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I'm wondering right now whether the true reason for killing Flash Player so thoroughly is really security, or if there's something else involved like a license

by cesarb 6y ago

I'm wondering right now whether the true reason for killing Flash Player so thoroughly is really security, or if there's something else involved like a license agreement for some code embedded within Flash Player which requires Adobe to pay periodically until Flash Player no longer runs.

snazz 6y ago
It's also a maintenance burden and a loss leader for Adobe, I'm sure. It can't possibly be making them much money anymore.
vfclists 6y ago
The true reason for dropping Flash was to prevent web based apps from challenging Google and Apple's store apps, as they couldn't monetize those. Flash was a true enabler and was supposed to be replaced by HTML5 which has never fulfilled its intended purpose. Security was never a problem as that could be dealt with by having access source code and fixing the bugs in it, and that didn't stop Google from continue to ship it years after it got deprecated. Its even more amazing how Mozilla couldn't succeed or abandoned their effort to create a flashplayer, yet ruffle.rs is creating a Flashplayer in both the Rust language and the web assembly system created by Mozilla. It apparently never occurred to Mozilla that they could write the Flashplayer in C and compile it in Web Assembly. Expected behaviour from a company ever so reluctant to bite the hand that feeds it.
waste_monk 6y ago
Have a look here: https://www.cvedetails.com/vulnerability-list/vendor_id-53/product_id-6761/Adobe-Flash-Player.html https://www.cvedetails.com/vulnerability-list/vendor_id-53/p... There are 893 vulnerabilities listed of severity 9.0 or greater, such as remote code execution and similarly dire problems. Flash may have been innovative, but from a security perspective it's hot garbage and it's long past time to get rid of it.
whylo 6y ago
Adobe has form on nixing old products because of third party code. Last year they said that users of old versions of Creative Cloud apps may be subject to third-party legal action if they kept using them: https://fstoppers.com/legal/adobe-customers-using-old-software-threatened-legal-action-company-battle-dolby-369032 https://fstoppers.com/legal/adobe-customers-using-old-softwa...

by cesarb 6y ago

snazz 6y ago

It's also a maintenance burden and a loss leader for Adobe, I'm sure. It can't possibly be making them much money anymore.

vfclists 6y ago

The true reason for dropping Flash was to prevent web based apps from challenging Google and Apple's store apps, as they couldn't monetize those. Flash was a true enabler and was supposed to be replaced by HTML5 which has never fulfilled its intended purpose. Security was never a problem as that could be dealt with by having access source code and fixing the bugs in it, and that didn't stop Google from continue to ship it years after it got deprecated. Its even more amazing how Mozilla couldn't succeed or abandoned their effort to create a flashplayer, yet ruffle.rs is creating a Flashplayer in both the Rust language and the web assembly system created by Mozilla. It apparently never occurred to Mozilla that they could write the Flashplayer in C and compile it in Web Assembly. Expected behaviour from a company ever so reluctant to bite the hand that feeds it.

waste_monk 6y ago

Have a look here: https://www.cvedetails.com/vulnerability-list/vendor_id-53/product_id-6761/Adobe-Flash-Player.html https://www.cvedetails.com/vulnerability-list/vendor_id-53/p... There are 893 vulnerabilities listed of severity 9.0 or greater, such as remote code execution and similarly dire problems. Flash may have been innovative, but from a security perspective it's hot garbage and it's long past time to get rid of it.

whylo 6y ago

Adobe has form on nixing old products because of third party code. Last year they said that users of old versions of Creative Cloud apps may be subject to third-party legal action if they kept using them: https://fstoppers.com/legal/adobe-customers-using-old-software-threatened-legal-action-company-battle-dolby-369032 https://fstoppers.com/legal/adobe-customers-using-old-softwa...