
FedEx will give you $5 to reinstall Flash - malmaud
http://www.theverge.com/2017/3/24/15052286/fedex-adobe-flash-five-dollar-discount-print-orders
======
detaro
previously:[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13949044](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13949044)

~~~
captn3m0
Just from 4 hours ago.

~~~
ilugaslifg
Judging by the upvotes and timestamp on that story (90 points, 4 hours ago),
and not being able to find it on at least the first 3 pages of HN (for
comparison, there's a story on page 3 with 33 points, 22 hours ago)...

That was one of those threads which just gets opaquely disappeared off the
front page.

Which is something I've been noticing happening a lot lately. Really big
turnoff from participating in this site.

~~~
tobltobs
> for comparison, there's a story on page 3 with 33 points, 22 hours ago)...

The ranking algo might be a bit more sophisticated.

~~~
ilugaslifg
Sure, but that's not all. Or maybe it is -- who knows. Certainly not you or I,
because the only information that is public is the score and the date.

The problem is the _opaqueness_ of it

Which leaves a lot of room for the appearance of capriciousness, and sometimes
even (though not so much in this case, this is not nearly that consequential a
story) malice.

[http://sangaline.com/post/the-stories-that-hacker-news-
remov...](http://sangaline.com/post/the-stories-that-hacker-news-removes-from-
the-front-page/)

------
canada_dry
They obviously did the math...

Cost to migrate internal apps to HTML5 = $$$$$$

Cost to bribe users to use an outdated, security nightmare = $$$

Come on fedex... this is next level stupidity!

~~~
swalsh
I'm imaging a few people around a table looking over a cost estimate, when one
makes the joke "We could give every user $5, and it would still be cheaper"...
when one person pipes up "well.... what if we did..."

~~~
csours
OK people we need to brainstorm; remember no idea is too stupid.

------
wmeredith
This is a spun headline. FedEx knows its site's reliance on Flash is awful and
they're working on a fix, but it isn't ready. They feel bad so they're
offering a $5 coupon to those who have to reactivate it to use their site.
They aren't paying people to prop up Flash.

~~~
Dinius
If that was truly the case, they ought to have moved away from flash "a long
time ago".

------
hermitdev
$5 is not anywhere near enough to bribe me into turning on Flash. UPS will be
getting my shipping business for the foreseeable future. I refuse to use USPS
for anything critical after someone sending me a package made a typo of using
"St" instead of "Dr" for the street I live on and it ended up in an overnight
package destined for Illinois being sent to Florida.

~~~
hinfaits
I thought mail was firstly directed to a center dependent only on zip, and
it's then further sorted. If the zip is correct, but a parcel ends up on the
wrong side of the country, the mistake isn't due to a typo but probably
physical mishandling of mail.

~~~
hermitdev
That was my understanding, too (and the ZIP + 4 were correct). I'm just
recalling the excuse they used when my package went to the wrong state and
arrived 3 days late.

------
Pxl_Buzzard
Why would FedEx require users to enable Flash as "run always?" Is there really
not a better solution available to simply whitelist their site or be given a
pop-up in Chrome asking to enable it temporarily?

~~~
eridius
If FedEx relies on opening a .swf file directly in a new window, you need to
select Run Always, because Google apparently doesn't give a shit about doing
things right and made it so no amount of whitelisting will allow it to run
.swf files directly (instead it just downloads the .swf).

~~~
dkersten
Where flash is concerned, for me, doing things right is exactly what Google
are doing here.

~~~
eridius
No, they really aren't. If a site opens a .swf file in a new window, Chrome
_should_ behave exactly as though it opened an HTML page that embedded the
SWF, i.e. letting me approve it, and playing it if I've whitelisted the
domain. Instead it will _always_ download the SWF if you have your Flash
content settings set to anything else besides Run Always. It's really stupid
and it means I have to keep Flash enabled globally (which I really don't want
to do) simply because Google doesn't care enough to handle edge cases
properly.

------
AngeloAnolin
This is such a band-aid fix when what they have is a gaping wound caused by a
chainsaw.

I reckon, can they be held liable if for example, someone installed Flash and
the machine got hacked or infected? It was their recommendation in the first
place?

------
Arizhel
I'm fairly sure I don't need Flash to print FedEx labels, however I don't use
"FedEx Office", I have an actual FedEx shipping account.

------
kosei
This headline should really say $5 off coupon or $5 discount as it is a very
different thing from giving people $5 in cash.

