8 ms·
Serious question: why are people still using Flash? I'm surprised by the number of websites that use it.
by dhimes 11y ago
Serious question: why are people still using Flash? I'm surprised by the number of websites that use it.
- archgoon 11y agoA lot of advertising networks use it to deliver advertisements. Whether it is simple inertia at this point, or because the networks can get a better fingerprint using flash, I don't know. Also, it used to be the case that Flash had better DRM controls on it, but I'm pretty sure that reason is no longer the case since Encrypted Media Extensions got rolled out. However, that doesn't explain why Facebook's on-site video player uses Flash.
- shimfish 11y agoFacebook appears to have moved to an html player in the last few days.
- cpeterso 11y agoFacebook currently only supports HTML5 video for Windows 7+.
- hobarrera 11y agoNot for everyone, apparently. I'm still being prompted to install a plugin. Not only that, but images flagged as "gif" also prompt me to install flash (amazing how oddly these new features get implemented!).
- bydo 11y agoWhich is what makes these exploits so insidious: sneak an infected advertisement onto one network, even briefly, and you're now targeting who knows how many Internet users visiting legitimate, trusted websites. Honestly, one of the biggest reasons to run an ad blocker is the significantly reduced attack surface.
- ninkendo 11y agoThe advertising networks being the last to use it is something that will make Flash's implosion very quick and sudden, IMO. If uninstalling flash only causes you to miss out on ads, it makes uninstalling flash that much more attractive. Which makes the advertisers want to get off flash that much sooner. It needs probably just one or two more use cases to disappear (Facebook video is one of them), and its final death will be quite quick.
- steckerbrett 11y agoWhat websites use it? I've not encountered a single incompatible website recently, and haven't had flash installed for a long time now.
- skrebbel 11y agoPorn sites.
- ran290 11y agoAll my frequent porn sites support HTML5 video now
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- therealmarv 11y agoFB is using it a lot. For videos, for uploading pictures.
- archgoon 11y agoFacebook's inline video player uses it. On linux, I get a popup saying that I must install Flash.
- toja92 11y agoIn Safari on OS X, Facebook does use the native <video> player. I'm guessing that Facebook encodes video h264 which isn't natively supported in Firefox; rather it relies on support in the operating system. I'm not sure if Chrome on Linux supports h264, however since Chrome also includes its own Flash player I guess that Facebook may be using their own flash player anyway.
- hkmix 11y agoPretty sure there are some settings you need to enable in about:config to get H264 working in Firefox (assuming you have the right gstreamer stuff installed).
- jimmaswell 11y agoYouTube's Flash player still works a lot better than the HTML5 one. Their HTML5 one desynchs the audio occasionally, cuts off the audio before the video ends, doesn't support a real right click -> copy video URL (all it can do is give a popup with the URL), and still has other small bugs. The Flash one has none of these problems. It seems to be the case in general for most sites that offer HTML5 alternatives that the Flash version is much more solid. Maybe using HTML5 video in these domains is inherently error-prone, maybe it isn't, but in practice it almost always gets screwed up. Plus people still use flash games and sites like Newgrounds.
- frik 11y agoThe HTML5 video in iOS is rock solid (Safari/Chrome on iOS). The Chrome/Firefox/IE HTML5 video implementations could be a bit better (in comparison).
- eridius 11y agoYouTube's HTML5 video player has always been a shit-show, and I don't understand why. Vimeo has had an excellent HTML5 video player for many years, and there's at least a few third-party HTML5 video players that are pretty good as well.
- bitmapbrother 11y agoSpeak for yourself. YouTube's HTML5 video player has always been stellar for me.
- eridius 11y agoAre you sure you're actually using the HTML5 player? I am being 100% serious when I say I've never met someone before who thinks YouTube's HTML5 player is good. Among the various issues I've seen: * Sometimes refuses to play anything, without showing any errors, requiring a reload of the page. * Occasional poor performance. * Audio/video desynchronization * Scrubbing the video often causes it to get stuck, refusing to play, until I scrub it again * Videos often take longer to start playing than with the flash player. * Fullscreen is sometimes broken * Switching from regular mode to "theater" mode sometimes leaves the video playing in its original size, anchored to the corner of the now-larger black area that it should be playing in. I think it's gotten a little better recently (i.e. I see issues less often), but it's still far from great. And before you ask, I've seen these issues in both Safari and Chrome.
- darklajid 11y agoTwitch. Which happens to amuse me, which I like to waste time. But .. they seem unwilling to move away from Flash (the only thing I found was a ~3 year old support thread that wants to .. support HLS. Yay. Not that's not helpful)
- tl 11y agoTwitch without Flash has been available for a while now, if you were willing to use VLC + an IRC client. Twitch HTML5 chat went live on June 30th, HLS was prior to that. I'd say they're open to ditching Flash.
- darklajid 11y agoVLC for HLS I assume (and I only stumbled upon the '/hls' suffix for any url to support that by accident/in that ticket, which still doesn't seem to be officially closed). IRC for chat is absolutely new to me and would actually be quite nice..
- aw3c2 11y agohttp://getchatty.sourceforge.net/ http://getchatty.sourceforge.net/
- hengheng 11y agoIs there a nice way to get the stream to open in VLC?
- scottjad 11y agoidk about VLC, but with mpv you can just type "mpv http://www.twitch.tv/streamername" http://www.twitch.tv/streamername" and it plays.
- DrJokepu 11y agoTwitch works just fine with HTML5 these days, including chat.
- feld 11y agoUbiquiti products require it for some functionality, and they're wildly popular for Wifi and wireless ISPs right now. I actually just filed a complaint on their forums. http://community.ubnt.com/t5/UniFi-Wireless/BUG-Adobe-Flash-Player-is-Required-Click-here-to-install-it/m-p/1296742 http://community.ubnt.com/t5/UniFi-Wireless/BUG-Adobe-Flash-...
- ran290 11y agoTheir latest controller (v4?) removed the Flash requirement for both video (playback) and main (maps) IIRC. Do they still have leftover areas that require Flash?
- feld 11y agov4 is a long way from being a stable release
- hueving 11y agowtf are you complaining for? You don't like flash and they are removing it.
- feld 11y agoubnt has a habit of not finishing what they start. AirControl 2 is not finished and they're talking about Aircontrol 3. Airvision has been rewritten 3 times in 3 years. For all I know they're doing Unifi 5 in pure flash. I wouldn't be surprised.
- ran290 11y agoAh, I was under the impression that they've officially moved it out of the 'beta' naming
- Scarbutt 11y agoWhat ubnt products require flash? airOS works fine for me without flash.
- tammer 11y agoThis is like asking why people still use cash when there are so many other easier to use & manage payment options. The simple answer is there are far too many edge cases where it's still required - any single one doesn't sound like a good answer.
- ams6110 11y agoCash is still the most anonymous way to pay for something also, at least for most people.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- x0x0 11y agoMy 401k provider -- that btw I can't choose -- fucking uses flash for their entire website.
- phn 11y agoI think the truth is, technology that supplants it is still not there yet. Sockets, sound, video... And there's still a truckload of fun games available only in flash form, which makes flash relevant even if the number of new stuff coming out in it dwindles.
- marvel_boy 11y agoUnfortunately advertising managers love Flash. Technicaly there is no reason to use (see iOS Safari HTML dealing with video).
- sethd 11y agoI can think of one use case where Flash still makes sense: Live video A lot of people seemed to be surprised this is the case but tell me what single live streaming protocol is supported across all browsers without a plugin? With Flash you can stream HLS (HTTP Live Streaming) to a Flash player in full browsers while just directly loading the same HLS playlist in mobile browsers via native players (iOS / Android). This means you can deliver live streaming over the same audio/video codec (H.264/AAC) and over the same protocol (HLS). This vastly simplifies your streaming infrastructure and removes the need for transcoding on the server, unless you just want to create different qualities for adaptive bitrate streaming. It would be nice if "desktop" browsers all supported HLS and H.264/AAC natively, that would be a real Flash killer.
- endianswap 11y agoYes except if you want 1080p60 you just won't be able to use Flash because even on fast computers the CPU overhead is killer.
- sethd 11y agoI don't have those issues with 1440p Flash video on OS X running decent hardware. That said, I truly wish these remaining use cases for Flash were unnecessary, I would not miss it at all.
- TD-Linux 11y agoYou're right, live video without Flash is not nearly as advanced. However, there are several options that work right now: - Plain old HTTP WebM stream. Only one resolution, but it works. - MPEG-DASH - very similar to HLS, but implementable in Javascript via MSE APIs in browsers today. - WebRTC - low latency streaming, in some cases it might make sense to use this over MPEG-DASH even for one-to-many streaming cases, like interactive lectures and the like. Unfortunately several browsers lag behind in implementing the required APIs, so this does not solve all problems yet. But the problem isn't creating any new protocols, it's just getting adoption. As for H.264, it's mostly a solved problem with hardware decoders and OpenH264 (currently not used for <video> playback, but could be). AAC, however, costs more to license and is much more problematic, so there will always be some browser vendors that don't ship it.
- stinky613 11y agoIt seems like some B2B software vendors use it to keep people from seeing/manipulating their frontend code in web-based applications.