6 ms·

It's time for Flash to die now, however it had a good run. We've had usable video on the web for a decade thanks to it -- and even now, HTML5 still hasn't caugh

It's time for Flash to die now, however it had a good run. We've had usable video on the web for a decade thanks to it -- and even now, HTML5 still hasn't caught up. Flash did a great job of advancing the web while open standards caught up.

citricsquid 14y ago
Please can you direct me to an open source HTML5 (or not) alternative to Flash for video that supports advertisements and DRM? Flash can't (and will not) die until such a thing exists. It isn't time for flash to die until there's something to replace it.
- sgrove 14y ago
  It will (eventually) if it's not included in browsers/OS by default. It'll essentially be relegated to RealPlayer's market if that's its only differentiating factor, and advertisers won't put out content for a plugin that can't reach audiences. It'll be a long time yet though, that's certainly true.
- ryanpetrich 14y ago
  Open source and DRM are fundamentally incompatible—if neutering the DRM is a mere recompile away, what good is it to the sorts of organizations that require DRM?
  - citricsquid 14y ago
    My mistake, I should have said closed source.
    - patrickaljord 14y ago
      It's actually coming. If you go to about:flags in chrome, there's a flag called "Enable experimental Encrypted Media Extensions on the video elements.". * https://dvcs.w3.org/hg/html-media/raw-file/tip/encrypted-media/encrypted-media.html https://dvcs.w3.org/hg/html-media/raw-file/tip/encrypted-med... * https://lists.webkit.org/pipermail/webkit-dev/2012-April/020174.html https://lists.webkit.org/pipermail/webkit-dev/2012-April/020... * http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/02/23/microsoft_google_netflix_html5_drm_infection/ http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/02/23/microsoft_google_net...
  - cpeterso 14y ago
    DRM'd media is encrypted and cannot be "neutered" if you don't have the decryption key. [Well-designed] DRM relies on secret keys, not secret source code.
    - sp332 14y ago
      Here's the problem: either you have the decryption keys and can get to the content, or you don't and can't. If you can watch a movie on your computer, you already have everything you need to pirate the movie.
      - cookiecaper 14y ago
        Which, of course, is true for any cryptography, regardless of the openness of its implementation. It may be harder to keep the keys obscured in open code, but then the keys usually don't stay secret that long anyway.
    - rabidsnail 14y ago
      XOR is the best DRM. Since all DRM is breakable since you need the decryption key to play the content, the purpose should be to trigger the copy-protection-protection stuff in the DMCA, and XOR is the simplest way to do that.
- gkoberger 14y ago
  Like I said, "HTML5 still hasn't caught up". It is time for Flash to die; that doesn't mean it can yet.
- comex 14y ago
  Please can you direct me to a version of Flash DRM that's not easy to bypass, such as with rtmpdump?
- tomjen3 14y ago
  If such a thing existed, it should be destroyed. Ads have no place in video and drm for content has no place on the web.
  - panacea 14y ago
    Take the DRM of your bank account login then.
    - tomjen3 14y ago
      I would, if it had any. But since it has never been published, DRM would make no sense.
      - panacea 14y ago
        Your bank account details don't reside in a published, yet controlled space on the internet? I know you're not trying to flog your effort (monetary savings in this case) on a pay-to-view basis, but why (beyond the impossibility of securing the rights) are people who wish to try and sell their effort to those willing to pay, and attempt to restrict those who are unwilling to pay for their effort, somehow intrinsically wrong?
        tomjen3 14y ago
        There is nothing wrong with that. I just don't want to be forced to see ads or not be allowed to skip ahead in the video (which is what DRM amounts to). In other words, I want to be in control of what I see.
taybenlor 14y ago
There's more to flash than video. The company I work for uses flash extensively for interactive multi-touch kiosks. Like those big maps in shopping malls. As a Rails developer I was very opinionated when I came here. But seeing the incredible performance they get using flash while running stunningly complex animations and interactions, I quickly changed my mind. While I still think there's no place for flash as a replacement for websites it's still incredibly powerful for rich interactive multimedia - especially off the web.
- comex 14y ago
  As an OS X user, I literally cannot remember a Flash site (other than a video wrapper) that felt completely fluid. You never get 60fps because Flash mostly always insists on doing things on the CPU. Dunno what things look like on Windows, but I'm hoping WebGL takes off - it really seems to be best positioned to do complex things without sacrificing performance.
  - taybenlor 14y ago
    I'm not sure it's entirely relevant, but here's something the very-very senior flash dev at work said about that recent Dart port of the Flash API (which he thought was neat). >> "This little game was developed with Flash and later ported to HTML5 in only 6 hours. The new HTML5 version runs with smooth 60fps, which is almost impossible to achieve with the Flash plugin!" > This is the kind of sentiment that shits me. Flash is measured by the worst of its developers. > Flash is capped at 60fps in the browser so as to limit the carnage, but can run at 120+ on the desktop. If the dude can't get his example game running at 60 fps in flash it's because he sucks, not the plugin. /rant Similarly, be prepared for a slew of super slow "HTML5" apps.
    - pan69 14y ago
      Just wait until the ad industry has caught up on to HTML5 and when they'll produce massively CPU intensive banners and other crap with HTML5. Its for the same reasons the the Flash player CPU utilization was capped in browsers, the same thing will happen for HTML5.
dave_sullivan 14y ago
I don't know. I can write an application in flash and it will run on IE, chrome, Firefox, whatever. A lot of companies still use IE. I can also compile that down to run on ios, android, or blackberry (not that I'd want to). I can do all that from basically the same codebase with an ecma script language (as3) that I find much better for large scale projects than html5 (by which people actually mean js) Flash is dying I guess, but it will be a long time until it actually dies, and that's good by me because html5/js still has a lot of catching up to do. As an aside, I'm curious how many flash haters out there have actually written flash applications. Its really a good tool for a lot of applications, but the haters never really provide any specifics on what their problem is besides referencing poorly written apps that crash your browser, of which you'll find plenty of those in any language.
- abbyroad9191 14y ago
  Flash solves the problem of cross-platform development really well vs other platforms. You don't have to worry about making conditional statements for specific operating systems or browsers. I feel the rapid deploying of browsers is just increasing the fragmented world of html + js. There are just way too many different implementations of html to make it enjoyable coding on. And also, the way flash handles making animations and anti-aliasing almost makes my very non-artistic feel somewhat versatile when tackling those things.
  - skyhook_mockups 14y ago
    I feel the rapid deploying of browsers is just increasing the fragmented world of html + js Not in my experience. I've recently finished writing a fairly large and reasonably complex HTML5 app and getting it to work across standards compliant browsers Chrome/Firefox/Safari has been absolutely painless. In over 6 months of development I have (without exaggeration) spent no more than 8 hours fixing cross browser issues and this includes cutting edge and vendor prefixed stuff. I think that flash still has its place... it's still way better at doing things like client side image compression/encoding and has very sophisticated binary manipulation capabilities (if you need those). It really is a technology of the gaps, and the number of gaps that it can exclusively fill is rapidly dwindling.

citricsquid 14y ago

Please can you direct me to an open source HTML5 (or not) alternative to Flash for video that supports advertisements and DRM? Flash can't (and will not) die until such a thing exists. It isn't time for flash to die until there's something to replace it.

sgrove 14y ago
It will (eventually) if it's not included in browsers/OS by default. It'll essentially be relegated to RealPlayer's market if that's its only differentiating factor, and advertisers won't put out content for a plugin that can't reach audiences. It'll be a long time yet though, that's certainly true.
ryanpetrich 14y ago
Open source and DRM are fundamentally incompatible—if neutering the DRM is a mere recompile away, what good is it to the sorts of organizations that require DRM?
- citricsquid 14y ago
  My mistake, I should have said closed source.
  - patrickaljord 14y ago
    It's actually coming. If you go to about:flags in chrome, there's a flag called "Enable experimental Encrypted Media Extensions on the video elements.". * https://dvcs.w3.org/hg/html-media/raw-file/tip/encrypted-media/encrypted-media.html https://dvcs.w3.org/hg/html-media/raw-file/tip/encrypted-med... * https://lists.webkit.org/pipermail/webkit-dev/2012-April/020174.html https://lists.webkit.org/pipermail/webkit-dev/2012-April/020... * http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/02/23/microsoft_google_netflix_html5_drm_infection/ http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/02/23/microsoft_google_net...
- cpeterso 14y ago
  DRM'd media is encrypted and cannot be "neutered" if you don't have the decryption key. [Well-designed] DRM relies on secret keys, not secret source code.
  - sp332 14y ago
    Here's the problem: either you have the decryption keys and can get to the content, or you don't and can't. If you can watch a movie on your computer, you already have everything you need to pirate the movie.
    - cookiecaper 14y ago
      Which, of course, is true for any cryptography, regardless of the openness of its implementation. It may be harder to keep the keys obscured in open code, but then the keys usually don't stay secret that long anyway.
  - rabidsnail 14y ago
    XOR is the best DRM. Since all DRM is breakable since you need the decryption key to play the content, the purpose should be to trigger the copy-protection-protection stuff in the DMCA, and XOR is the simplest way to do that.
gkoberger 14y ago
Like I said, "HTML5 still hasn't caught up". It is time for Flash to die; that doesn't mean it can yet.
comex 14y ago
Please can you direct me to a version of Flash DRM that's not easy to bypass, such as with rtmpdump?
tomjen3 14y ago
If such a thing existed, it should be destroyed. Ads have no place in video and drm for content has no place on the web.
- panacea 14y ago
  Take the DRM of your bank account login then.
  - tomjen3 14y ago
    I would, if it had any. But since it has never been published, DRM would make no sense.
    - panacea 14y ago
      Your bank account details don't reside in a published, yet controlled space on the internet? I know you're not trying to flog your effort (monetary savings in this case) on a pay-to-view basis, but why (beyond the impossibility of securing the rights) are people who wish to try and sell their effort to those willing to pay, and attempt to restrict those who are unwilling to pay for their effort, somehow intrinsically wrong?
      - tomjen3 14y ago
        There is nothing wrong with that. I just don't want to be forced to see ads or not be allowed to skip ahead in the video (which is what DRM amounts to). In other words, I want to be in control of what I see.

taybenlor 14y ago

There's more to flash than video. The company I work for uses flash extensively for interactive multi-touch kiosks. Like those big maps in shopping malls. As a Rails developer I was very opinionated when I came here. But seeing the incredible performance they get using flash while running stunningly complex animations and interactions, I quickly changed my mind. While I still think there's no place for flash as a replacement for websites it's still incredibly powerful for rich interactive multimedia - especially off the web.

comex 14y ago
As an OS X user, I literally cannot remember a Flash site (other than a video wrapper) that felt completely fluid. You never get 60fps because Flash mostly always insists on doing things on the CPU. Dunno what things look like on Windows, but I'm hoping WebGL takes off - it really seems to be best positioned to do complex things without sacrificing performance.
- taybenlor 14y ago
  I'm not sure it's entirely relevant, but here's something the very-very senior flash dev at work said about that recent Dart port of the Flash API (which he thought was neat). >> "This little game was developed with Flash and later ported to HTML5 in only 6 hours. The new HTML5 version runs with smooth 60fps, which is almost impossible to achieve with the Flash plugin!" > This is the kind of sentiment that shits me. Flash is measured by the worst of its developers. > Flash is capped at 60fps in the browser so as to limit the carnage, but can run at 120+ on the desktop. If the dude can't get his example game running at 60 fps in flash it's because he sucks, not the plugin. /rant Similarly, be prepared for a slew of super slow "HTML5" apps.
  - pan69 14y ago
    Just wait until the ad industry has caught up on to HTML5 and when they'll produce massively CPU intensive banners and other crap with HTML5. Its for the same reasons the the Flash player CPU utilization was capped in browsers, the same thing will happen for HTML5.

dave_sullivan 14y ago

I don't know. I can write an application in flash and it will run on IE, chrome, Firefox, whatever. A lot of companies still use IE. I can also compile that down to run on ios, android, or blackberry (not that I'd want to). I can do all that from basically the same codebase with an ecma script language (as3) that I find much better for large scale projects than html5 (by which people actually mean js) Flash is dying I guess, but it will be a long time until it actually dies, and that's good by me because html5/js still has a lot of catching up to do. As an aside, I'm curious how many flash haters out there have actually written flash applications. Its really a good tool for a lot of applications, but the haters never really provide any specifics on what their problem is besides referencing poorly written apps that crash your browser, of which you'll find plenty of those in any language.

abbyroad9191 14y ago
Flash solves the problem of cross-platform development really well vs other platforms. You don't have to worry about making conditional statements for specific operating systems or browsers. I feel the rapid deploying of browsers is just increasing the fragmented world of html + js. There are just way too many different implementations of html to make it enjoyable coding on. And also, the way flash handles making animations and anti-aliasing almost makes my very non-artistic feel somewhat versatile when tackling those things.
- skyhook_mockups 14y ago
  I feel the rapid deploying of browsers is just increasing the fragmented world of html + js Not in my experience. I've recently finished writing a fairly large and reasonably complex HTML5 app and getting it to work across standards compliant browsers Chrome/Firefox/Safari has been absolutely painless. In over 6 months of development I have (without exaggeration) spent no more than 8 hours fixing cross browser issues and this includes cutting edge and vendor prefixed stuff. I think that flash still has its place... it's still way better at doing things like client side image compression/encoding and has very sophisticated binary manipulation capabilities (if you need those). It really is a technology of the gaps, and the number of gaps that it can exclusively fill is rapidly dwindling.