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As a preface, I'm a web moron. And as a web moron, I don't understand why the major browsers haven't just created some flash sandbox for these apps to run under

As a preface, I'm a web moron. And as a web moron, I don't understand why the major browsers haven't just created some flash sandbox for these apps to run under. Are there technical limitations to shipping a flash "virtual machine"? Or just a complete lack of will to do so?

hangonhn 6y ago
What would be the point of that? Flash is not an open standard and has been abandoned by Adobe. If you're talking about a sandbox in general, isn't that already the case with Javascript? The environment Javascript executes under in a modern browser is really rich and a lot of work has gone into making it secure and performant, none of which can be claimed by Flash.
- waiseristy 6y ago
  The point would be to preserve a fairly large amount of internet culture from the 90's and 00's. Ruffle.js which has already been mentioned utilizes the fantastic JS sandbox already present, no need to create a new one. The browsers just have to support it by default. I don't know enough about the web to determine whether it would be better to emulate Flash within the JS sandbox, or virtualize the Flash runtime itself
  - hangonhn 6y ago
    It's fine to want to preserve that but I don't think the browser is the right place for it. Flash is actually quite independent of the browser. So to preserve the ability to run what is by now historical applications, would simply mean supporting running Flash on new platforms/OS. https://www.reddit.com/r/flash/comments/h8753v/psa_how_to_use_flash_without_a_browser_and_how_to/ https://www.reddit.com/r/flash/comments/h8753v/psa_how_to_us...
    - waiseristy 6y ago
      This is a great way to preserve dedicated flash apps & games. But the tech being independent of the browser doesn't mean developers have integrated it that way. There are still thousands of web pages using tightly integrated flash & HTML that will be broken. You would then need to run the Flash runtime with an HTML&CSS&JS emulator along side, no?
    - wolco2 6y ago
      A website with flash didn't mean the entire website was in flash, there was usually a mixing of html sometimes server side code. The browser is the best place view flash for those reasons. The browser is the only place for it.
wil421 6y ago
Apple wanted to kill flash because it was CPU intensive and Jobs hated it. They wanted the first iPhone(s) to have great battery life and the web was plagued by flash intros, games, and what not at that time. It didn’t help it had a lot of security issues and it certainly helped its downfall. IMHO we are better without it and good riddance.
- canofbars 6y ago
  I'm guessing flash sites were also horrible on a small touch screen. The simple act of having to rewrite most of the web without flash in a time where smartphones existed probably did a lot of good.
- BugsJustFindMe 6y ago
  > Apple wanted to kill flash because it was CPU intensive and Jobs hated it. They wanted the first iPhone(s) to have great battery life and the web was plagued by flash intros, games, and what not at that time. But now the web is plagued by javascript doing the same, often even more intensively. Is it better or worse?
  - outside1234 6y ago
    Better. JavaScript is a web standard.
    - mhh__ 6y ago
      And flash couldn't have been one? Edit: I was 9 when Jobs wrote his thing on Flash, so I appreciate the downvotes for asking a question?
      - vondur 6y ago
        Probably would not happen under Adobe.
      - muldvarp 6y ago
        Flash was proprietary, didn't have a specification and only one real implementation ever existed.
chrisseaton 6y ago
> I don't understand why the major browsers have just created some flash sandbox for these apps to run under They haven't done this. I don't know where you heard that? The whole point of the article is they're dropping Flash instead of doing this.
- waiseristy 6y ago
  That would be a mis-spelling, apologies
1f60c 6y ago
I can't believe no one has mentioned Ruffle[0] yet. [0]: https://ruffle.rs/ https://ruffle.rs/
- waiseristy 6y ago
  Somebody further down in this posts comments did, it might have been paginated for you to the second page of comments
  - 1f60c 6y ago
    Yes, you're right. I hadn't all of the comments yet.
morpheuskafka 6y ago
They already were using some sandboxing measures to control this. But Flash inherently involved native, proprietary code and it was difficult to secure completely, whereas modern WebExtensions are JS that is completely under the browser's security control.
mbrubeck 6y ago
The major browsers do run Flash in a separate, sandboxed process. There have also been several efforts to re-implement the Flash plugin scratch, but none of them have managed able to fully support the long tail of existing Flash content.
ogre_codes 6y ago
Sandboxing and security are only part of the reason Flash fell out of favor. It was also pretty terrible in terms of performance and battery life. While a Flash VM would address some of the security issues, it would not stop it from spinning up your CPU and burning batteries like blackened catfish.

hangonhn 6y ago

What would be the point of that? Flash is not an open standard and has been abandoned by Adobe. If you're talking about a sandbox in general, isn't that already the case with Javascript? The environment Javascript executes under in a modern browser is really rich and a lot of work has gone into making it secure and performant, none of which can be claimed by Flash.

waiseristy 6y ago
The point would be to preserve a fairly large amount of internet culture from the 90's and 00's. Ruffle.js which has already been mentioned utilizes the fantastic JS sandbox already present, no need to create a new one. The browsers just have to support it by default. I don't know enough about the web to determine whether it would be better to emulate Flash within the JS sandbox, or virtualize the Flash runtime itself
- hangonhn 6y ago
  It's fine to want to preserve that but I don't think the browser is the right place for it. Flash is actually quite independent of the browser. So to preserve the ability to run what is by now historical applications, would simply mean supporting running Flash on new platforms/OS. https://www.reddit.com/r/flash/comments/h8753v/psa_how_to_use_flash_without_a_browser_and_how_to/ https://www.reddit.com/r/flash/comments/h8753v/psa_how_to_us...
  - waiseristy 6y ago
    This is a great way to preserve dedicated flash apps & games. But the tech being independent of the browser doesn't mean developers have integrated it that way. There are still thousands of web pages using tightly integrated flash & HTML that will be broken. You would then need to run the Flash runtime with an HTML&CSS&JS emulator along side, no?
  - wolco2 6y ago
    A website with flash didn't mean the entire website was in flash, there was usually a mixing of html sometimes server side code. The browser is the best place view flash for those reasons. The browser is the only place for it.

wil421 6y ago

Apple wanted to kill flash because it was CPU intensive and Jobs hated it. They wanted the first iPhone(s) to have great battery life and the web was plagued by flash intros, games, and what not at that time. It didn’t help it had a lot of security issues and it certainly helped its downfall. IMHO we are better without it and good riddance.

canofbars 6y ago
I'm guessing flash sites were also horrible on a small touch screen. The simple act of having to rewrite most of the web without flash in a time where smartphones existed probably did a lot of good.
BugsJustFindMe 6y ago
> Apple wanted to kill flash because it was CPU intensive and Jobs hated it. They wanted the first iPhone(s) to have great battery life and the web was plagued by flash intros, games, and what not at that time. But now the web is plagued by javascript doing the same, often even more intensively. Is it better or worse?
- outside1234 6y ago
  Better. JavaScript is a web standard.
  - mhh__ 6y ago
    And flash couldn't have been one? Edit: I was 9 when Jobs wrote his thing on Flash, so I appreciate the downvotes for asking a question?
    - vondur 6y ago
      Probably would not happen under Adobe.
    - muldvarp 6y ago
      Flash was proprietary, didn't have a specification and only one real implementation ever existed.

chrisseaton 6y ago

> I don't understand why the major browsers have just created some flash sandbox for these apps to run under They haven't done this. I don't know where you heard that? The whole point of the article is they're dropping Flash instead of doing this.

waiseristy 6y ago
That would be a mis-spelling, apologies

1f60c 6y ago

I can't believe no one has mentioned Ruffle[0] yet. [0]: https://ruffle.rs/ https://ruffle.rs/

waiseristy 6y ago
Somebody further down in this posts comments did, it might have been paginated for you to the second page of comments
- 1f60c 6y ago
  Yes, you're right. I hadn't all of the comments yet.

morpheuskafka 6y ago

They already were using some sandboxing measures to control this. But Flash inherently involved native, proprietary code and it was difficult to secure completely, whereas modern WebExtensions are JS that is completely under the browser's security control.

mbrubeck 6y ago

The major browsers do run Flash in a separate, sandboxed process. There have also been several efforts to re-implement the Flash plugin scratch, but none of them have managed able to fully support the long tail of existing Flash content.

ogre_codes 6y ago

Sandboxing and security are only part of the reason Flash fell out of favor. It was also pretty terrible in terms of performance and battery life. While a Flash VM would address some of the security issues, it would not stop it from spinning up your CPU and burning batteries like blackened catfish.