of May 20, 2004. --- 1: https://helpx.adobe.com/flash-player/kb/archived-flash-player-versions.html https://helpx.adobe.com/flash-player/kb/archived-flash-playe...
        sergeykish 6y ago
        I don't know, checked more - 1999 Macromedia introduces Flash Player for Linux [1], I see traces of v5, v6, v7 [2], [3]. Never heard about them, in my circle there was consensus "flash does not work on Linux". Strange [1] https://web.archive.org/web/20070520080719/http://www.allbusiness.com/technology/computer-software/300738-1.html https://web.archive.org/web/20070520080719/http://www.allbus... [2] http://dsc.soic.indiana.edu/publications/flashjan01.html http://dsc.soic.indiana.edu/publications/flashjan01.html [3] http://www.penguintutor.com/blog/viewpost.php?id=wp140 http://www.penguintutor.com/blog/viewpost.php?id=wp140
        eythian 6y ago
        So, from my memory (I started with Linux in 2000 or so, haven't really stopped.) There was a flash player for linux, I want to say it corresponded with about version 5 but don't trust me on that. It never really got any updates except perhaps the occasional critical security patch. Meanwhile, the Linux desktop moved on and the plugin got harder and harder to keep going. Things like sound required jumping through a few (extra) hoops to make work, I think it expected OSS but that faded out to be replaced with ALSA, so you had to add some thing to get backward compatibility for that, and it would tend to monopolise the whole sound device. Meanwhile, Linux became more and more 64 bit, but the flash plugin didn't. So you either had to run a 32-bit browser (because plugins were a library the browser loaded), or use some crazy proxy plugin thing (nspluginwrapper[1]) that someone made that was 64 bit at one end and 32 bit at the other. Also meanwhile, other platforms got Flash player 6, and 7, and beyond, and still Linux was stuck on 5 or whatever. Then Mike Melanson[0] came along and spent some serious time and energy re-porting Flash player to Linux and made a lot of people very happy because now we had AV sync and no 32-64 bit bodges and fewer and fewer crashes and so on. After a few years(?) he stopped, not sure why, and things slowed down. But by then it felt like flash was starting its decline, and what we had worked well enough, and Adobe seemed to be keeping basic updates happening anyway. Now more and more I forget about installing `flashplugin-installer` or whatever Ubuntu calls it these days and don't notice that it's not there. Note, aside from Mike's name, this is totally from memory so significant details may be wrong. Go read Mike's archived blog, it'll probably give you a much more detailed insight. Might do that myself. [0] https://web.archive.org/web/20120903074409/http://blogs.adobe.com/penguinswf/ https://web.archive.org/web/20120903074409/http://blogs.adob... - note that this is an arbitrary time snapshot that I picked at random. [1] https://www.linux.com/news/nspluginwrapper-cross-architecture-browser-plugin-tool/ https://www.linux.com/news/nspluginwrapper-cross-architectur... - total madness. But it (mostly sorta) worked.
- acdha 6y ago
  The modern web bloat has just been due to huge amounts of JavaScript becoming common - if you compared basic video playback it was normally at least a factor of two worse playing the same video in Flash, which often meant the difference between dropping frames or playing smoothly. The big win was avoiding all of the crashes: every browser raced to move Flash out of the browser process because it was so common for Flash to crash and take the browser with it, and many of those were exploitable.
  - Wowfunhappy 6y ago
    > The modern web bloat has just been due to huge amounts of JavaScript becoming common - if you compared basic video playback it was normally at least a factor of two worse playing the same video in Flash Well, sure, for simple video playback html5 is clearly superior. What I find more interesting though were flash's "interactive" capabilities—if you wanted to make an app that ran in the browser, it used to be you'd almost always use Flash. Now you just use tons of Javascript instead, and I think if anything that was a performance regression.
    - acdha 6y ago
      If you don't use a huge toolkit, a modern browser is massively faster – I last did benchmarks like 8 years ago and even then it was usually an integer multiple more memory or CPU for something done in Flash versus the browser and that was before accounting for the browser having better quality text rendering, color management, alpha effects, antialiasing, etc. Had Adobe not just stopped investing after they hit 90% marketshare that might have been different but they were sitting still for too long. The problem is that having made things like JS, the DOM, CSS, etc. so efficient just increased the threshold before performance forces developers to notice inefficiencies but that's a pretty portable problem, too — we had to force Flash developers to test on older systems with slower connections the same way.
fulafel 6y ago
Indeed, and it was always a security disaster delivered as a closed blob. More so than today because there was no sandbox.
yurlungur 6y ago
I think most tech oriented people can appreciate the downsides of Flash. But in retrospect it no doubt enabled a level of creativity that any replacement technology hasn't achieved to nearly the same degree. Some creators seemed to have moved away with Flash's decline.

Wowfunhappy 6y ago

I can't say I ever had an issue with Flash on Mac or Linux. It was certainly heavier than normal web content, but so is modern html5 stuff.

sergeykish 6y ago
Do we have same time period in mind? 2006-2009: Gnash, hardly anything works, 2010: Youtube introduced html5 video
- Wowfunhappy 6y ago
  My years may be off by one, but iirc I was a Linux user in 2007–2008, switched back to Windows between 2009–2010, and then have used Macs ever since 2011. I recall Flash still being common in 2011.
  - sergeykish 6y ago
    I tried to get some facts. In 2006 I remember Gnash, it supports most SWF v7 features [1]. One could install firefox and flash in wine [2] (didn't know, didn't bother). And in 2008 there was native Linux Flash Player 9 [3] (too late). In 2010 still no hardware acceleration and no 64 bit support on Linux - in comments [4]. So technical availability was issue just in 2006-2007. Yes, I remembered flash was ads so without plugin it was ads free experience before AdBlock. I liked it a lot. The only issue was "copy to clipboard" buttons, but could work around. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gnash_(software) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gnash_(software) [2] http://web.archive.org/web/20061030024511/https://www.howtoforge.com/ubuntu_flash_player http://web.archive.org/web/20061030024511/https://www.howtof... [3] http://web.archive.org/web/20080430162104/https://www.howtoforge.com/native_linux_flash_player9_in_ubuntu http://web.archive.org/web/20080430162104/https://www.howtof... [4] https://web.archive.org/web/20110511095927/http://blogs.adobe.com/flashplayer/2010/06/flash_player_101_now_available.html https://web.archive.org/web/20110511095927/http://blogs.adob...
    - Wowfunhappy 6y ago
      Odd, I explicitly remember using an official version of Adobe Flash in Linux. I can't seem to figure out when Linux support started, but the archived version of Flash Player 7 on Adobe's site[1] appear to include builds for Linux (as well as Solaris!). The earliest Linux installer in the download has a file timestamp of May 20, 2004. --- 1: https://helpx.adobe.com/flash-player/kb/archived-flash-player-versions.html https://helpx.adobe.com/flash-player/kb/archived-flash-playe...
      - sergeykish 6y ago
        I don't know, checked more - 1999 Macromedia introduces Flash Player for Linux [1], I see traces of v5, v6, v7 [2], [3]. Never heard about them, in my circle there was consensus "flash does not work on Linux". Strange [1] https://web.archive.org/web/20070520080719/http://www.allbusiness.com/technology/computer-software/300738-1.html https://web.archive.org/web/20070520080719/http://www.allbus... [2] http://dsc.soic.indiana.edu/publications/flashjan01.html http://dsc.soic.indiana.edu/publications/flashjan01.html [3] http://www.penguintutor.com/blog/viewpost.php?id=wp140 http://www.penguintutor.com/blog/viewpost.php?id=wp140
      - eythian 6y ago
        So, from my memory (I started with Linux in 2000 or so, haven't really stopped.) There was a flash player for linux, I want to say it corresponded with about version 5 but don't trust me on that. It never really got any updates except perhaps the occasional critical security patch. Meanwhile, the Linux desktop moved on and the plugin got harder and harder to keep going. Things like sound required jumping through a few (extra) hoops to make work, I think it expected OSS but that faded out to be replaced with ALSA, so you had to add some thing to get backward compatibility for that, and it would tend to monopolise the whole sound device. Meanwhile, Linux became more and more 64 bit, but the flash plugin didn't. So you either had to run a 32-bit browser (because plugins were a library the browser loaded), or use some crazy proxy plugin thing (nspluginwrapper[1]) that someone made that was 64 bit at one end and 32 bit at the other. Also meanwhile, other platforms got Flash player 6, and 7, and beyond, and still Linux was stuck on 5 or whatever. Then Mike Melanson[0] came along and spent some serious time and energy re-porting Flash player to Linux and made a lot of people very happy because now we had AV sync and no 32-64 bit bodges and fewer and fewer crashes and so on. After a few years(?) he stopped, not sure why, and things slowed down. But by then it felt like flash was starting its decline, and what we had worked well enough, and Adobe seemed to be keeping basic updates happening anyway. Now more and more I forget about installing `flashplugin-installer` or whatever Ubuntu calls it these days and don't notice that it's not there. Note, aside from Mike's name, this is totally from memory so significant details may be wrong. Go read Mike's archived blog, it'll probably give you a much more detailed insight. Might do that myself. [0] https://web.archive.org/web/20120903074409/http://blogs.adobe.com/penguinswf/ https://web.archive.org/web/20120903074409/http://blogs.adob... - note that this is an arbitrary time snapshot that I picked at random. [1] https://www.linux.com/news/nspluginwrapper-cross-architecture-browser-plugin-tool/ https://www.linux.com/news/nspluginwrapper-cross-architectur... - total madness. But it (mostly sorta) worked.
acdha 6y ago
The modern web bloat has just been due to huge amounts of JavaScript becoming common - if you compared basic video playback it was normally at least a factor of two worse playing the same video in Flash, which often meant the difference between dropping frames or playing smoothly. The big win was avoiding all of the crashes: every browser raced to move Flash out of the browser process because it was so common for Flash to crash and take the browser with it, and many of those were exploitable.
- Wowfunhappy 6y ago
  > The modern web bloat has just been due to huge amounts of JavaScript becoming common - if you compared basic video playback it was normally at least a factor of two worse playing the same video in Flash Well, sure, for simple video playback html5 is clearly superior. What I find more interesting though were flash's "interactive" capabilities—if you wanted to make an app that ran in the browser, it used to be you'd almost always use Flash. Now you just use tons of Javascript instead, and I think if anything that was a performance regression.
  - acdha 6y ago
    If you don't use a huge toolkit, a modern browser is massively faster – I last did benchmarks like 8 years ago and even then it was usually an integer multiple more memory or CPU for something done in Flash versus the browser and that was before accounting for the browser having better quality text rendering, color management, alpha effects, antialiasing, etc. Had Adobe not just stopped investing after they hit 90% marketshare that might have been different but they were sitting still for too long. The problem is that having made things like JS, the DOM, CSS, etc. so efficient just increased the threshold before performance forces developers to notice inefficiencies but that's a pretty portable problem, too — we had to force Flash developers to test on older systems with slower connections the same way.

fulafel 6y ago

Indeed, and it was always a security disaster delivered as a closed blob. More so than today because there was no sandbox.

yurlungur 6y ago

I think most tech oriented people can appreciate the downsides of Flash. But in retrospect it no doubt enabled a level of creativity that any replacement technology hasn't achieved to nearly the same degree. Some creators seemed to have moved away with Flash's decline.