
Is Flash Dead Yet? - 2010 - napolux
http://isflashdeadyet.com/
======
kijin
Four years after YouTube started "experimenting" with HTML5, it still uses
Flash by default to show me videos on the latest versions of Firefox and IE.
If Flash is not installed, YouTube resorts to HTML5 <video>, which seems to
play just fine, but still displays a big red warning about the missing Flash.
Why can't they use HTML5 by default and resort to Flash if and only if the
browser doesn't support HTML5? Why do they have to keep doing it the other way
around? This is the kind of shit that keeps Flash alive.

On a slightly different note, I really wish "DRM on HTML5" fails and DRM users
continue to be forced to rely on plugins like Flash. Not only do DRM users
deserve the inferior experience, but also, if we really want to keep open
standards open, there's got to be some fenced-off area where proprietary kids
can play by themselves and the rest of us can ignore them. If there's one
reason I want Flash to stay alive, that's it. Better Flash than some other
bespoke ActiveX control like the Koreans use :(

~~~
igravious
Why do people keep equating DRM with proprietary? Granted, it does allow for
lock-in, but it depends on who's doing the lock-in. I don't think the case has
been sufficiently made that DRM is bad in and of itself. I am all in favour of
open standards, no vendor lock in, I'm in favour of open source and free
software. Let me reiterate just so there's no confusion, I use Ubuntu on the
desktop, I use Gentoo on the server, I have an Nexus phone and tablet.
However, I fail to see how DRM is bad in and of itself. I would prefer if all
software was done in the open but I don't think proprietary software is evil
or morally bad. I think it increases the likelihood of harm to the user
somewhere down the line but I don't think the harm is inevitable. In the case
of DRM I think the harm is even more remote, what do you think?

Side note: what irks me is multiple formats ... Say I'm, an old timer, I've
bought an album on vinyl, I figure that should give me some deduction when CD
comes out or digital only or DVD-audio or whatever, I think making people
purchase the same content on different formats over and over again at full
price with no discount and not taking into account that you've purchased that
album before is unfair!

~~~
nwh
> _Why do people keep equating DRM with proprietary?_

DRM _must_ be proprietary. The whole point of DRM is that only the authorized
devices get the "special source". DRM is closed source, obfuscated binaries,
tricks and traps to drop people reverse engineering them. If it was open
source then the functionality could be duplicated or the special sauce
modified for any use.

There's no other conceivable way DRM can function.

~~~
m_mueller
I think it depends on what you define as DRM. If you see DRM as simply and
securely distributing read access permission, then there's no reason this
can't be achieved with OSS.

If however the provider doesn't accept the fact that the permission to read is
equal to the permission to copy something, then you're in trouble.

The formula could be so simple - distribute your content on high bandwidth,
highly available networks, give access on a per-device or per-account basis
(and charge money for that access), thus enable people to watch anything they
want instantly and safely, and you gain back pretty much all of the customers
you've lost to piracy, that would have bought your physical media before.
Restricting copies is mostly useless since there are copies floating around of
anything anyways. There's always been means to get content illegally, it's
just now that the illegal way has become easier to use, or more importantly,
the only way to get the content in a reasonable timeframe in the first place.
Letting most of the world wait years between release in the US and the
availability to stream and then wondering why they dare to download it
anyways, is just not a sane way to go about and it has nothing to do with
using DRM or not.

~~~
nwh
What you're talking about is not DRM, much the opposite.

> _If you see DRM as simply and securely distributing read access permission,
> then there 's no reason this can't be achieved with OSS._

There is. If it's open source, the special sauce can't be special any more.
The entire mechanism of DRM would be broken.

~~~
m_mueller
What I propose as DRM is nothing but an ACL. This is available with OSS just
as you can have file permissions in linux. The reason today's DRM needs
'special sauce' is always because of restricting the copying of content they
want to sell people - which is pointless IMO.

~~~
nwh
Agreed. Short of any break of the obfuscation, there's always going to be
exposure of the media in an analogue form where a user can point a damn
Polaroid camera at it. DRM just makes it difficult for the legitimate consumer
and easier for the illegitimate one.

------
gkoberger
Man I hate Flash. But for all the shit it gets, I can't help but be grateful
for it. Because of Flash, we've had easy to use video on the Internet for a
decade. It's 2014, and browsers _still_ can't do video as well as Flash.

Yes, it's time for Flash to die. But it really stepped in and moved the web
forward when the browsers and W3C were too slow. It deserves an honorable
discharge.

~~~
clarry
For me "easy to use video on the Internet" always was a direct link to a file
that I can download just like any file, and play in my media player of choice
just like any other video file. Flash never worked so well; it only ever
caused grief for its crashes, slowness, security problems, nonportability,
compatibility issues, etc. So far HTML5 hasn't worked much better.

I don't see how flash moved the web forward, it certainly didn't do so for me
as a user. Maybe it did for the guys upstream who would rather have control
over all my access to their data, instead of letting me just download it and
do what I want with it.

~~~
therobotking
For me the great thing was it allowed streaming video in a quality not matched
by the terrible RealPlayer and the like. Downloading videos is easy now but
back on slow ADSL to download a video was an overnight task but streaming was
pretty much instant.

~~~
clarry
That makes no sense to be honest. If you have the bandwidth to stream a video
for uninterrupted playback, you start downloading that file and begin playback
while the download continues in the background. In fact there's no difference
between streaming and downloading in this case, it's exactly the same thing.
The use of the former term in a scenario like this always bothered me.

------
Jack000
I feel like some kind of web luddite for saying this, but does anyone else
actually like flash?

yes, people abused it and most flash apps were crap, but now I'm seeing more
and more of the same done in css animations/javascript. It's worse too, since
most people just do something like jQuery.animate and update the dom every
frame.

I personally liked the actionscript 3 graphics api a lot more than javascript
+ canvas. I did work with it a lot so I could be biased..

The death of a closed platform like flash is good for the future of the web,
but some of the hate is undeserved. Hopefully it will have a second life as a
desktop app platform.

~~~
userbinator
It's also easy to block Flash (I have it disabled by default), but not so easy
to block JS or CSS animations selectively.

Having done some decompilation/deobfuscation stuff I've worked with the Flash
file format directly at the byte level, and it's really quite nice and
efficient for its purpose - although you wouldn't see that from the direction
Adobe's plugins have taken. IMHO it was good when it was still called
Macromedia Shockwave Flash.

~~~
Jack000
Adobe isn't even trying anymore. Last I checked they bundled a toolbar with
the flash installer..

here's an app I wrote in the good ole days, about 20k loc:
[http://www.partkart.com](http://www.partkart.com)

info: [http://www.cnczone.com/forums/opensource-
software/106198-par...](http://www.cnczone.com/forums/opensource-
software/106198-partkam-free-crossplatform-2-5d-cam.html)

code: [https://launchpad.net/partkam](https://launchpad.net/partkam) (yeah,
launchpad. I have a habit of backing the wrong horse)

------
sneak
Flash is more alive than ever.

Facebook video, Google Street View, half of YouTube - it's amazing to me that
Google allows this to go on (or maybe they're just strategizing against mobile
platforms they don't make native apps for).

Also, almost every video player these days outside of the biggest companies. I
recall trying to watch some US govt streaming stuff recently that didn't work.

We must continue the fight. The lack of HTML5 street view is particularly
telling, imho.

~~~
ivank
YouTube is ~99% HTML5 in my Firefox profile that lacks a Flash plugin and is
in the [http://youtube.com/html5](http://youtube.com/html5) trial. It's still
somewhat lacking because Firefox stable doesn't enable Media Source Extensions
yet, but that should be fixed in a few months.

I also see an HTML5/WebGL (?) Street View in the new Google Maps.

~~~
valleyer
99%? Based on what? Number of videos? Or number of videos watched? Source,
please?

~~~
ivank
That's just my guess, based on not running into any Flash-only videos. I've
loaded a few hundred YouTube pages in the last month. I see that VEVO videos
and the rare RTMPE-protected videos still require Flash.

------
level09
Flash is such an incredible innovation. I wonder why can't Adobe just make it
open to the public instead of watching it die slowly.

------
dmcg
Please edit the title to include 2010, so others can at least avoid the slow
realisation as they read the article that this is not a contemporary analysis.

~~~
alternize
totally agree - I do not see the point in posting (and even worse: upvoting)
such outdated links. it would be a different thing if it was regularly
updated, but the last update was from nov 2011.

------
lipanski
when I was younger, Flash was <the thing> in interactive web development and
UI awesomeness. you couldn't get anywhere close with HTML and Javascript and
Java applets were just about to die. 10 years ago we still had the Flash
Festival in Paris, where I saw some of the coolest interaction concepts til
now. those things weren't just websites, it was poetry! (and don't get me
wrong here, I'm not stuck in the Flash age, but it really was poetry and
really amazing UI)

that's about the time I started writing ActionScript and learning how to use
(Macromedia) Flash to do some basic animations. I got as far as teaching
myself the Flex Framework, almost had a paying customer for a Flex project,
but it actually never went beyond the hobby phase. the Flash picture portfolio
I wrote for myself is still out there and I love it. it's ActionScript 8.0 but
I never had any compatibility issues with any browser or Flash version. I
looks the same everywhere. and I bet the compiled swf file, which is still
online, dates back to 2003 or something. nowadays thefwa.com has been
rebranded to "the Favourite Website Award" \- it used to stand for "the Flash
Website Award". that's where I discovered group94.com a Belgium-based
advertising agency who were writing some crazy ActionScript back then.
nowadays their website has gone HTML. it looks boring. and basic. it looks
just like all the other agency portfolio websites out there. it used to be
funny and clever and poetic. it used to be well... flashy. take a look at the
Flash scene 10 years ago and take a look at how web interaction has evolved:
nowadays you want something cool, you get it parallaxed... millions of
websites all taking on the __same __design element. the Flash websites I saw
were all different in many ways. the Flash world was a place of inspiration.

I don't really remember when I stopped reading thefwa.com (which I used to do
on a daily basis). I didn't really notice when Flash got replaced almost
everywhere by HTML(5). I just did now. and I feel sorry for it, because Flash
used to be (and still is) a great tool and a great concept.

EDIT: I'm not talking here about the mediocre Flash world. there's plenty of
bad Flash websites out there. I'm talking about the glamorous one. and in my
opinion the glamorous Flash world from 5-10 years ago is still more artsy than
the glamorous HTML5 world nowadays.

------
frou_dh
I haven't had any form of Flash installed for a long time. For sites that show
me a message saying Flash is "required" to view something, it's amazing how
often that "requirement" instantly evaporates when User Agent is switched to
spoof an iPad. We can see that Flash is not only correlated with bad taste,
but lying too! ;)

------
blablabla123
"solid cross-platform graphic animation"

If this was true, I might have always been a happy user of Flash. In reality I
remember a few years, around the time Youtube came on, in which many websites
didn't work on my Linux machine. As time went on Flash is still the slowest
thing on all multi-tasking platforms...

------
soup10
Flash will probably make a comeback when mobile hardware can support it
without burning batteries(I wouldn't count on adobe optimizing it any time
soon, making non bloated software isn't in their dna). For all it's faults,
flash is an incredibley fully featured authoring tool for 2D multimedia and
casual games. Html5 may be technically capable of matching flash
functionality, but it's rarely as easy or convenient and requires a ton of
wheel re-inventing.

~~~
robin_reala
It really won’t. iOS is never going to support Flash, current browsers are
making it click-to-play by default, Adobe shows no interest or ability in
optimising the mobile plugin any further and every day advances canvas/WebGL
tooling. The best Flash can hope for is maintaining its niche in non-Web
interface (e.g. Scaleform UI in games).

------
ksec
I dont hate Flash. On the scale of hate Flash doesn't even come close to
Internet Explorer. I just wish it was a lot better. I also wish it was open
standard. It has its chance with Apple if it wasn't eating battery like X.

It also allows games that were previously no available on the web. Its
creation tools are top class compared to even today's Web Technology standard.

------
kripy
You have to remember that Flash is driving a $100+ billion industry in online
advertising aka ad banners (although you're all using ad blockers right)? And
this goes from banner creation all the way to ad serving technology. I just
can't see this going away any time soon.

------
finalight
based on the quote 'Much smarter people have written far more words about this
sort of thing; you should read what they have to say.", it seems like this guy
is either comparing them to himself or steve jobs

------
userbinator
Title made me wonder whether it was about NAND flash and SSD endurance at
first.

------
forcer
without flash my business would never take off -
www.broadbandspeedchecker.co.uk . There is so far no other technology that
would accurately show file download progress

~~~
robin_reala
The XMLHTTPRequest2 spec has a progress event for both uploads and downloads.
It might not be fully supported yet[1] but there’s a path away from Flash for
your business.

[1] [http://caniuse.com/#feat=xhr2](http://caniuse.com/#feat=xhr2)

------
byteface
flash is comic sans

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dsirijus
tl;dr

No.

