4 ms·

Maybe it's just me, but how can you embrace Flash but not Quicktime without looking like a hypocrite?

by amattn 16y ago

bogomips 16y ago
? Not a fan of Flash, but video-playback is a very, very small part of the Flash platform (and even then it's often producer-friendly in the form of supporting extensive DRM for the illusion of content control), while it is virtually all of QuickTime. QuickTime is completely obsolete. Flash is just mostly obsolete.
- chc 16y ago
  I'm confused. Are you saying video playback is obsolete, or was there some new video playback library with similar breadth to QuickTime that I didn't know about which as rendered it obsolete?
  - bogomips 16y ago
    QuickTime is terribly obsolete, joining the ranks of products like RealPlayer. It has no reason to exist in the modern platform. http://www.apple.com/ipad/guided-tours/ http://www.apple.com/ipad/guided-tours/ On h264/Ogg/webM capable browsers, I'm told to download and install QuickTime. If we want to talk about hypocrisy, it starts there.
    - chc 16y ago
      RealPlayer was a program and browser plugin focused around one proprietary format. QuickTime is an A/V library supporting a wide array of codecs — it's the standard way to play video on the Mac. If it's obsolete, then what is the replacement?
      - yuhong 16y ago
        HTML5 video, I think. Even Apple is no longer promoting the QuickTime plug-in.
        chc 16y ago
        That isn't an alternative; it's an orthogonal technology. Saying the video tag renders QuickTime obsolete is like saying the img tag renders libpng and libjpeg obsolete. HTML5 video is a standard for specifying video files to play — it doesn't actually provide video playback. QuickTime and its codecs are still used to actually decode and play the videos (again, I'm talking about the Mac here).
        yuhong 16y ago
        That is why I said the plug-in. I know that Safari themselves uses QuickTime to play HTML5 video.
        calloc 16y ago
        You are not making any sense. You say that Quicktime is outdated technology and has to be banished, yet you are okay with browsers using it to display HTML5 video? How does that work? On Mac OS X to do anything with video you use QuickTime. QuickTime isn't just the front end software. It provides an API that can be used to create all kinds of software, not only that it allows other codecs to easily be installed (see Perian for Mac OS X).
        yuhong 16y ago
        Sorry, misread the OP.
willscott 16y ago
http://www.chromium.org/Home/chromium-security/brag-sheet http://www.chromium.org/Home/chromium-security/brag-sheet Presumably flash is sandboxed within chrome, so it isn't susceptible to the same attack vectors as unsandboxed plugins. This presumably alleviates a lot of the security concerns for that plugin, since it now has the same protection to exploitation as the rest of chrome, and security vulnerabilities might be able to be patched through chrome's auto-update(?)
antimatter15 16y ago
QuickTime is much more closely tied with the OS than flash is and probably nigh impossible to sandbox and ensure it's on the latest version
- cube13 16y ago
  On OSX, I can accept this argument, because Quicktime is the primary codec... repository(for lack of a better word) for basically everything on the OS. However, I don't think it's the case for Windows or Linux. On those systems, it should just be another codec/browser plugin. Playing Quicktime videos should be the same as any other codec, so I don't really understand why it's not possible to sandbox it like Flash.
trotsky 16y ago
I think that's a valid point, but I'd like to introduce a few reasons why google may see them differently. Adobe has developed a sandbox for flash, adobe has been working with google to leverage the chrome sandbox (at least in windows), and adobe has given google access to early builds and authorization to distribute them and keep them up to date, so that google can know that if they're running flash it's not an out of date version. In several cases google has been shipping flash security updates to all chrome users before adobe actually pushed to their installed base (which only checks for updates once a week and needs the user to approve them). In comparison, quicktime security features and update practices are considerably worse off. I think the word that java is also disabled in the nightlies in the same fashion should suggest that this isn't some partisan x264 or open web fight. It's security.
modeless 16y ago
Adobe did the work to enable sandboxing Flash. Apple hasn't done the work (yet?) to enable sandboxing Quicktime. That's all it is.

Maybe it's just me, but how can you embrace Flash but not Quicktime without looking like a hypocrite?

by amattn 16y ago

Maybe it's just me, but how can you embrace Flash but not Quicktime without looking like a hypocrite?

? Not a fan of Flash, but video-playback is a very, very small part of the Flash platform (and even then it's often producer-friendly in the form of supporting extensive DRM for the illusion of content control), while it is virtually all of QuickTime. QuickTime is completely obsolete. Flash is just mostly obsolete.

chc 16y ago
I'm confused. Are you saying video playback is obsolete, or was there some new video playback library with similar breadth to QuickTime that I didn't know about which as rendered it obsolete?
- bogomips 16y ago
  QuickTime is terribly obsolete, joining the ranks of products like RealPlayer. It has no reason to exist in the modern platform. http://www.apple.com/ipad/guided-tours/ http://www.apple.com/ipad/guided-tours/ On h264/Ogg/webM capable browsers, I'm told to download and install QuickTime. If we want to talk about hypocrisy, it starts there.
  - chc 16y ago
    RealPlayer was a program and browser plugin focused around one proprietary format. QuickTime is an A/V library supporting a wide array of codecs — it's the standard way to play video on the Mac. If it's obsolete, then what is the replacement?
    - yuhong 16y ago
      HTML5 video, I think. Even Apple is no longer promoting the QuickTime plug-in.
      - chc 16y ago
        That isn't an alternative; it's an orthogonal technology. Saying the video tag renders QuickTime obsolete is like saying the img tag renders libpng and libjpeg obsolete. HTML5 video is a standard for specifying video files to play — it doesn't actually provide video playback. QuickTime and its codecs are still used to actually decode and play the videos (again, I'm talking about the Mac here).
        yuhong 16y ago
        That is why I said the plug-in. I know that Safari themselves uses QuickTime to play HTML5 video.
        calloc 16y ago
        You are not making any sense. You say that Quicktime is outdated technology and has to be banished, yet you are okay with browsers using it to display HTML5 video? How does that work? On Mac OS X to do anything with video you use QuickTime. QuickTime isn't just the front end software. It provides an API that can be used to create all kinds of software, not only that it allows other codecs to easily be installed (see Perian for Mac OS X).
        yuhong 16y ago
        Sorry, misread the OP.

willscott 16y ago

http://www.chromium.org/Home/chromium-security/brag-sheet http://www.chromium.org/Home/chromium-security/brag-sheet Presumably flash is sandboxed within chrome, so it isn't susceptible to the same attack vectors as unsandboxed plugins. This presumably alleviates a lot of the security concerns for that plugin, since it now has the same protection to exploitation as the rest of chrome, and security vulnerabilities might be able to be patched through chrome's auto-update(?)

antimatter15 16y ago

QuickTime is much more closely tied with the OS than flash is and probably nigh impossible to sandbox and ensure it's on the latest version

cube13 16y ago
On OSX, I can accept this argument, because Quicktime is the primary codec... repository(for lack of a better word) for basically everything on the OS. However, I don't think it's the case for Windows or Linux. On those systems, it should just be another codec/browser plugin. Playing Quicktime videos should be the same as any other codec, so I don't really understand why it's not possible to sandbox it like Flash.

trotsky 16y ago

I think that's a valid point, but I'd like to introduce a few reasons why google may see them differently. Adobe has developed a sandbox for flash, adobe has been working with google to leverage the chrome sandbox (at least in windows), and adobe has given google access to early builds and authorization to distribute them and keep them up to date, so that google can know that if they're running flash it's not an out of date version. In several cases google has been shipping flash security updates to all chrome users before adobe actually pushed to their installed base (which only checks for updates once a week and needs the user to approve them). In comparison, quicktime security features and update practices are considerably worse off. I think the word that java is also disabled in the nightlies in the same fashion should suggest that this isn't some partisan x264 or open web fight. It's security.

modeless 16y ago

Adobe did the work to enable sandboxing Flash. Apple hasn't done the work (yet?) to enable sandboxing Quicktime. That's all it is.