

Farewell to Flash - jacobsimon
http://techcrunch.com/2015/08/23/farewell-to-flash-what-it-means-for-digital-video-publishers/

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stevenh
The author claims that Chrome and other desktop browsers will be revoking all
Flash support. Like it or not, the opposite is happening. Flash is directly
integrated into Microsoft Edge. Google has also doubled down on supporting the
Flash plugin in Chrome for the long haul; they continue to enthusiastically
cooperate with Adobe to write code to improve the plugin.
[http://googleprojectzero.blogspot.com/2015/07/significant-
fl...](http://googleprojectzero.blogspot.com/2015/07/significant-flash-
exploit-mitigations_16.html)

Adobe has no intention of ever announcing an EOL for Flash. People only think
to use "EOL" and "Flash" in the same sentence because Alex Stamos made a
melodramatic tweet during the uncomfortable 48 hour timespan between the world
becoming aware of the existence of Hacking Team's 0-day and Adobe releasing a
patch to fix it.

~~~
jeromegv
Doesn't really matter that some desktop browser are still supporting it, with
mobile traffic getting bigger every year, there isn't any use case for any
typical website to support it.

~~~
koonsolo
Flash supports desktop websites using Flash Player, and mobile through Adobe
AIR. You are right there is no use case to support mobile browsers, because
you can deliver your Flash application/game straight as an app on mobile
platforms.

~~~
jeromegv
If you're looking to ship an app, sure. What this article is about are actual
websites that use Flash in videos (non-games). When 40% of your traffic on
your actual website is from mobile, it doesn't matter if Flash is available as
mobile apps, it still won't run on your site.

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koonsolo
For those who still think Flash is dead, Adobe should anounce EOL, and it
doesn't support mobile, see the Adobe Flash roadmap:
[http://www.adobe.com/devnet/flashplatform/whitepapers/roadma...](http://www.adobe.com/devnet/flashplatform/whitepapers/roadmap.html)

~~~
justwannasing
"Adobe on Wednesday said it will no longer push its Flash software format for
use in the browser programs that come with smartphones and tablet computers.
Instead, Adobe will increase its support for HTML5, a collection of
technologies backed by Apple and others such as Google Inc. and Microsoft
Corp."

From 2011:
[http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB100014240529702043580045770279...](http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052970204358004577027923205009352)

~~~
koonsolo
"Adobe continues to actively invest in enabling developers to create and
deploy Flash based content as mobile (and desktop) applications via Adobe
AIR."

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nye2k
One reason why flash is not going anywhere:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Flash_animated_televis...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Flash_animated_television_series)

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makomk
"However, it’s important to remember that Flash was developed in a time where
the desktop was king. The long load times it commands simply aren’t conducive
to mobile environments — a deal-breaker for today’s mobile-first world."

Has he looked at the sheer amount of JavaScript modern HTML5-based sites
download, especially the advertising-based ones? They make Flash look
positively efficient and friendly.

~~~
abritinthebay
Having worked on both... no. Flash apps would routinely be 20-50mb of streamed
assets.

A couple of megabytes of JavaScript which is then gzipped to a few hundred
kilobytes is nothing in comparison. The biggest slow down today is in
performance AFTER loading due to 3rd Party ad code; not due to the weight but
what it actually does.

~~~
WhiteNoiz3
Having worked with both I would disagree with this statement. Image assets are
the same size whether you're making a Flash site or a javascript site (both
use zip compression, both support JPG's, PNG's etc). What you're referring to
is bloated microsites that went overboard on k-weight.

If we're comparing apples to apples, there actually was a lot of things Flash
did more efficiently. For instance, efficient storage of vector shapes, more
complex masking which allowed the use of JPG images in place of PNG's (which
resulted in a smaller file size), and a large API that reduced the need for
external dependencies (and thus code size).

Flash also had far more advanced animation capabilities that HTML5 is still
struggling to reproduce. HTML5 still lacks decent tooling for producing such
animations that work in an efficient, cross browser way. Think about why GIF's
and autoplaying videos are so popular now. They provide the most reliable way
to add motion and interest to a page and they those things are huge file size
wise.

One concrete example - we're making the move from Flash banners to HTML5
banners and finding that we'll need a much larger file size to even approach
the same level of polish that we did before. Whereas before Flash banners were
typically limited to 40-50k, the IAB is going to recommend 200kb banners as
the standard for desktop HTML5 banners.

Now I'm not saying the world should stick with Flash, but instead of just
ripping on Flash, I think as web developers we need to be pushing for better
tools and better capabilities that will allow for more creativity and
expressiveness than we are typically able to produce now. And just as a
disclaimer, I've tried Adobe Edge, Google Designer, and coded many things by
hand using Canvas, SVG, CSS3, etc.

~~~
abritinthebay
"What you're referring to is bloated microsites that went overboard on
k-weight."

Well.. yes, because that was what Flash sites were mostly used for. Yes, it
didn't have to be uses for that - but it was mostly used for needless crap.

I mean, that makes sense because if you didn't want the useless fancy crap you
wouldn't have been using Flash in the first place. It's even in _the name of
the program_.

The rest of your post is just justifying all the ways Flash has extra crap in
it that was used and abused. Yes - flash is a better animation tool than
HTML5. Guess what - most Javascript pages don't need that. Most Flash apps
didn't either - but it was still used a bunch.

You're making my point for me while arguing against something I've not said.

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zeveb
> We’ve been watching HTML5 impede on Flash for a while

I don't think 'impede' means what TechCrunch think it means…

Also, when I visited their home page I got an 'Install Flash plugin?'
dialogue…

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snake117
No doubt its going to be hard to phase out Flash. My browser keeps blocking
Flash on sites like Yahoo and its funny because then Yahoo's video player,
which is one of the clunkiest by the way, doesn't even load.

As a side note, I found this page to be a great follow-up:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_HTML5_and_Flash](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_HTML5_and_Flash)

~~~
snogglethorpe
What's really annoying is that there are quite a few sites that have flash-
based video players and so run afoul of flash-blockers (on by default!) on the
desktop, but then play just fine when viewed from something like an ipad that
doesn't support flash. ><

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JimmaDaRustla
When I updated to Win10, I decided to never install Flash on the fresh
install. So far so good, any site still requiring flash is now behind the
times.

~~~
mhurron
You don't need to unless you use Firefox. Microsoft ships its own Flash plugin
for its browsers.

~~~
JimmaDaRustla
True. I don't use Edge, and have disabled Flash as well.

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philliphaydon
I can't wait for porn sites to hurry up and adopt html5 video. Sick of flash.

~~~
SXX
Most of porn sites has HTML5 video support for years. Just change your browser
useragent to iDevice one and you'll be surprised.

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nodefortytwo
There are still places where flash reigns, mainly in digital out of home.

Its changing though, but it does mean we need a standardised way of deploying
bundles of html/css/js and traditionally we haven't been great and
standardising.

~~~
fenomas
I'm no expert, but I gather that a big factor is ad networks failing to adopt
any kind of standards for HTML ads. Make a SWF that meets certain requirements
and you can use it with any network, but use HTML and every site has different
rules about all the sizes involved, whether you can use libraries, how stuff
gets cached or doesn't, etc.

It's not my area but, but considering it naively I wonder why all the ad
networks don't just pick a version of Swiffy, then keep using SWFs with the
rule that the content has to play well with swiffy. (Or maybe they already do
such things.)

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Aoyagi
I will never understand the hatred towards Flash, especially considering a
good browser can just block flash elements (please let's not call them "apps")
in a click-to-play fashion...

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bshimmin
"Over the years, Flash has become famous for a few less-than flattering
features that can all play a role in hindering user experience, including
intrusive experiences, increasing page-load times, lowering a site’s search
engine optimization (SEO) and security flaws."

With the possible exception of "security flaws", replace "Flash" with "HTML5"
in that sentence and it still makes perfect sense.

~~~
cjhveal
I'm curious to know what aspects of HTML5 you think harm UX and SEO.

I was under the impression that overall HTML5 benefited search engine indexing
through defining and encouraging the use of semantic tags and embedded
microdata. Plus extending the capabilities of the browser with geolocation,
drag-and-drop, extended input types, etc.

If by "HTML5" you mean that more extensive browser capabilities lead to the
trend of building fully client-side/single-page applications, maybe I could
see something there.

~~~
Tobu
A website I visit is using the new PageVisibility API to cover content with an
annoying message if I switch away from their tab.

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jdonaldson
Languages like Haxe offer a way to develop against flash targets, in addition
to other platforms like js, cpp, python, etc:
[http://haxe.org/](http://haxe.org/)

I think there's a chance that flash still stays useful, despite Adobe's
action/inactions.

~~~
jestar_jokin
If they switched the Flash IDE from ActionScript to Haxe, Adobe could reclaim
their lost developer mindshare, and make it enticing to continue using it for
2D games and animations.

~~~
jdonaldson
Yeah, I wish they'd do this instead of trying to do their own html exporter.

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kevinSuttle
Am I the only one who caught that the author claimed Flash powers gifs?

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Strom
It's an interesting sentence indeed.

> _there are still many Flash-powered multimedia items on the web, including
> graphics, videos, games and animations, like GIFs, a preferred method of
> expression for millennials and adults alike._

The author could have used GIFs just as a comparsion though, to help readers
understand what kind of animation is being talked about, i.e. "like GIFs", not
Toy Story.

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sharpercoder
There are still many developers and dev-shops working with flash on a daily
basis. It seems important they get an official EOL from Adobe with an upgrade
path (most likely to html5).

~~~
fenomas
> official EOL from Adobe with an upgrade path (most likely to html5)

Flash-the-authoring-tool has been able to publish HTML for some years now, and
an EOL from Adobe wouldn't mean anything (there haven't been any new features
for SWF authoring in years anyway, so killing the tool now would basically
just mean killing the HTML-authoring part).

The fact that some devs still make Flash content has little to do with Adobe,
and everything to do with the fact that some clients (like ad networks) still
want SWFs for various reasons.

~~~
sharpercoder
> EOL from Adobe wouldn't mean anything

I disagree. There are many people who simply say: Adobe is still developing
this, as such it is viable technology.

Eol-ing this would solve that problem. I agree it is not any technical
solution.

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shmerl
Flash is like a staunch zombie - just never dies.

