4 ms·

Magical? Those are some rose tinted glasses. Having to install a binary blob from a free-software hostile vendor that wanted a monopoly to load a website was a

Magical? Those are some rose tinted glasses. Having to install a binary blob from a free-software hostile vendor that wanted a monopoly to load a website was always ridiculous ask. Flash was a constant embarassment of RCEs vulns and virtually non-existent Linux support.

mvdtnz 3mo ago
The overwhelming majority of computer users simply DO NOT CARE about things like "install a binary blob" or "free-software hostile vendor" or "non-existent Linux support". They installed the plugin and got a way better experience. > Flash was a constant embarassment of RCEs vulns I wonder if anyone has done an analysis of Flash versus Javascript (or other browser technology) vulns over their respective lifespans.
- kstrauser 3mo ago
  If Flash hadn’t sucked harder than a neutron star, that would be an argument to have. People install lots of proprietary plugins today. Flash would’ve been just one more on that list. But it did suck, and badly. It crashed the browser all the freaking time, often hard enough to crash the whole OS. (“But the OS shouldn’t let that happen!” True, although even with that said, it was in the short list of common apps capable of crashing that badly. It was almost a talent.) Flash was horrid. While idea was fine, the implementation was terrible. No mobile OS could have run it solidly and without sucking batteries like no tomorrow. Flash in the right hands could have been nice. We’ll never know because that never happened.
  - radley 3mo ago
    > No mobile OS could have run it solidly and without sucking batteries like no tomorrow. By the time mobile could run Flash, it was too late. Between Apple & Adobe, it had no shot of making the transition. But before that, Flash was pretty amazing.
    - kstrauser 3mo ago
      It was never amazing. It was adequate to give creative people a way to work around its many shortcomings and make something cool anyway. The tech and the implementation was awful, and all credit goes to people who still managed to shine through it. For all the many reasons people might dislike Apple, they were 100% in the right on this topic. Flash needed to die. It got everyone to collectively push the web standard technologies ahead into something way, way better.
      - sdenton4 3mo ago
        And yet, there was no html5 newgrounds. The magic of flash was that it gave a space where a music person, an art person, and a programmer could bang something out. The barrier to entry was comically low, which allowed an absolute explosion of content. Sometimes good products happen despite bad technical foundations.
        zimpenfish 3mo ago
        > And yet, there was no html5 newgrounds. Let me introduce you to itch.io[0] where, in fact, people bang out HTML5 games at a rate that will stagger your eyeballs. (Even me, a resolute "backend-only" dinosaur managed to use a HTML5 game engine to knock something out playable in an hour or two.) [0] https://itch.io/games/platform-web https://itch.io/games/platform-web - ~689k results
      - radley 3mo ago
        > The tech and the implementation was awful, and all credit goes to people who still managed to shine through it. Sorry, that's simply not true. The tech was ahead of its time. The implementation was intuitive. Only developers and Steve Jobs hated it, because Flash made it way too easy for anyone to make something fun.
        tekchip 3mo ago
        Also anyone who gave two shits about security hated it because it was a security nightmare. Don't leave a hater out.
  - GoblinSlayer 3mo ago
    Still nothing can solidly run arbitrary code from internets, be it flash, java applets, javascript or even webp and web fonts.
echelon 3mo ago
[flagged]
- likeclockwork 3mo ago
  Sure, but Adobe was never going to solve them.
- dghlsakjg 3mo ago
  I was an average-joe high school student back then. People hated flash. Even non techies.
  - dpark 3mo ago
    What’s “back then” to you? Flash grew up in the time of dial up when you could still get AOL install discs with 100 free hours in your typical grocery store PC magazine. I don’t recall people hating Flash a lot until later when it wasn’t a technical necessity anymore.
    - dghlsakjg 3mo ago
      The first computer I remember using was a Compaq Portable with a green screen and DOS that my dad was allowed to bring home on weekends. I vividly remember going to Circuit City as a family to buy our first windows 3.1 machine. Flash was very cool, at first, then it got used for WAY too much stuff that had no graceful degradation so you were stuck waiting a few minutes for an animation to load so you could see the content stuck behind flash.
      - dpark 3mo ago
        Flash certainly became broadly hated. It had a pretty long stretch of being loved, and enabling content that was loved, though. Up until about 2005 or so, flash was critical tech for the young web. By 2010 it was clearly heading toward an end.
        3mo ago
dpark 3mo ago
I remember the time of browser plug-ins (not “extensions”). Everyone happily installed Flash, and the Crescendo midi plugin, and multiple other in-retrospect-ill-advised plugins to enable fun stuff to work in their browser. The “everyone hates Flash” stuff came later. It served a purpose for quite a while and people loved it. Newgrounds was a place of magic.
- riffraff 3mo ago
  FYI, just cause I discovered this recently and I was mildly mind blown: newgrounds is alive and kicking with new stuff. I do miss kongregate tho.
- wredcoll 3mo ago
  I mean, flash was always a pain in the ass, even when you got it working. The animations and games were great and I'm a big fan of stuff that tries to make it easy to publish programs like that, but I was still a teenager when apple announced they weren't supporting it and I was genuinely happy because I was so annoyed using it even on a windows pc.
josefx 3mo ago
> Having to install a binary blob from a free-software hostile vendor that wanted a monopoly to load a website was always ridiculous ask. The entire browser ecosystem started out closed source. Even JavaScript was written to interact with closed source Java Applets. > Flash was a constant embarassment of RCEs vulns Browsers still are the goto target for contests like Pwn2own. It is almost like inviting the entire world to run untrusted code on your computer is not a great idea, no matter how many security buzzwords browser makers like to throw arround.
- kstrauser 3mo ago
  > The entire browser ecosystem started out closed source. That is completely, 100%, untrue and not remotely historically accurate. WorldWideWeb (the first web browser) was public domain. Lynx came out in 1992. Mozilla was open sourced in 1998. There was never a time when the "entire" browser ecosystem was closed source. It certainly didn't start that way. > Even JavaScript was written to interact with closed source Java Applets. No, it wasn't. From WP (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JavaScript https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JavaScript): > Netscape decided to add a programming language to Navigator. They pursued two routes to achieve this: collaborating with Sun Microsystems to embed the Java language, while also hiring Brendan Eich to embed the Scheme language. > The goal was a "language for the masses", "to help nonprogrammers create dynamic, interactive Web sites". Netscape management soon decided that the best option was for Eich to devise a new language, with syntax similar to Java and less like Scheme or other extant scripting languages. > [...] > The choice of the JavaScript name has caused confusion, implying that it is directly related to Java. At the time, the dot-com boom had begun and Java was a popular new language, so Eich considered the JavaScript name a marketing ploy by Netscape. Some people might have used it for the purpose you claim, but that's not why it was invinted.
  - josefx 3mo ago
    > Netscape decided to add a programming language to Navigator. They pursued two routes to achieve this: And the reason for that two language approach is given in the linked source: > We aimed to provide a “glue language” for the Web designers and part time programmers who were building Web content from components such as images, plugins, and Java applets. We saw Java as the “component language” used by higher-priced programmers, where the glue programmers—the Web page designers—would assemble components and automate their interactions using [a scripting language]. Earlier sources clearly state that Java was intended as the primary language and JavaScript merely acting as glue.
sfn42 3mo ago
Yeah but we were kids, we didn't give a shit about any of that. Kind of still don't give a shit about any of it tbh. There's security holes in everything anyway.

mvdtnz 3mo ago

The overwhelming majority of computer users simply DO NOT CARE about things like "install a binary blob" or "free-software hostile vendor" or "non-existent Linux support". They installed the plugin and got a way better experience. > Flash was a constant embarassment of RCEs vulns I wonder if anyone has done an analysis of Flash versus Javascript (or other browser technology) vulns over their respective lifespans.

kstrauser 3mo ago
If Flash hadn’t sucked harder than a neutron star, that would be an argument to have. People install lots of proprietary plugins today. Flash would’ve been just one more on that list. But it did suck, and badly. It crashed the browser all the freaking time, often hard enough to crash the whole OS. (“But the OS shouldn’t let that happen!” True, although even with that said, it was in the short list of common apps capable of crashing that badly. It was almost a talent.) Flash was horrid. While idea was fine, the implementation was terrible. No mobile OS could have run it solidly and without sucking batteries like no tomorrow. Flash in the right hands could have been nice. We’ll never know because that never happened.
- radley 3mo ago
  > No mobile OS could have run it solidly and without sucking batteries like no tomorrow. By the time mobile could run Flash, it was too late. Between Apple & Adobe, it had no shot of making the transition. But before that, Flash was pretty amazing.
  - kstrauser 3mo ago
    It was never amazing. It was adequate to give creative people a way to work around its many shortcomings and make something cool anyway. The tech and the implementation was awful, and all credit goes to people who still managed to shine through it. For all the many reasons people might dislike Apple, they were 100% in the right on this topic. Flash needed to die. It got everyone to collectively push the web standard technologies ahead into something way, way better.
    - sdenton4 3mo ago
      And yet, there was no html5 newgrounds. The magic of flash was that it gave a space where a music person, an art person, and a programmer could bang something out. The barrier to entry was comically low, which allowed an absolute explosion of content. Sometimes good products happen despite bad technical foundations.
      - zimpenfish 3mo ago
        > And yet, there was no html5 newgrounds. Let me introduce you to itch.io[0] where, in fact, people bang out HTML5 games at a rate that will stagger your eyeballs. (Even me, a resolute "backend-only" dinosaur managed to use a HTML5 game engine to knock something out playable in an hour or two.) [0] https://itch.io/games/platform-web https://itch.io/games/platform-web - ~689k results
    - radley 3mo ago
      > The tech and the implementation was awful, and all credit goes to people who still managed to shine through it. Sorry, that's simply not true. The tech was ahead of its time. The implementation was intuitive. Only developers and Steve Jobs hated it, because Flash made it way too easy for anyone to make something fun.
      - tekchip 3mo ago
        Also anyone who gave two shits about security hated it because it was a security nightmare. Don't leave a hater out.
- GoblinSlayer 3mo ago
  Still nothing can solidly run arbitrary code from internets, be it flash, java applets, javascript or even webp and web fonts.

echelon 3mo ago

[flagged]

likeclockwork 3mo ago
Sure, but Adobe was never going to solve them.
dghlsakjg 3mo ago
I was an average-joe high school student back then. People hated flash. Even non techies.
- dpark 3mo ago
  What’s “back then” to you? Flash grew up in the time of dial up when you could still get AOL install discs with 100 free hours in your typical grocery store PC magazine. I don’t recall people hating Flash a lot until later when it wasn’t a technical necessity anymore.
  - dghlsakjg 3mo ago
    The first computer I remember using was a Compaq Portable with a green screen and DOS that my dad was allowed to bring home on weekends. I vividly remember going to Circuit City as a family to buy our first windows 3.1 machine. Flash was very cool, at first, then it got used for WAY too much stuff that had no graceful degradation so you were stuck waiting a few minutes for an animation to load so you could see the content stuck behind flash.
    - dpark 3mo ago
      Flash certainly became broadly hated. It had a pretty long stretch of being loved, and enabling content that was loved, though. Up until about 2005 or so, flash was critical tech for the young web. By 2010 it was clearly heading toward an end.
      - 3mo ago

dpark 3mo ago

I remember the time of browser plug-ins (not “extensions”). Everyone happily installed Flash, and the Crescendo midi plugin, and multiple other in-retrospect-ill-advised plugins to enable fun stuff to work in their browser. The “everyone hates Flash” stuff came later. It served a purpose for quite a while and people loved it. Newgrounds was a place of magic.

riffraff 3mo ago
FYI, just cause I discovered this recently and I was mildly mind blown: newgrounds is alive and kicking with new stuff. I do miss kongregate tho.
wredcoll 3mo ago
I mean, flash was always a pain in the ass, even when you got it working. The animations and games were great and I'm a big fan of stuff that tries to make it easy to publish programs like that, but I was still a teenager when apple announced they weren't supporting it and I was genuinely happy because I was so annoyed using it even on a windows pc.

josefx 3mo ago

> Having to install a binary blob from a free-software hostile vendor that wanted a monopoly to load a website was always ridiculous ask. The entire browser ecosystem started out closed source. Even JavaScript was written to interact with closed source Java Applets. > Flash was a constant embarassment of RCEs vulns Browsers still are the goto target for contests like Pwn2own. It is almost like inviting the entire world to run untrusted code on your computer is not a great idea, no matter how many security buzzwords browser makers like to throw arround.

kstrauser 3mo ago
> The entire browser ecosystem started out closed source. That is completely, 100%, untrue and not remotely historically accurate. WorldWideWeb (the first web browser) was public domain. Lynx came out in 1992. Mozilla was open sourced in 1998. There was never a time when the "entire" browser ecosystem was closed source. It certainly didn't start that way. > Even JavaScript was written to interact with closed source Java Applets. No, it wasn't. From WP (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JavaScript https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JavaScript): > Netscape decided to add a programming language to Navigator. They pursued two routes to achieve this: collaborating with Sun Microsystems to embed the Java language, while also hiring Brendan Eich to embed the Scheme language. > The goal was a "language for the masses", "to help nonprogrammers create dynamic, interactive Web sites". Netscape management soon decided that the best option was for Eich to devise a new language, with syntax similar to Java and less like Scheme or other extant scripting languages. > [...] > The choice of the JavaScript name has caused confusion, implying that it is directly related to Java. At the time, the dot-com boom had begun and Java was a popular new language, so Eich considered the JavaScript name a marketing ploy by Netscape. Some people might have used it for the purpose you claim, but that's not why it was invinted.
- josefx 3mo ago
  > Netscape decided to add a programming language to Navigator. They pursued two routes to achieve this: And the reason for that two language approach is given in the linked source: > We aimed to provide a “glue language” for the Web designers and part time programmers who were building Web content from components such as images, plugins, and Java applets. We saw Java as the “component language” used by higher-priced programmers, where the glue programmers—the Web page designers—would assemble components and automate their interactions using [a scripting language]. Earlier sources clearly state that Java was intended as the primary language and JavaScript merely acting as glue.

sfn42 3mo ago

Yeah but we were kids, we didn't give a shit about any of that. Kind of still don't give a shit about any of it tbh. There's security holes in everything anyway.