
The Call to Kill Adobe’s Flash in Favor of HTML5 Is Rising - werencole
http://arc.applause.com/2015/07/14/flash-vulnerability-html5-replacement/
======
cwyers
Let's say that we can get every major site to stop using Flash going forward,
and that we can paper over it with HTML5 and polyfills. Great.

What do we do about the historic content that will never, ever be ported to
anything other than Flash? Every thing on Kongregate? Newgrounds?
Homestarrunner.com? Desktop Tower Defense? We're talking about taking a
decade's worth of interactive web content and declaring it no longer relevant.
Without a plan for preserving that material and continuing to make it
accessible, I think that killing off Flash rather than deprecating it is a
terrible idea.

~~~
andrewmcwatters
I get really tired of the industry's widespread bandwagoning on this issue in
particular. This bandwagoning dismisses more collective works and industries
than any technology in the past just for the sake of promoting bleeding edge,
evergreen tech.

What about the game industry? What about the animation industry? HTML5 doesn't
replace Flash for those arenas. It's blatant ignorance for individuals to even
come out and claim Adobe should set and end of life date for the product. Sure
Flash has had some issues, and they came at the expense of FutureWave
Software, Macromedia, and Adobe moving faster than anyone in the web industry
at the time, with different goals, that just happen to now be of interest to
web developers at large.

The reality is that web tech has just eaten into and provided standardized
variants of features that Flash/Shockwave has had for __over TWO decades.
__Yeah, real progressive of the web community. _Slow clap._

~~~
jamescostian
> What about the game industry? What about the animation industry? HTML5
> doesn't replace Flash for those arenas

In the gaming arena, you can look at
[http://html5games.com/](http://html5games.com/) or
[http://www.kongregate.com/html5-games](http://www.kongregate.com/html5-games)
or [http://www.html5games.net/](http://www.html5games.net/) or even just
Google "HTML5 Games". Based on all of those HTML5 games it's clear that HTML5
can replace Flash in the gaming arena. There's only 1 place where HTML5 games
and Flash games are really that different - on mobile devices (Flash doesn't
work well if at all, HTML5 works like a charm).

As for animations, doing some simple Googling will bring up results that also
show HTML5 can replace Flash: [https://www.freshdesignweb.com/examples-
html5-animation/](https://www.freshdesignweb.com/examples-html5-animation/)

~~~
yoklov
I'm a game developer who has used flash in the past, and does HTML5 mostly
now.

HTML5 without WebGL doesn't match the functionality offered by flash, even for
just 2D content.

HTML5 with WebGL runs fairly poorly on a lot of machines, and not at all on
many as well.

I'm not really sad to see flash go (though I truly hope there is a way to
preserve it's content, and would be very sad to see that go), but HTML5 is a
ways off from providing the feature set and reliability of Flash.

~~~
andrewmcwatters
Yep, very well stated. I think Adobe should make an effort to remove features
from Flash that are no longer relevant and focus on a core set of
functionality that allows Flash to go back to its roots and facilitate the
needs of animators over anything else, really.

That's Flash's domain predominantly, and that's what it does best out of its
feature set.

------
columbo
I wish we would kill flash by providing a stronger solution. Does any
_application_ exist today that can replicate the functionality of even Flash
MX (now 11 years old) in HTML5? An actual application that could be given to
non-developers and not a series of javascript libraries.

[http://www.colorado.edu/geography/foote/geog4043/notes/flash...](http://www.colorado.edu/geography/foote/geog4043/notes/flashdemo/simple%20animation/directions%20simple%20animation.html)

[http://www.colorado.edu/geography/foote/geog4043/notes/flash...](http://www.colorado.edu/geography/foote/geog4043/notes/flashdemo/growth%20of%20a%20nation/frame_by_frame%20directions.html)

~~~
koonsolo
Writing games in AS3 is actually pretty nice. It will run on any OS/Browser
that has the Flash plugin installed, without compatibility issues, and can
export to all the major mobile devices as apps.

Flash for desktop browsers, apps for mobile devices, even Adobe agrees on
that. And if you just have a simple website, make it in HTML5 (Adobe also
agrees on that)

People confuse website content (which should be built on HTML5, I agree) with
rich 'clients' such as games. If you want to build games for the web, good
luck with HTML5.

~~~
slashink
agar.io seems to have done fine for itself in HTML5 as massive, popular
multiplayer game in browser.

~~~
tothepixel
I think the OP was referring to games that require complex animations, 3D, or
interfaces that use the webcams or microphones.

------
velcro
A colleague of mine was a very vocal anti-Flash proponent - he used to say
that he's tired of his laptop overheating from those 5 stupid animated Flash
banners (on his favourite news site).

The irony of it is - I'm not sure 5 animated WebGL banners would keep his
laptop any cooler...

~~~
osconfused
Here is a pretty neat WebGL site where you can test that theory.
[http://david.li/flow/](http://david.li/flow/)

~~~
Silhouette
It took less than 2 minutes for that page to put my workstation-class graphics
card up over 10 degrees C with the fans at 100% and audible from the next
room.

That's not a good sign.

------
userbinator
IMHO Flash was pretty good when it was still Macromedia Flash; after Adobe
bought it, things started going downhill.

I think the file format itself is quite nice (it's much more compact than SVG,
for example) - the real problem is with the interpreter's implementation...

------
super_mario
Unfortunately, Flash still plays Youtube videos more efficiently than HTML5.
On weak hardware this can make a difference between smooth playback or choppy
video or watching videos in much lower resolution that you normally would with
Flash.

~~~
erikb
Maybe that's true on Windows? On Linux the HTML5 version of youtube is way
more reactive, feels(!) to download faster, and the GUI itself is broken less
often (flash player often had some broken lines, or some elements that
seemingly haven't been in the right place)

~~~
super_mario
My experience is for Mac OS X only. I don't use Windows much and don't watch
Youtube on Linux.

------
EarthLaunch
The "kill flash" screeching has been at full volume in ignorant tech
communities for at least five years already.

~~~
cpncrunch
I don't think it's ignorant to not want multiple zero-day vulnerabilities
every week.

~~~
zwetan
you could tell that to all the browser vendors too

~~~
asadotzler
The browser vendors are fixing bugs faster. Also, Flash is not required for
surfing most of the Web where as a Web browser is. Flash is _additional_ and
_unnecessary_ risk.

~~~
zwetan
faster ? O RLY ?

please point to me a remote code execution exploit from any browsers that have
been fixed in 48h or less, I dare you.

~~~
indiv0
CVE-2015-2733 in Firefox 38 [1].

> Publish Date : 2015-07-05

> Last Update Date : 2015-07-07

Admittedly, most CVEs tend to take longer, but there's your counterexample.

[1]:
[http://www.cvedetails.com/cve/CVE-2015-2733/](http://www.cvedetails.com/cve/CVE-2015-2733/)

------
inthewoods
Yeah Microsoft has at least put a bullet in Silverlight (admittedly it was use
a LOT less).

~~~
werencole
Hey, that can be done: [http://arc.applause.com/2015/07/06/flash-silverlight-
html5-v...](http://arc.applause.com/2015/07/06/flash-silverlight-html5-video/)

------
sosuke
Ask Google Music developers why they still require Flash for the best
experience? You can call for its death but the call is hollow without a
replacement.

Isn't there also a possibility for the browsers to sandbox the plugins enough
to keep them safe?

~~~
wldcordeiro
On Chrome Google Play Music uses HTML5 Audio but for Firefox and other
browsers they use the Flash plugin.

------
programminggeek
One area where Flash was incredible - Adobe Air for desktop apps.

Seriously, there was no better/easier way to visit a site, download an app,
and have it push out updates. It was beautiful.

No other cross platform solution comes close to AIR in that regard.

~~~
reiichiroh
Doesn't this mean Adobe Air is a huge risk as well because it's based on
Flash?

~~~
cpeterso
Flash runs in the browser, so any random web page can run malicious Flash
content. Adobe Air is a standalone application runtime, so Air users know what
content they're running.

------
dangerboysteve
I uninstalled flash a long time ago and no issues. Don't miss it.

------
DannoHung
You know what's actually kinda interesting? There's going to have to be an
independent flash file player in order to view a _lot_ of content that was
produced when Flash was king. Like, I mean a lot of games and videos are going
to be strictly inaccessible without downloading a tailored piece of software
to specifically view them. Think about all the other common file formats that
your computer will just open for you now. All those flash files are going to
be basically in the dustbin.

~~~
sosuke
There has been for a very long time a desktop player packaged with Flash
Professional, I'm not sure if it comes with the free player download but I
expect it would.

The real problem will be the Flash games and applications that try and call
home to domains that no longer exist.

~~~
userbinator
You can get them for free from Adobe's site, search for "standalone flash
player":

[https://helpx.adobe.com/flash-player/kb/archived-flash-
playe...](https://helpx.adobe.com/flash-player/kb/archived-flash-player-
versions.html)

In the later versions it was renamed to "projector" but you can still tell
them apart from the "_sa" in the filename.

------
Thiz
I killed it five years ago and haven't missed it a bit.

------
erikb
Why does Facebook call for a Flash kill? It's nearly the only site in my
always open tabs that is still using Flash.

------
zhte415
IE (even 11) still has bad support for robust rendering of HTML5. Until that
changes, not a lot will happen.

------
mildweed
Ad networks are going to have to finally get their act together.

------
spotj
Wait, is it 2011 again?

~~~
werencole
Ha ... when this cropped back up, that is exactly what I was thinking.

------
amelius
Can we please also kill Android and iOS in favor of HTML5?

------
werencole
Really, isn't it time for Adobe to admit that Flash is a relic?

~~~
sp332
They have. Back in 2011 they acquired PhoneGap, which makes an HTML5 app
platform. And Adobe Flash Professional can make HTML5 apps now.

~~~
werencole
And yet Flash persists.

~~~
pjmlp
Because HTML still fails short of everything that Flash is capable of,
specially in what concerns games.

Also Flash nowadays also compiles to native code and is used by many mobile
games, even on iOS.

And DRM video of course.

------
edko
WebAssembly will have all the good parts of the Flash VM, with the important
advantage of being an open standard, right from the beginning, with multiple
competing implementations. It will really be the final nail in the coffin for
Flash.

------
kungfooman
HTML5 is plain slow.

------
zwetan
it's been 5 years or so that I constantly hear ppl saying "flash is dead", OK
maybe, maybe not.

Apparently it's not dead enough, HTML5 didn't grow enough in those last 5
years to kill it, so what ppl are asking now ? "oh please Adobe kill it
yourself"

and why ?

oh because this remote code execution flaw is unacceptable, humm OK, so
following this logic we should kill any technology that get the same flaw
right ?

How about killing Firefox ? Chrome ? Windows ? etc.

I mean that's what we are talking about here right, preserve ppl from security
flaw by killing bad technology that constantly have flaw, well ... why stop at
Flash only ?

ouh it took Adobe 48h to fix a security flaw, if your platform take more than
48h to fix the same kind of security risk it should be killed too, and there
we look into the details and oh surprise, how long does it take Mozilla to fix
a remote code execution ?

at least few weeks, well that's it we should all ask Mozilla to kill Firefox
too.

Let's review the others now, Google with Chrome, Microsoft with Windows, etc.
I mean really we have the great opportunity here to ask every single big
software vendors who ever had some security flaw in their software to just
kill them because duh it's just keep happening and it is unacceptable.

No, no worries, don't even bother to fix them, just kill them.

Because everyone knows that only good secure software never have bugs or
security flaws right, so let's do this logic thing let's kill all software
that have flaws and only keep using those with no flaws.

Hahaha it is ridiculous, every single software out there have bugs, flaws,
etc. and among all that yeah sure you have big security exploits waiting to be
discovered, but the important thing to understand is that it does concern
everyone.

If you say or think it is only Adobe with Flash you are lying to yourself big
time.

But fair is fair, if you want to lash out on Flash, yeah be my guest but then
do the same for every other tech out there because they are all guilty of the
same problems.

Software can not be bug free, it's like that, accept it and live with it.

You will always have a bunch of people trying to find those bugs and exploit
them, and as well you always have another bunch of people trying to fix those
bugs.

But if your logic is just about "oh this piece of crap of software is ridden
with bugs we should just kill it", then be ready to kill the next one, and the
next one, and the next one, till there is no software anymore out there.

go here
[http://www.cvedetails.com/top-50-vendors.php](http://www.cvedetails.com/top-50-vendors.php)
and starts to ask all those companies to kill their products

