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I strongly disagree that the only reason Flash died was Steve Jobs/Apple's personal vendetta against it. Sure, it might've played a part, but as other commenter

by M4v3R 5y ago

I strongly disagree that the only reason Flash died was Steve Jobs/Apple's personal vendetta against it. Sure, it might've played a part, but as other commenters already pointed out Flash was riddled with problems - it was a resource hog, the macOS implementation was buggy and slow and Adobe seemed to not care about fixing these problems, and it had a very bad record of security holes. Plus it was closed source and the format itself was undocumented. I can see how all the aforementioned problems made it so Apple didn't want to include it on its mobile devices. And even if politics played some part in it, these problems made it easy for Apple to convince everyone else that retiring Flash is the right thing to do.

rendall 5y ago
> Flash was riddled with problems - it was a resource hog, the macOS implementation was buggy and slow and Adobe seemed to not care about fixing these problems, and it had a very bad record of security holes Yeah, see this? This "riddled" word? That's how I know you're just repeating what you read. It's a tell. Jobs + Wired + Gawker + Apple made an incredibly strong conceptual gravity well that makes conversation about this difficult. They all use this "riddled with security holes" phrasing. It's like you just repeated "No, you don't understand. Brawndo is what plants crave." What security holes? Specifically? Were they more serious than any browser?
- andrewxdiamond 5y ago
  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...
  - pverghese 5y ago
    https://www.cvedetails.com/vulnerability-list/vendor_id-49/product_id-2935/Apple-Safari.html https://www.cvedetails.com/vulnerability-list/vendor_id-49/p...
  - rendall 5y ago
    During this conversation, someone inevitably posts this without comment, as if it is a rhetorical slam-dunk. Could you expand on this? Your point is the Flash had vulnerabilities? What software doesn't? https://www.cvedetails.com/product-list/vendor_id-1224/Google.html https://www.cvedetails.com/product-list/vendor_id-1224/Googl... Remember, Jobs' contention was that Flash's problems were inherent. Can you support that?
    - hluska 5y ago
      So, you will ask for citations and then rip them apart because “every piece of software is vulnerable”?? If you don’t like what you get, why did you ask for it? At first, you were merely overly aggressive. But this is turning into bullying.
    - gmueckl 5y ago
      Compare Flash to Safari then: Flash is a comparatively small VM runtime and vector graphics engine while Safari is a whole browser, which has a much larger attack surface. And Safari, despite its increased complexity, had about the same amount of reported vulnerabilities around 2010: https://www.cvedetails.com/product/2935/Apple-Safari.html?vendor_id=49 https://www.cvedetails.com/product/2935/Apple-Safari.html?ve... So, objectively, Flash did have very persistent security issues.
      - rendall 5y ago
        "Comparatively small" is doing a lot of lifting, there. What about Flash was "comparatively small" compared with Safari, and why does that let Safari of the hook for its vulnerabilities compared with Flash?
        bjoli 5y ago
        I spelunked through the Firefox source code about 10 years ago. A modern browser is an amazingly complex piece of software. A gazillion parsers with the ability to handle malformed content that should give anyone nightmares. Multiple JITs and interpreters. Layout handling with incremental grid calculation algorithms that gave me vertigo - before I understood that it was done asynchronously. There is no way in hell flash is anywhere near as complex.
- MayeulC 5y ago
  Security issues? Yes, there were 0days after 0days. Adobe kept pushing updates, but users were often lagging behind. Researchers continually found new vulnerabilities. Browsers weren't as sandboxed and hardened as they are today, and flash plugged directly into them. Flash was one of the most used vectors for adware, all you had to do was visit some shady website.
  - rendall 5y ago
    > 0days after 0days [Citation needed]
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    - Deukhoofd 5y ago
      Here you go https://www.zero-day.cz/database/?set_filter=Y&arrFilter_pf%5BYEAR_FROM%5D=2006&arrFilter_pf%5BYEAR_TO%5D=2022&arrFilter_pf%5BSEARCH%5D=&arrFilter_pf%5BVENDORS%5D%5B%5D=6 https://www.zero-day.cz/database/?set_filter=Y&arrFilter_pf%...
      - deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
      - hluska 5y ago
        Good citation. :)
      - rendall 5y ago
        100% of all zero-day vulnerabilities from 2008-2022 are due to Adobe? Let's look at the entire context. https://www.zero-day.cz/database/?set_filter=Y&arrFilter_pf%5BYEAR_FROM%5D=2006&arrFilter_pf%5BYEAR_TO%5D=2022&arrFilter_pf%5BSEARCH%5D= https://www.zero-day.cz/database/?set_filter=Y&arrFilter_pf%...
        Deukhoofd 5y ago
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- hluska 5y ago
  Riddled is a common word that native English speakers tend to use. It’s not a tell. Your aggression, on the other hand, is uncommon. It is a tell.
  - rendall 5y ago
    Sorry. Not intending to be aggressive. That's me being weirded out, not intentionally aggressive. As a native English speaker, I can assure you it's not a common technical term at all. It's a poetic phrase, designed to elicit thoughts of illness and damage. A house can be riddled with termites, a body can be riddled with cancer, a bridge can be riddled with rust. But Flash, uniquely, is "riddled" with security holes. No one says that about Windows.
    - warble 5y ago
      As an engineer, I hear it used all the time in contexts outside of Flash. It's extremely common.
    - Ferrotin 5y ago
      Getting “riddled” specifically means to get holes put in you, as in with bullets. It’s a very fitting term for having lots of security holes.
    - hluska 5y ago
      Strange, I googled “windows riddled” (without quotes - try it). This was the first result: https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/all/why-is-windows-10-riddled-with-so-many-bugs-and/36472c84-bb02-4f86-9520-c86f8a3fa604 https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/all/why-is... “Why is Windows 10 riddled with so many bugs and the updates make matters worse?” It’s likely time to admit that you’re wrong. Riddled is a word, the meaning fits and people use it to describe software.
- arepublicadoceu 5y ago
  > Jobs + Wired + Gawker + Apple made an incredibly strong conceptual gravity well that makes conversation about this difficult. I never, ever, read the Jobs manifesto against flash. Never cared to read any article about flash back in the day and I absolutely dreaded opening a website that used flash. It was a guaranteed loading times on my bad internet, followed and/or preceded by a notice saying that I needed to install this crapware or update it. Not to mention my numerous crashes directly related to an unresponsive flash application. But as you clearly wrote somewhere on this thread, this was probably due to me using windows and most flash devs using macOS. As someone who just learned about jobs hate to flash and never touched on a MacBook in his life. I’m extremely happy this technology belongs to the past.
rendall 5y ago
> the macOS implementation was buggy and slow This is actually another lie that has somehow been retconned into the collective narrative. Baffling. I was a professional Flash developer at the time, working for brands like Nike and Johnson & Johnson. We as an industry used Apple almost exclusively. This was not a common observation until after "Thoughts on Flash"
- jbverschoor 5y ago
  (Most?) Flash apps didn't adjust for responsive web. It was also full of security issues. Most flash applications were running at a certain FPS, instead of reacting to UI changes/redrawing. Flash was nice for games, but for the rest is was a pain in the butt. Also, look at how slow Adobe is in keeping things updated for newer platforms. I'm happy flash is dead, and I hope creative suite will follow.. Probably not though.
  - rendall 5y ago
    > Flash apps didn't adjust for responsive web This was 2009. "Responsive layout" was barely a concept. Most HTML/CSS websites didn't have responsive layout. We were still figuring out all out.
    - BadOakOx 5y ago
      Maybe it was not called "Responsive layout", but it was a thing since 2004: https://www.themaninblue.com/writing/perspective/2004/09/21/ https://www.themaninblue.com/writing/perspective/2004/09/21/ Flash was as bad as Java Applets. They both tried to solve problems that couldn't be done with standard web technologies at the time. They both needed extra plugins so they could work... while everything else just works in the browsers. They have no place in web development.
    - jbverschoor 5y ago
      Maybe not responsive, but definitely fluid design.
    - int_19h 5y ago
cosmiccrisp 5y ago
>it was a resource hog Well, it had the ability to be one if a shade tree programmer didn't garbage collect their assets. Something that could easily be tested in an app platform. You could make amazing games that used only a few megs of RAM, or you could make a crappy app that hogs hundreds.

by M4v3R 5y ago

rendall 5y ago

> Flash was riddled with problems - it was a resource hog, the macOS implementation was buggy and slow and Adobe seemed to not care about fixing these problems, and it had a very bad record of security holes Yeah, see this? This "riddled" word? That's how I know you're just repeating what you read. It's a tell. Jobs + Wired + Gawker + Apple made an incredibly strong conceptual gravity well that makes conversation about this difficult. They all use this "riddled with security holes" phrasing. It's like you just repeated "No, you don't understand. Brawndo is what plants crave." What security holes? Specifically? Were they more serious than any browser?

andrewxdiamond 5y ago
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...
- pverghese 5y ago
  https://www.cvedetails.com/vulnerability-list/vendor_id-49/product_id-2935/Apple-Safari.html https://www.cvedetails.com/vulnerability-list/vendor_id-49/p...
- rendall 5y ago
  During this conversation, someone inevitably posts this without comment, as if it is a rhetorical slam-dunk. Could you expand on this? Your point is the Flash had vulnerabilities? What software doesn't? https://www.cvedetails.com/product-list/vendor_id-1224/Google.html https://www.cvedetails.com/product-list/vendor_id-1224/Googl... Remember, Jobs' contention was that Flash's problems were inherent. Can you support that?
  - hluska 5y ago
    So, you will ask for citations and then rip them apart because “every piece of software is vulnerable”?? If you don’t like what you get, why did you ask for it? At first, you were merely overly aggressive. But this is turning into bullying.
  - gmueckl 5y ago
    Compare Flash to Safari then: Flash is a comparatively small VM runtime and vector graphics engine while Safari is a whole browser, which has a much larger attack surface. And Safari, despite its increased complexity, had about the same amount of reported vulnerabilities around 2010: https://www.cvedetails.com/product/2935/Apple-Safari.html?vendor_id=49 https://www.cvedetails.com/product/2935/Apple-Safari.html?ve... So, objectively, Flash did have very persistent security issues.
    - rendall 5y ago
      "Comparatively small" is doing a lot of lifting, there. What about Flash was "comparatively small" compared with Safari, and why does that let Safari of the hook for its vulnerabilities compared with Flash?
      - bjoli 5y ago
        I spelunked through the Firefox source code about 10 years ago. A modern browser is an amazingly complex piece of software. A gazillion parsers with the ability to handle malformed content that should give anyone nightmares. Multiple JITs and interpreters. Layout handling with incremental grid calculation algorithms that gave me vertigo - before I understood that it was done asynchronously. There is no way in hell flash is anywhere near as complex.
MayeulC 5y ago
Security issues? Yes, there were 0days after 0days. Adobe kept pushing updates, but users were often lagging behind. Researchers continually found new vulnerabilities. Browsers weren't as sandboxed and hardened as they are today, and flash plugged directly into them. Flash was one of the most used vectors for adware, all you had to do was visit some shady website.
- rendall 5y ago
  > 0days after 0days [Citation needed]
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - Deukhoofd 5y ago
    Here you go https://www.zero-day.cz/database/?set_filter=Y&arrFilter_pf%5BYEAR_FROM%5D=2006&arrFilter_pf%5BYEAR_TO%5D=2022&arrFilter_pf%5BSEARCH%5D=&arrFilter_pf%5BVENDORS%5D%5B%5D=6 https://www.zero-day.cz/database/?set_filter=Y&arrFilter_pf%...
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    - hluska 5y ago
      Good citation. :)
    - rendall 5y ago
      100% of all zero-day vulnerabilities from 2008-2022 are due to Adobe? Let's look at the entire context. https://www.zero-day.cz/database/?set_filter=Y&arrFilter_pf%5BYEAR_FROM%5D=2006&arrFilter_pf%5BYEAR_TO%5D=2022&arrFilter_pf%5BSEARCH%5D= https://www.zero-day.cz/database/?set_filter=Y&arrFilter_pf%...
      - Deukhoofd 5y ago
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
hluska 5y ago
Riddled is a common word that native English speakers tend to use. It’s not a tell. Your aggression, on the other hand, is uncommon. It is a tell.
- rendall 5y ago
  Sorry. Not intending to be aggressive. That's me being weirded out, not intentionally aggressive. As a native English speaker, I can assure you it's not a common technical term at all. It's a poetic phrase, designed to elicit thoughts of illness and damage. A house can be riddled with termites, a body can be riddled with cancer, a bridge can be riddled with rust. But Flash, uniquely, is "riddled" with security holes. No one says that about Windows.
  - warble 5y ago
    As an engineer, I hear it used all the time in contexts outside of Flash. It's extremely common.
  - Ferrotin 5y ago
    Getting “riddled” specifically means to get holes put in you, as in with bullets. It’s a very fitting term for having lots of security holes.
  - hluska 5y ago
    Strange, I googled “windows riddled” (without quotes - try it). This was the first result: https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/all/why-is-windows-10-riddled-with-so-many-bugs-and/36472c84-bb02-4f86-9520-c86f8a3fa604 https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/all/why-is... “Why is Windows 10 riddled with so many bugs and the updates make matters worse?” It’s likely time to admit that you’re wrong. Riddled is a word, the meaning fits and people use it to describe software.
arepublicadoceu 5y ago
> Jobs + Wired + Gawker + Apple made an incredibly strong conceptual gravity well that makes conversation about this difficult. I never, ever, read the Jobs manifesto against flash. Never cared to read any article about flash back in the day and I absolutely dreaded opening a website that used flash. It was a guaranteed loading times on my bad internet, followed and/or preceded by a notice saying that I needed to install this crapware or update it. Not to mention my numerous crashes directly related to an unresponsive flash application. But as you clearly wrote somewhere on this thread, this was probably due to me using windows and most flash devs using macOS. As someone who just learned about jobs hate to flash and never touched on a MacBook in his life. I’m extremely happy this technology belongs to the past.

rendall 5y ago

> the macOS implementation was buggy and slow This is actually another lie that has somehow been retconned into the collective narrative. Baffling. I was a professional Flash developer at the time, working for brands like Nike and Johnson & Johnson. We as an industry used Apple almost exclusively. This was not a common observation until after "Thoughts on Flash"

jbverschoor 5y ago
(Most?) Flash apps didn't adjust for responsive web. It was also full of security issues. Most flash applications were running at a certain FPS, instead of reacting to UI changes/redrawing. Flash was nice for games, but for the rest is was a pain in the butt. Also, look at how slow Adobe is in keeping things updated for newer platforms. I'm happy flash is dead, and I hope creative suite will follow.. Probably not though.
- rendall 5y ago
  > Flash apps didn't adjust for responsive web This was 2009. "Responsive layout" was barely a concept. Most HTML/CSS websites didn't have responsive layout. We were still figuring out all out.
  - BadOakOx 5y ago
    Maybe it was not called "Responsive layout", but it was a thing since 2004: https://www.themaninblue.com/writing/perspective/2004/09/21/ https://www.themaninblue.com/writing/perspective/2004/09/21/ Flash was as bad as Java Applets. They both tried to solve problems that couldn't be done with standard web technologies at the time. They both needed extra plugins so they could work... while everything else just works in the browsers. They have no place in web development.
  - jbverschoor 5y ago
    Maybe not responsive, but definitely fluid design.
  - int_19h 5y ago

cosmiccrisp 5y ago

>it was a resource hog Well, it had the ability to be one if a shade tree programmer didn't garbage collect their assets. Something that could easily be tested in an app platform. You could make amazing games that used only a few megs of RAM, or you could make a crappy app that hogs hundreds.