
Smokescreen - a Flash player written in Javascript and HTML5	 - earcar
http://smokescreen.us/2010/05/07/slide-1/
======
recampbell
There is also Gordon: <http://wiki.github.com/tobeytailor/gordon/>

~~~
mahmud
WTF?

<http://www.cliki.net/Gordon>

~~~
unfletch
TTF: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flash_gordon>

------
kierank
What I don't understand is all the people praising HTML5 because it uses less
CPU than Flash yet Chrome ends up using 15-20% CPU just to render a simple
animation unlike Flash.

~~~
zweben
Some people probably just assume that switching to HTML5 content always uses
fewer CPU resources. There are plenty of informed reasons to prefer HTML
content over Flash though. One is that putting performance into the hands of
multiple companies will introduce competition. Just like with Javascript
speeds, you can expect browser-makers to start racing in other areas of HTML5
performance.

I wouldn't be surprised to see HTML5 outperform equivalent Flash content in a
year or so.

~~~
kierank
Anyone could equally write their own version of Flash; the standard is freely
available.

~~~
wmf
The amount of work required to do so is epic, and considering the rate of
Flash's evolution it's like getting on a treadmill whose speed is controlled
by Adobe.

~~~
not_an_alien
Funny metaphor, and very accurate. However, HTML5 is like that same treadmill,
only that people still have to build the treadmill itself. It's epic work
times two.

~~~
chc
HTML5 is mostly based on existing de facto standards. If you stick to those,
you're good with HTML5.

------
chaosmachine
Posted 3 days ago: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1387981>

~~~
earcar
I'm sorry I haven't noticed. But I do have noticed
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1387630> because it points to the page I
was posting, the homepage. Too bad it hasn't became very popular

------
raganwald
If this means that animated advertisements and other ad agency annoyances will
be coming soon to my iPad web browsing experience, put me down as a detractor.

~~~
jcl
The sad thing: the ads were coming anyway. If you build a popular platform
like the iPad, the advertisers will find a way to get ads on it, whether it's
with Flash or not.

But by banning Flash, Apple is pushing advertisers to HTML/Javascript, which
ruins the experience for those marginal, blissful few who use Flash blockers
on other platforms. Really, you couldn't have asked for a better indicator,
short of a mandatory <lowvaluecontent> tag. :)

~~~
raganwald
Hmmm... I wonder if we could build a bayesian filter for ad blocking rather
than deal with explicit blacklists?

~~~
nailer
The question is not whether you can, but whether you should.

People who make things deserve to get paid. If you don't like what they make,
fine, don't read it.

If you try and rip other people's content sponsors with a bayesian content
classifier they'll be more likely to have subtler 'product placement' style
sponsorship to avoid your ad ripper. They may also have things that appear as
ads to your rip app that are required to navigate or read the site. However,
rather than avoid a technical war, why not consider either going somewhere
else or accepting that content you like is made by people who like being
compensated for it?

~~~
raganwald
I agree with your basic premise--that people deserve to get paid for providing
me with value--but not with the mechanism of ads embedded in content.

A few reasons:

If the creator deserves to get paid, he can put up a pay wall and we can do
business or I can go elsewhere. If that basic business model doesn't work,
that is a strong hint that something is fundamentally broken about
advertising.

Also, you pose it as giving me a choice of going elsewhere. How does that work
when given a link on HN or in an email or whatever? On some sites, there's an
ad right away and I can click a link to skip the ad, I can click "back," or I
can look at the ad if it's interesting. Fine.

But if ads are embedded in content willy-nilly, I am blasted with them before
I get to make the choice of whether to read the content. Again, there's
something broken about the model if the content producer can't set up a simple
gate where I can choose whether to do read their content+ads or go elsewhere.

Finally, ads in content are a deeply broken model. The reason Google is worth
a zillion dollars is that ads at the moment of search are hitting me when I'm
making a decision and they are providing value, even if they are biased. Ads
in most types of content are hitting me when I'm not trying to make a
decision.

There are some exceptions, and I'll bet they survive. An ad in StackOverflow
for a programming tool that matches the answer to a question might work when
I'm trying to solve a problem. If sites like that do a good job of working
with ad networks to deliver the right ads, they might survive.

Almost all other content-based ads are going to continue to git shriller and
shriller as they try to maximize dwindling attention. The attention is
dwindling precisely because they are trying to work around a deeply broken
interaction.

------
EricButler
Very cool. I look forward to a Chrome extension that automatically replaces
flash objects with this.

~~~
al_james
Why would you want to do that for? You would still have the annoying ads (or
whatever) plus the overhead of a chrome extension to convert them when the
page loads!

~~~
megablast
Clearly somebody who really likes flash ads, but for some reason doesn't like
adobe?

~~~
watty
Yet he doesn't realize he's supporting Adobe and Flash...

~~~
EricButler
I don't like flash on the web, but I do occasionally run across a site that
requires flash for navigation. I thought an extension would be interesting.
Also, I have an ad blocker.

------
pizzaman
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rfmbZkqORX4>

yes, it's all still being improved and the engines will be a lot faster in a
few years, but how about first creating a true alternative, then start bashing
flash.

I don't mind getting rid of flash, but please, lets try to move forward with
technology at the same time. Not two steps back, just to remove a competitor
so we end up at the same point three years later...

~~~
pizzaman
well, that comment was not really related to smokescreen...just the general
anti-flash movement.

------
agotterer
What are the footprint differences between the two? I assume FLV is compiled
and optimized for running in the flash plugin...

~~~
sosuke
None of the demos they show that I saw playback FLVs, where are you looking at
those?

Also worth noting that in one of their demos they say that it only supports up
to a "sizable subset of Flash 8" for playback currently. From:
<http://smokescreen.us/demos/intro.html>

~~~
agotterer
Whoops. I meant SWF. I'm wondering the footprint difference between the
converted HTML5/JS code vs the compiled SWF.

------
mtholking
I would really like to see a support table for smokescreen like Gordon has
here: [http://wiki.github.com/tobeytailor/gordon/swf-tag-support-
ta...](http://wiki.github.com/tobeytailor/gordon/swf-tag-support-table/)

------
sheldonwt
This could be a very revolutionary way to port flash to the IPad. There seems
like an enormous value potential for that if it works well.

------
Sthorpe
Its amazing that Apple has caused innovation by banning flash. I wonder if
this is sustainable, maybe an example of innovation?

~~~
snprbob86
I think it is just further proof that necessity is the mother of invention.

Flash was invented out of a need for artists to be able to create animations
on the web. Now there is a back catalog of Flash content which is losing a
home. A swf player of some kind is needed to preserve that content. Someone
had to build this.

~~~
Sthorpe
I completely agree with you. However, I don't think this is a invention
directly out of necessity. Instead, I would say closed systems with a
controlled goal might be the fertilizer for a better design.

------
ars
This needs to be packaged as a firefox addon and be completely transparent.

It would be great.

~~~
watty
Why? Performance is worse and you're not "stickin" it to Adobe at all since
you're still watching Flash content (SWF rendered in HTML5).

~~~
ars
I'm not trying to "stick it". It's just an alternative to flash when the
plugin is not available to you.

------
antipaganda
For all those people decrying this, and asking why the hell anyone would want
Flash at all:

Some of us would like to play Flash games on the iOS.

That, and the porn.

That is all.

------
apgwoz
In Chrome on Mac, the techno Strongbad Email played perfectly fine, and my
computer didn't burn me. I'd say it's a success, though still lots of room to
grow I imagine.

------
amanuel
#1 proof why Flash isn't needed anymore.

~~~
watty
because their SWF format has been open for years and someone wrote another
HTML 5 renderer that works with a subset of Flash content and performs
terrible?

------
NathanKP
Very interesting! Running the Smokescreen JavaScript flash player did not
cause my battery life to go down like normal flash does. I always watch that
when I am running a flash YouTube video or flash game.

It will be interesting to see how the performance works with more complex
games.

~~~
not_an_alien
Did you run Smokescreen with the same SWF you used in FP? How long was your
test, and what was the battery drop in both?

Tell me you're not comparing the decompression and rendering of a video
against a simple animation.

------
mitjak
Nevermind that: how does he generate those awesome avatars?!

~~~
ZeroGravitas
<http://www.splitbrain.org/projects/monsterid>

------
bnoland
Do the demos work on the iPhone?

~~~
NathanKP
There is a video showing a flash ad running in Smokescreen on the iPad.

~~~
bnoland
I see that now.

------
d0m
smart!

~~~
d0m
I can't believe I've been downed because I found something smart.

~~~
lotharbot
We at Hacker News prefer comments that have valuable, thoughtful, substantial
ideas contained in them.

Your first comment expressed very little. It would have been better to simply
upvote the thread; saying "smart" or "I agree" or "good idea" tells us nothing
more than your vote would have. It makes for boring reading, and as such, it
gets downvoted as a form of discouragement.

Complaining about downvotes makes for even more boring reading. Instead of
complaining, learn from the experience. If you want to express "I agree" or
"good idea", just click the little up arrow. Only post a comment if you have
something substantial to say.

~~~
d0m
Thanks for your explanation. I honestly didn't think saying "smart" was a way
to bored readers but if you guys say so, I take not of it.

