6 ms·

For such a seminal web technology, I thought the 'thanks/goodbye' page was a huge missed opportunity from Flash... there's so much goodwill and nostalgia for th

For such a seminal web technology, I thought the 'thanks/goodbye' page was a huge missed opportunity from Flash... there's so much goodwill and nostalgia for the old days and they "celebrate" it with urm... https://get3.adobe.com/flashplayer/thankyou/ https://get3.adobe.com/flashplayer/thankyou/

stephenr 6y ago
Ah yes, the good old days when anyone with a bad idea and a little bit of time could chew up your CPU cycles and run ridiculously insecure code on your computer without consent.
- oblio 6y ago
  We're so lucky that this has changed (narrator: it hasn't). It definitely doesn't happen anymore (narrator: it still happens). And it definitely doesn't happen in absolutely every browser out there and it can't really be blocked (narrator: it does, it is just done with JavaScript, which only hermits disable).
  - stephenr 6y ago
    Name one browser-embedded technology in distribution today that has had even half as many security vulnerabilities as Flash has had over its lifetime? If your world view is "block javascript or let any and all javascript run", I don't know how to help you, because that isn't reality.
    - oblio 6y ago
      > Name one browser-embedded technology in distribution today that has had even half as many security vulnerabilities as Flash has had over its lifetime? Why should I name a "browser-embedded technology"? I can just point out browser vulnerabilities. https://www.cvedetails.com/product/3264/Mozilla-Firefox.html?vendor_id=452 https://www.cvedetails.com/product/3264/Mozilla-Firefox.html... https://www.cvedetails.com/product/15031/Google-Chrome.html?vendor_id=1224 https://www.cvedetails.com/product/15031/Google-Chrome.html?... If anything, they're not that great against Flash: https://www.cvedetails.com/product/6761/Adobe-Flash-Player.html?vendor_id=53 https://www.cvedetails.com/product/6761/Adobe-Flash-Player.h... Keep in mind that Flash itself was a runtime, much as a browser is. More limited, but still pretty big. > If your world view is "block javascript or let any and all javascript run", I don't know how to help you, because that isn't reality. You can't help me, I think no one can. For now we can still kind of run ad blockers, even though Chrome is working hard on stealthily removing them. But for regular users, who don't run them (probably 99% of users out there), how do they protect themselves from cryptominers? From nasty ads?
      - stephenr 6y ago
        > For now we can still kind of run ad blockers, even though Chrome is working hard on stealthily removing them. You're using a browser build by a giant privacy abusing ad company, and you wonder why it isn't so friendly to ad-blocking/privacy-protecting plugins? COLOUR ME SURPRISED.
        oblio 6y ago
        I'm using Firefox...
        stephenr 6y ago
        Great. So your two comments taken together prove my point. Don't use technology that's actively working against your best interests, and your interests will be better served..
        oblio 6y ago
        No, you're just completely missing the point. By a mile. You can't bury your hand in the sand and pretend that everything is fine. It's not. Almost every browser out there is dying, everything is being taken over by Chrome/Chromium/Blink. The alternative is Webkit/Safari, which comes with its own limitations. Firefox's market share is 5% and dwindling. Web developers have stopped caring about Firefox. Many sites are slow or barely working in Firefox. Firefox bugs aren't being fixed. Soon I'll be forced to use Chrome because the alternatives won't allow me to do my job. Open Source browser alternatives can't keep up. And even though Chromium itself is Open Source, it's not a complete browser for the modern web (see DRM). So we're all going to be using Chrome or browsers built by corporations with the same incentives as Google (Microsoft also has an ad network, Opera is now owned by a semi-shady Chinese VPN company). And these browsers are gutting ad blocking. Plus ads are getting smarter and we're not that far off from a point where ad blocking in its current form is no longer efficient. See for example stuff like the DNS over HTTPS changes. And if it would only be about this, you'd be missing the point by "only" half a mile. The other half a mile is that many people are forced to use a certain browser. At work, at school, etc. Or they don't know how to change their browser or what a browser even is. We're all in this together, the internet is one big network. And for regular people, modern browsers are just as bad as Flash. Maybe even worse, at least Flash had a modicum of design as a platform. The web platform is a huge mishmash.
    - Doctor_Fegg 6y ago
      Depends if you view pervasive tracking as a security vulnerability.
  - throwaway_pdp09 6y ago
    You acknowledge javascript has all the serious downsides of flash, then denigrate us who disable it for the very reasons you've given?
    - oblio 6y ago
      I'm making fun of you because it's not very realistic to disable it, especially due to network effects. All the popular sites, including many intranet sites in every company I've worked for, use Javascript. I mean, you can disable it/enable it selectively, maybe I should try it with some Firefox extension. But I expect 95% of the web to break if I disable it. So it's kind of a revolutionary attitude, which works out if you have nothing to lose, I guess. Or if you're trying to prove a point, but along the way you're probably hurting yourself, too.
      - throwaway_pdp09 6y ago
        > maybe I should try it with some Firefox extensions So you're making fun of me although you haven't tried it. Yeah, okay. > But I expect 95% of the web to break if I disable it And you'll be wrong, it is much lower than that (except if you're talking about adverts failing to display, then I guess yes, in that respect it does). I don't give a damn about other sites (and I don't browse intranet sites on my home machine -- if I'm in an office I use their office machine). If they don't work I don't use them except in rare cases when I really need to in which case they get run in a VM. > you're probably hurting yourself, too That's deeply patronising from somebody who admits they haven't even tried doing what I do, nor has even asked why I and others do it (hint: it's for many of the reasons you described). It sounds like you're talking to a rather stupid child.
        oblio 6y ago
        I have tried it a long time ago (4, maybe 5 years ago?). Many, many things broke and I didn't have time to fix them all. I already use the strictest Tracking Protection stuff in Firefox, for example, and I do hit sites that don't work correctly. Maybe it's worth revisiting but something tells me that the web uses more JavaScript, not less, since I last tried this experiment. And regarding the patronizing aspect, let's say your bank's website uses JavaScript, what do you do? Edit, actually, sorry, I re-read your comment and you answered my question: > I don't give a damn about other sites (and I don't browse intranet sites on my home machine -- if I'm in an office I use their office machine). If they don't work I don't use them except in rare cases when I really need to in which case they get run in a VM. Q.e.d. I'll just rephrase things to something less offensive: you're not "hurting" yourself, you're limiting yourself, sometimes with drawbacks not everyone is able/willing to endure.
- halvo 6y ago
  Downsides to the tech don’t negate the millions of great experiences flash enabled
  - sammorrowdrums 6y ago
    And hopefully wasm sandbox with Ruffle will provide a better start for security than Flash had too.
    - velmu 6y ago
      Yea, Ruffle seems like the best option for making all the wonderful content built with Flash available. https://developers.ibexa.co/blog/embed-flash-swf-content-without-adobe-plugin https://developers.ibexa.co/blog/embed-flash-swf-content-wit...
  - stephenr 6y ago
    The comment talked about "goodwill and nostalgia". The only people with "goodwill and nostalgia" about Flash, are either wearing ridiculously rose tinted glasses, or have zero clue about technology.
    - jasonwatkinspdx 6y ago
      It can both be true that flash was a security disaster and also was the basis of many successful startups and indie casual game developers.
    - Closi 6y ago
      I have huge amounts of nostalgia, from when my parents bought me a version of flash from my birthday to kickstart my whole interest in programming, to building animations and games for Albinoblacksheep - Without flash I would never have learned to code. So yes, some people have nostalgia with no rose tinted glasses, and I would like to think I have a clue about technology.
  - angry_octet 6y ago
    You can only say this if you haven't met people who have suffered from being hacked. Enormously painful stories. Flash is a trash fire, and Adobe and Microsoft externalised the penalties. There is no reason we couldn't have had safe Flash except Adobe didn't care.
- h-1 6y ago
  That sounds like a great time to me! Zombocom has more value than all today's social media combined. You can do anything there.
  - prawn 6y ago
    Gabocorp!
- Cthulhu_ 6y ago
  what do you mean 'good old days', lol.
- rad_gruchalski 6y ago
  Maybe, but Flex and Air were ahead of their time. No current web based technology comes close.
- swiley 6y ago
  How is this any different from javascript in HTML5? The bad thing about flash is they also had network access without SOP... oh wait websockets does that. They also had FS access... which HTML5 has too now. Well the sandbox had some CVEs occasionally but then again, all software does. I guess the worst thing was that it meant you had to install a closed source package from a large SV company... like most people do with Chrome.
im3w1l 6y ago
What even...? Three lines of goodbye message, where the last line has the bottom cutoff by a huge ad? https://imgur.com/a/ooJI79Q https://imgur.com/a/ooJI79Q
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- vultour 6y ago
  I have adblock and was wondering why there's a big blank box below the message... now it makes sense. This is almost "bundle ask toolbar with JRE"-level greed.
  - im3w1l 6y ago
    To be fair the ads seem to be purely for 1st party products, but still.
- x86_64Ubuntu 6y ago
  You need to be happy they didn't ask you to install McAfee...

stephenr 6y ago

Ah yes, the good old days when anyone with a bad idea and a little bit of time could chew up your CPU cycles and run ridiculously insecure code on your computer without consent.

oblio 6y ago
We're so lucky that this has changed (narrator: it hasn't). It definitely doesn't happen anymore (narrator: it still happens). And it definitely doesn't happen in absolutely every browser out there and it can't really be blocked (narrator: it does, it is just done with JavaScript, which only hermits disable).
- stephenr 6y ago
  Name one browser-embedded technology in distribution today that has had even half as many security vulnerabilities as Flash has had over its lifetime? If your world view is "block javascript or let any and all javascript run", I don't know how to help you, because that isn't reality.
  - oblio 6y ago
    > Name one browser-embedded technology in distribution today that has had even half as many security vulnerabilities as Flash has had over its lifetime? Why should I name a "browser-embedded technology"? I can just point out browser vulnerabilities. https://www.cvedetails.com/product/3264/Mozilla-Firefox.html?vendor_id=452 https://www.cvedetails.com/product/3264/Mozilla-Firefox.html... https://www.cvedetails.com/product/15031/Google-Chrome.html?vendor_id=1224 https://www.cvedetails.com/product/15031/Google-Chrome.html?... If anything, they're not that great against Flash: https://www.cvedetails.com/product/6761/Adobe-Flash-Player.html?vendor_id=53 https://www.cvedetails.com/product/6761/Adobe-Flash-Player.h... Keep in mind that Flash itself was a runtime, much as a browser is. More limited, but still pretty big. > If your world view is "block javascript or let any and all javascript run", I don't know how to help you, because that isn't reality. You can't help me, I think no one can. For now we can still kind of run ad blockers, even though Chrome is working hard on stealthily removing them. But for regular users, who don't run them (probably 99% of users out there), how do they protect themselves from cryptominers? From nasty ads?
    - stephenr 6y ago
      > For now we can still kind of run ad blockers, even though Chrome is working hard on stealthily removing them. You're using a browser build by a giant privacy abusing ad company, and you wonder why it isn't so friendly to ad-blocking/privacy-protecting plugins? COLOUR ME SURPRISED.
      - oblio 6y ago
        I'm using Firefox...
        stephenr 6y ago
        Great. So your two comments taken together prove my point. Don't use technology that's actively working against your best interests, and your interests will be better served..
        oblio 6y ago
        No, you're just completely missing the point. By a mile. You can't bury your hand in the sand and pretend that everything is fine. It's not. Almost every browser out there is dying, everything is being taken over by Chrome/Chromium/Blink. The alternative is Webkit/Safari, which comes with its own limitations. Firefox's market share is 5% and dwindling. Web developers have stopped caring about Firefox. Many sites are slow or barely working in Firefox. Firefox bugs aren't being fixed. Soon I'll be forced to use Chrome because the alternatives won't allow me to do my job. Open Source browser alternatives can't keep up. And even though Chromium itself is Open Source, it's not a complete browser for the modern web (see DRM). So we're all going to be using Chrome or browsers built by corporations with the same incentives as Google (Microsoft also has an ad network, Opera is now owned by a semi-shady Chinese VPN company). And these browsers are gutting ad blocking. Plus ads are getting smarter and we're not that far off from a point where ad blocking in its current form is no longer efficient. See for example stuff like the DNS over HTTPS changes. And if it would only be about this, you'd be missing the point by "only" half a mile. The other half a mile is that many people are forced to use a certain browser. At work, at school, etc. Or they don't know how to change their browser or what a browser even is. We're all in this together, the internet is one big network. And for regular people, modern browsers are just as bad as Flash. Maybe even worse, at least Flash had a modicum of design as a platform. The web platform is a huge mishmash.
  - Doctor_Fegg 6y ago
    Depends if you view pervasive tracking as a security vulnerability.
- throwaway_pdp09 6y ago
  You acknowledge javascript has all the serious downsides of flash, then denigrate us who disable it for the very reasons you've given?
  - oblio 6y ago
    I'm making fun of you because it's not very realistic to disable it, especially due to network effects. All the popular sites, including many intranet sites in every company I've worked for, use Javascript. I mean, you can disable it/enable it selectively, maybe I should try it with some Firefox extension. But I expect 95% of the web to break if I disable it. So it's kind of a revolutionary attitude, which works out if you have nothing to lose, I guess. Or if you're trying to prove a point, but along the way you're probably hurting yourself, too.
    - throwaway_pdp09 6y ago
      > maybe I should try it with some Firefox extensions So you're making fun of me although you haven't tried it. Yeah, okay. > But I expect 95% of the web to break if I disable it And you'll be wrong, it is much lower than that (except if you're talking about adverts failing to display, then I guess yes, in that respect it does). I don't give a damn about other sites (and I don't browse intranet sites on my home machine -- if I'm in an office I use their office machine). If they don't work I don't use them except in rare cases when I really need to in which case they get run in a VM. > you're probably hurting yourself, too That's deeply patronising from somebody who admits they haven't even tried doing what I do, nor has even asked why I and others do it (hint: it's for many of the reasons you described). It sounds like you're talking to a rather stupid child.
      - oblio 6y ago
        I have tried it a long time ago (4, maybe 5 years ago?). Many, many things broke and I didn't have time to fix them all. I already use the strictest Tracking Protection stuff in Firefox, for example, and I do hit sites that don't work correctly. Maybe it's worth revisiting but something tells me that the web uses more JavaScript, not less, since I last tried this experiment. And regarding the patronizing aspect, let's say your bank's website uses JavaScript, what do you do? Edit, actually, sorry, I re-read your comment and you answered my question: > I don't give a damn about other sites (and I don't browse intranet sites on my home machine -- if I'm in an office I use their office machine). If they don't work I don't use them except in rare cases when I really need to in which case they get run in a VM. Q.e.d. I'll just rephrase things to something less offensive: you're not "hurting" yourself, you're limiting yourself, sometimes with drawbacks not everyone is able/willing to endure.
halvo 6y ago
Downsides to the tech don’t negate the millions of great experiences flash enabled
- sammorrowdrums 6y ago
  And hopefully wasm sandbox with Ruffle will provide a better start for security than Flash had too.
  - velmu 6y ago
    Yea, Ruffle seems like the best option for making all the wonderful content built with Flash available. https://developers.ibexa.co/blog/embed-flash-swf-content-without-adobe-plugin https://developers.ibexa.co/blog/embed-flash-swf-content-wit...
- stephenr 6y ago
  The comment talked about "goodwill and nostalgia". The only people with "goodwill and nostalgia" about Flash, are either wearing ridiculously rose tinted glasses, or have zero clue about technology.
  - jasonwatkinspdx 6y ago
    It can both be true that flash was a security disaster and also was the basis of many successful startups and indie casual game developers.
  - Closi 6y ago
    I have huge amounts of nostalgia, from when my parents bought me a version of flash from my birthday to kickstart my whole interest in programming, to building animations and games for Albinoblacksheep - Without flash I would never have learned to code. So yes, some people have nostalgia with no rose tinted glasses, and I would like to think I have a clue about technology.
- angry_octet 6y ago
  You can only say this if you haven't met people who have suffered from being hacked. Enormously painful stories. Flash is a trash fire, and Adobe and Microsoft externalised the penalties. There is no reason we couldn't have had safe Flash except Adobe didn't care.
h-1 6y ago
That sounds like a great time to me! Zombocom has more value than all today's social media combined. You can do anything there.
- prawn 6y ago
  Gabocorp!
Cthulhu_ 6y ago
what do you mean 'good old days', lol.
rad_gruchalski 6y ago
Maybe, but Flex and Air were ahead of their time. No current web based technology comes close.
swiley 6y ago
How is this any different from javascript in HTML5? The bad thing about flash is they also had network access without SOP... oh wait websockets does that. They also had FS access... which HTML5 has too now. Well the sandbox had some CVEs occasionally but then again, all software does. I guess the worst thing was that it meant you had to install a closed source package from a large SV company... like most people do with Chrome.

im3w1l 6y ago

What even...? Three lines of goodbye message, where the last line has the bottom cutoff by a huge ad? https://imgur.com/a/ooJI79Q https://imgur.com/a/ooJI79Q

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
vultour 6y ago
I have adblock and was wondering why there's a big blank box below the message... now it makes sense. This is almost "bundle ask toolbar with JRE"-level greed.
- im3w1l 6y ago
  To be fair the ads seem to be purely for 1st party products, but still.
x86_64Ubuntu 6y ago
You need to be happy they didn't ask you to install McAfee...