Flash is (almost) dead

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PornoSatan

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Just letting you all know you don't really need Flash anymore for general use. The HTML5 player in YouTube covers most videos now. I been running an XP box without Flash (for added security) for a while now and have not missed it. Still need it for Hulu, but I don't use that. YMMV.

*edit

Meant to post this in General Software
 
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Indeed, I've noticed this myself on my phone, was never going to install flash on it and so far, haven't really missed out on anything. Loving HTML5!!
 
Negative. I still find too many youtube videos that require flash.

Just load [H] main page without it.
 
Unfortunately, flash is used for way more than just videos. It's long from dead.
 
Ultima99 said:
Between the embedded video and flash adds that help support this site its a sacrifice I'm willing to make.
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The embedded videos on the front page are from YouTube, which defaults to the HTLM5 player on my XP box. They work just fine.

reb00tin said:
So the media player is built into Firefox browser? Since what version?
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No, there isn't a media player built into Firefox. There is a built in PDF viewer though, so you don't need Adobe Reader either (another common malware vector closed). But since all the major browsers support HTML5, and YouTube has an HTML5 media player, Flash usually isn't necessary for it.

Demon10000 said:
Unfortunately, flash is used for way more than just videos. It's long from dead.
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Perhaps, but the trend is definitely in motion towards moving away from it, and its starting to really show. I really don't miss it TBH when I'm on my XP box. On this machine though I need it for things like Twitch, sadly.
 
YouTube videos don't allow over 720p for html5. Twitch html5 implementation is also pretty meh. If html5 were done right, then yes it would kill off flash. But most sites still don't use html5, so flash won't be dead for a long time.
 
xIronCrossx said:
YouTube videos don't allow over 720p for html5.
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They load fine for me.

Twitch html5 implementation is also pretty meh. If html5 were done right, then yes it would kill off flash.
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Done right? What does that even mean? HTML5 is not just video.

Flash would be long gone but there are plenty of IE8 users out there. IE9's video implementation is probably holding back things also. Speaking from experience, as I work as a web developer.

But most sites still don't use html5, so flash won't be dead for a long time.
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Are you referring to video? You just mentioned two biggest video sites on the web and they both offer HTML5 video. For YouTube, HTML5 is now preferred. Not sure about Twitch as I don't use it.
 
There's still an awful lot of Flash content out there above and beyond video. HTML 5 replacements of this content have progressed quite a bit slower than I would have thought. It will happen sooner or later, but it seems to be later.
 
PornoSatan said:
Perhaps, but the trend is definitely in motion towards moving away from it, and its starting to really show. I really don't miss it TBH when I'm on my XP box. On this machine though I need it for things like Twitch, sadly.
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Mobile and tablets are driving that trend. But a lot of corporate, industrial and enterprise video still use Flash. Advertising agencies produce predominantly in Flash. And even fed/state govt agencies that are pushing video, usually use Flash. But the biggest reason Flash won't die.. is DRM. HTML5 video lacks DRM. It's the reason Microsoft Silverlight's still kicking around- four years after everyone said it was dead.

I'd like to see Flash go away eventually too. But all online video isn't just YouTube, Vimeo and Twitch. And those still on Flash won't changeover to HTML5 unless they have no choice.
 
Copied from and interview on SteamingMedia.com in 2012. Feel it's still relevant.

"What's interesting to me is that I gave the same talk two weeks ago at Streaming Media Europe in London, particularly on producing for HTML5. With HTML5, we're not talking about encoding; we're talking about religion, right? Because Flash is "bad" and HTML5 is "good." And when you point out simple facts like, "Hey, only 66 percent of the browsers out there are HTML5-compatible, and then only 80 percent of those play H.264, and Mozilla still hasn't licensed H.264," people are like, "What?" They just get really riled about it. And I don't really have a fish to fry. But I want to work on the basis of facts. And the fact is, whether it's MPEG-DASH or whether it's HTML5, at this point if it's so good, why aren't CBS and CNN and FOX and ESPN using it? Why are they still using Flash? They're using HTML5 somewhat on the mobile side, but for desktops, it's still Flash. And don't tell me it's awful, don't tell me about the flaws. Show me people who are replacing Flash with HTML5. And it's just they're not doing it because it's not there yet.

Two-and-a-half years ago the iPad was introduced and Flash was dead, right? We all saw the headlines. It's really sad when perception's more important than reality. And the reality is, whether it's DASH or whether it's HTML5, it's just not being used. Not that Flash is this great technology. But it's used on the desktop, and it provides a superior experience to what you can get from HTML5. It's more pervasive than HTML5 and that's what people are using. And it just really stinks that two-and-a-half years after the iPad came out, the experience isn't the equivalent for an iPad as it is on a Flash-based desktop, yet people still say Flash is dead and it's a terrible technology."

The guy's name is Jan Ozer. If I had a streaming media idol, he's it.
 
krogen said:
They load fine for me.



Done right? What does that even mean? HTML5 is not just video.

Flash would be long gone but there are plenty of IE8 users out there. IE9's video implementation is probably holding back things also. Speaking from experience, as I work as a web developer.



Are you referring to video? You just mentioned two biggest video sites on the web and they both offer HTML5 video. For YouTube, HTML5 is now preferred. Not sure about Twitch as I don't use it.
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Done right as in it works/is supported as well as the flash implementation. On Twitch the HTML5 player doesn't allow you to choose the quality of the stream, hence you are stuck with whatever it decides your connection can handle. Personally I prefer to watch "Source" quality with a random hitch here and there(rare) than have it degrade quality and take a while to get back up to the highest quality.

Also, what about all the streaming services? I know Netflix does have HTML5 support, but what about HBOgo? SHO anytime? All the other smaller providers? And yes, I'm mainly talking about the video aspect of it.

The youtube thing seems to be an issue with Safari.
 
I find that most of what I want to watch on YouTube works great with HTML5. I refuse to put any adobe or java products on my primary machine. If I need to use them I have VM's for that.
 
Sp33dFr33k said:
I find that most of what I want to watch on YouTube works great with HTML5. I refuse to put any adobe or java products on my primary machine. If I need to use them I have VM's for that.
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Java is OK if its only for local non-browser based content. Once you start running a Java plugin for your browser, thats when all the nasty stuff starts coming in.
 
PornoSatan said:
Java is OK if its only for local non-browser based content. Once you start running a Java plugin for your browser, thats when all the nasty stuff starts coming in.
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Not entirely true. An attacker may break in using one vulnerability and then utilize the java found on the machine to escalate the attack. So you're better off not having it. A bit like having IE on the machine is an inherent risk.
 
B00nie said:
Not entirely true. An attacker may break in using one vulnerability and then utilize the java found on the machine to escalate the attack. So you're better off not having it. A bit like having IE on the machine is an inherent risk.
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Well sure but everyone has to draw the line between security and convenience. For what its worth I don't bother installing Java either period, but most of the Java based stuff that's being exploited is through the browser based plugin.
 
B00nie said:
Not entirely true. An attacker may break in using one vulnerability and then utilize the java found on the machine to escalate the attack. So you're better off not having it. A bit like having IE on the machine is an inherent risk.
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That's not really true either. If someone breaks into a machine and can run a Java program, then they can run just about any other program at the same privilege level and do whatever they want. Same with IE.

As for Flash... well... all of the web technologies including HTML5 are completely awful so we're basically going from bad to more bad.
 
jwcalla said:
As for Flash... well... all of the web technologies including HTML5 are completely awful so we're basically going from bad to more bad.
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Hahaha, what?

You've never spent any serious time with Actionscript if you think anything we have going on now is worse.
 
Anyone heard of Newgrounds or Ebaums World?? On those sites, its Flash all day :p
 
Flash only annoys me if a website uses it for UI, but most websites moved away from that years ago. I'm not bothered by Flash banner ads or embedded Flash videos.
 
jwcalla said:
I've spent some time with AS. It's going from bad to bad.
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Why? At least now you have choices if you want to build dynamic websites or play video/audio content. There's open-source formats to select from, and Javascript has more frameworks and a larger developer community than AS ever had. These things alone make the modern web much better for developers than one encumbered by Flash, not to mention the fact that Flash required installation of a plugin and everything we have now is native to the browser. JS has problems but none of them are as bad as Flash's problems.
 
CEpeep said:
Why? At least now you have choices if you want to build dynamic websites or play video/audio content. There's open-source formats to select from, and Javascript has more frameworks and a larger developer community than AS ever had. These things alone make the modern web much better for developers than one encumbered by Flash, not to mention the fact that Flash required installation of a plugin and everything we have now is native to the browser. JS has problems but none of them are as bad as Flash's problems.
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I'm glad Flash is gone but JS is really awful from my perspective. It hardly passes muster as a powerful programming language.

We really need a way of writing high-performance native code while still having platform independence. Flash wasn't that way, I'd agree, but HTML5 isn't a very good answer either. We're still a little too much constrained by the browser. And JS was designed for an era when the web was downright primitive.

meh
 
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