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It's been made clear that not bundling Flash is a sustainable act, if you have the guts to do it. Apple had. Google doesn't. If Google took a firmer stance ther

by gcp 15y ago

It's been made clear that not bundling Flash is a sustainable act, if you have the guts to do it. Apple had. Google doesn't. If Google took a firmer stance there, Flash would be dead faster.

cheald 15y ago
I think it's utterly ridiculous to take the stance that Flash is moving towards dead on desktop devices. Flash is effectively dead on mobile, and that primarily for battery reasons. Flash is still very much a big part of the desktop web, and will be for the foreseeable future.
- cheatercheater 15y ago
  i have flashblock on. the only time i notice it's on is when... oh wait, I don't notice it being on at all anymore. For me, flash does not exist.
  - ja27 15y ago
    Flashblock still loads the plugin and content, doesn't it? I don't run Flashblock, but does this still work: http://hackademix.net/2008/06/08/block-rick/ http://hackademix.net/2008/06/08/block-rick/ I disable plugins in Chrome and either whitelist sites or run them as-needed.
- eftpotrm 15y ago
  What for, though? I'm another Flashblock user and it seems to lose me ads and videos. The ads don't benefit me anyway, the videos are now capable of being deployed by other means; it's just the vendors haven't yet caught up. Flash is on life support, and I don't see a way back for it.
  - gduffy 15y ago
    Live streaming. Especially low (well, lower than HLS for example) latency streaming.
  - cheald 15y ago
    Audio is a big one. The HTML5 audio APIs just haven't caught up yet. Live video, as mentioned elsewhere, is big as well. The vast majority of web games are still Flash, as well. Even video delivery is more robust with flash than with HTML5 - ever tried doing a preroll on an HTML5 <video> tag? Notice that it basically...doesn't work? Flash is certainly has less of a monopoly on "interactive web content" than it once did, but it still fills an extremely important and currently unreplacable role on the web. To be ringing its death toll just yet is premature.
    - wahnfrieden 15y ago
      Indeed, the audio tag is basically entirely broken and unusable in a general sense... Most comical is android supporting the tag but not any audio decoding codecs.
- antihero 15y ago
  And it definitely should not be until they sort their security and stop pissing around with Linux. Flash is proprietary, crashy, bullshit that can't die sooner. The only advantage it has for video is pretty neat streaming support that could most likely be solved in other ways, and being able to place adverts over the damn video.
  - cheald 15y ago
    Nobody will deny that it's full of security holes, a resource hog, and woefully undersupported on Linux. But I also think it's pissing into the wind to claim that we have equivalent solutions and it's just a matter of waiting for Flash to die now. We're making progress in that direction, but it's going to be years before there's a significant dent made.
  - Skrekkpus 15y ago
    Although it is true there are security problems, it is silly to think that is something unique for flash. WebGl is probably the most insecure plugin right now, largely because there is no one company responsible for upgrading it. Although there are problems with flash, Adobe seem to have high priority on patching it. canvas/webGl/SVG can't deliver yet.

by gcp 15y ago

It's been made clear that not bundling Flash is a sustainable act, if you have the guts to do it. Apple had. Google doesn't. If Google took a firmer stance there, Flash would be dead faster.

cheald 15y ago

I think it's utterly ridiculous to take the stance that Flash is moving towards dead on desktop devices. Flash is effectively dead on mobile, and that primarily for battery reasons. Flash is still very much a big part of the desktop web, and will be for the foreseeable future.

cheatercheater 15y ago
i have flashblock on. the only time i notice it's on is when... oh wait, I don't notice it being on at all anymore. For me, flash does not exist.
- ja27 15y ago
  Flashblock still loads the plugin and content, doesn't it? I don't run Flashblock, but does this still work: http://hackademix.net/2008/06/08/block-rick/ http://hackademix.net/2008/06/08/block-rick/ I disable plugins in Chrome and either whitelist sites or run them as-needed.
eftpotrm 15y ago
What for, though? I'm another Flashblock user and it seems to lose me ads and videos. The ads don't benefit me anyway, the videos are now capable of being deployed by other means; it's just the vendors haven't yet caught up. Flash is on life support, and I don't see a way back for it.
- gduffy 15y ago
  Live streaming. Especially low (well, lower than HLS for example) latency streaming.
- cheald 15y ago
  Audio is a big one. The HTML5 audio APIs just haven't caught up yet. Live video, as mentioned elsewhere, is big as well. The vast majority of web games are still Flash, as well. Even video delivery is more robust with flash than with HTML5 - ever tried doing a preroll on an HTML5 <video> tag? Notice that it basically...doesn't work? Flash is certainly has less of a monopoly on "interactive web content" than it once did, but it still fills an extremely important and currently unreplacable role on the web. To be ringing its death toll just yet is premature.
  - wahnfrieden 15y ago
    Indeed, the audio tag is basically entirely broken and unusable in a general sense... Most comical is android supporting the tag but not any audio decoding codecs.
antihero 15y ago
And it definitely should not be until they sort their security and stop pissing around with Linux. Flash is proprietary, crashy, bullshit that can't die sooner. The only advantage it has for video is pretty neat streaming support that could most likely be solved in other ways, and being able to place adverts over the damn video.
- cheald 15y ago
  Nobody will deny that it's full of security holes, a resource hog, and woefully undersupported on Linux. But I also think it's pissing into the wind to claim that we have equivalent solutions and it's just a matter of waiting for Flash to die now. We're making progress in that direction, but it's going to be years before there's a significant dent made.
- Skrekkpus 15y ago
  Although it is true there are security problems, it is silly to think that is something unique for flash. WebGl is probably the most insecure plugin right now, largely because there is no one company responsible for upgrading it. Although there are problems with flash, Adobe seem to have high priority on patching it. canvas/webGl/SVG can't deliver yet.