
Windows 8’s Flash whitelist goes black, turns on Flash almost everywhere - shawndumas
http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2013/03/windows-8s-flash-whitelist-goes-black-turns-on-flash-almost-everywhere/
======
randomfool
Another effect of Sinofsky's departure from Microsoft.

This was the topic of a very heated debate internally 4 years ago, allowing
the whitelist itself was a massive cave-in by Sinofsky who had set a fairly
hard line against all plugins.

I'm hoping all of the jaded Windows decision makers who so adamantly wanted to
ban Flash have been sufficiently spanked.

That said, I do wonder how well Flash will work on 7" tablets or even phones.
Flash waved the white flag long ago on Android and Microsoft most likely will
not support Flash across their entire OS line.

~~~
opayen
Flash is not available on Windows Phone.

~~~
UnoriginalGuy
Nor Android (discontinued) or iOS (never existed).

~~~
cpeterso
Adobe had internal ports of the Flash plugin for iOS. Ironically, Apple
assisted Adobe in the early porting work. However, Apple assigned the work to
an "intern" and the code returned to Adobe was such crap that it didn't even
compile. Coincidence or diversionary tactic by Apple? Suspicious Adobe people
called this "Project Boomerang".

~~~
robmcm
Do you have a source for this?

------
nivla
As much as I want to be on the ditch Flash bandwagon, I can't. Reality hits
hard, trivial things that gets done using Flash is impossible or requires a
lot of workarounds when implemented in pure html/javascript.

A few weeks back I was looking for a Javascript or HTML5 implementation for
those bitly style "copy URL to clipboard" function. It just doesn't exist
without flash (except in older versions of IE)! There are --webkit only
implementations for grabbing things from a clipboard but not for pasting to it
and I thought the former was more of a security issue.

Another thing I noticed is a smooth flash animation on my low powered Netbook
looks like a jitter mess when implemented in canvas.

Until these issues are resolved, sadly flash isn't going anywhere soon.

~~~
afhof
We're spoiled with Flash's mature functionality. HTML5 video and audio are
still too early in their life cycles to supplant flash. HTML5 also lacks a
good way to package a lot of files together into a single one like .sfw's do.
I always imagine what it would be like to try and convert a website thats is
made up of almost all flash like Newgrounds over to HTML5. Until there is an
easy conversion path, flash will live on.

~~~
huskyr

      > HTML5 video and audio are still too early in their life cycles to supplant flash.
    

What are you missing? I've been working with HTML5 video/audio for a few years
and features are on par now with Flash on all major browsers. It's a pity
Firefox doesn't support H264/MP3, but that will change in the near future.

~~~
brokenparser
_features are on par now with Flash on all major browsers_

So can we publish an H.264 and Speex encoded stream using a local webcam as
the source over WebRTC or RTMP in all major browsers yet?

Right, wake me up when they do.

------
ghshephard
Probably the saddest news I've heard all day. This gives
web/application/browser developers yet another excuse not to move HTML
standards forward to capture the flash functionality.

I was honestly hoping that Microsoft would have put a stake in the ground
regarding flash, and not carried it into their RT platform at the very least.

~~~
camus
read the effen post : [http://blogs.msdn.com/b/ie/archive/2013/03/11/flash-in-
windo...](http://blogs.msdn.com/b/ie/archive/2013/03/11/flash-in-
windows-8.aspx) Adobe added substancial improvements to the flash player and
it will be embedded directly in Internet explorer , like Chrome does.

    
    
        For Windows 8, we worked with Adobe to include 
        a version of Flash that is optimized for touch
        , performance, security, reliability, and battery life.

~~~
eridius
Adobe promised that a well-performing Flash on mobile devices would be coming
any day now, for several years. It never materialized. Forgive me if I don't
believe that they've finally solved it for Windows 8 tablets.

------
shanelja
I'm not a big fan of Flash, but one thing which sticks out to me and tells me
that Flash will still be around for a long time is pornography.

It might sound fairly ridiculous but one of the largest content and viewing
blocks on the internet is porn [1] and what are most of these sites using?
Flash players. it only takes a quick glance at some of the more popular google
ranked websites (and the majority of people without a favourite site tend to
just google their fetish of choice) to see how prevalent flash is in the
industry: WARNING NSFW. [2] pornhub, [3] youjizz, [4] redtube, etc, and they
all use Flash, every single one of them.

There may be a couple of fledgling HTML5 sites out there, but until porn
ditches Flash for good, it isn't going anywhere.

[1] - <http://onlinemba.com/images/internet-porn.jpg> [2] -
<http://www.pornhub.com> [3] - <http://youjizz.com> [4] - <http://redtube.com>

------
joenathan
Tangentially relevant, I wouldn't go near IE10 on the desktop, my Bowser of
choice is Firefox there, but for touch IE10 is amazing. Swiping left or right
brings you back or forward, being chrome-less and swiping down or up to bring
up the chrome works wonderfully, I find myself trying to swipe left or right
on my Android phone and feeling aggravated at the inconvenience of lack of
gesture control.

~~~
column
Use dolphin browser, it lets you set custom gesture controls

------
syko
Call me paranoid, but this looks like a good tactic to spread the maximum
amount of Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt into the already-collapsing Flash
community while still keeping support for the platform.

Reminds me of the OpenGL vs DirectX wars. (not implying the situation is
similar in any way, only the FUD tactic :) )

[http://blog.wolfire.com/2010/01/Why-you-should-use-OpenGL-
an...](http://blog.wolfire.com/2010/01/Why-you-should-use-OpenGL-and-not-
DirectX)

------
benologist
I think Ars just won the link bait title of the year.

~~~
joenathan
How is that title link bait?

~~~
benologist
Windows 8’s Flash whitelist goes black [1], turns on [2] Flash almost
everywhere

[1] did they just blacklist all Flash?

[2] another way of saying betrayed, attacked, etc

~~~
joenathan
If you are familiar with the terminology the title is completely factual and
not at all exaggerated or controversial.

A whitelist approach means only sites that have been specifically
allowed(whitelisted) will be allowed to use flash, a blacklist approach means
all sites will by default be allowed to use flash except those explicitly
blocked(blacklisted).

~~~
benologist
If you're familiar with English you'll note that there are two entirely valid
definitions to the sentence, as noted.

The negative meaning is particularly valid if you're familiar with Flash's
history in recent years.

------
fpgeek
This doesn't seem like a big deal. Outside of Windows RT, Flash on the desktop
(including the Windows 8 desktop) has been unrestricted the whole time. So
this only affects Windows RT users and people using the formerly-called-Metro
version of IE. I don't think there are many of those, so other than the
symbolism of the "future of Windows" moving back towards Flash, I don't see
how this has much impact.

------
lucb1e
I'm so glad I got Android and run Linux at home. Flash is nice to have for
many websites that otherwise would lack functionality or simply don't work.
Not installing it by default is one thing, but banning it is another.

------
vxNsr
I guess this was inevitable, flash is too prevalent to completely block from a
device that is being marketed as a laptop and it's not fair to selectively
whitelist only some websites, so this was gonna happen eventually.

------
j_s
So now what happens to Silverlight? What a mess.

------
camus
Great news , i can go back developping real apps with ASWING and not bother
with sh*tty javascript anymore. Who cares if it doesnt work on ipad... i'll
give the ipad folks a tuned down experience, that's all.

