Microsoft's Edge Browser Will Auto-Pause Flash Content

H

HardOCP News

[H] News
Joined
Dec 31, 1969
Messages
0
The upcoming Windows 10 Anniversary update will change how Edge handles Flash content. Microsoft's Edge team says that, in addition to giving end users more control over Flash content, Edge will now "intelligently auto-pause content that is not central to the web page."

We’re aligned with other browsers in this transition from Flash towards a modern standards-based web. Over time, we will provide users additional control over the use of Flash (including content central to the page) and monitor the prevalence of Flash on the web. We are planning for and look forward to a future where Flash is no longer necessary as a default experience in Microsoft Edge.
 
What we really need is for all the major browsers (Chrome/Firefox/IE/Edge) to all get together and coordinate a date on which they blacklist the flash plugin and kill it off once and for all.

Make it a date with plenty of notice allowing sites to replace their Flash based code, and then just do it.

Based on the front page story today, we have yet another critical security bug patched in Flash. Flash just needs to die the hell off.
 
Zarathustra[H] said:
What we really need is for all the major browsers (Chrome/Firefox/IE/Edge) to all get together and coordinate a date on which they blacklist the flash plugin and kill it off once and for all.

Make it a date with plenty of notice allowing sites to replace their Flash based code, and then just do it.

Based on the front page story today, we have yet another critical security bug patched in Flash. Flash just needs to die the hell off.
Click to expand...
Agreed. With HTML5 I don't think Flash is needed anymore.
 
In Firefox you can set Flash to only play when you click on the placeholder, which is how I have mine set. No Flash here unless I want to see it.
 
rezerekted said:
In Firefox you can set Flash to only play when you click on the placeholder, which is how I have mine set. No Flash here unless I want to see it.
Click to expand...

Thats what my flashblock plugin does in Chrome.

Only problem is, many pages (though fewer than in the past) have flash integrated into them to the point where the layout breaks if flash isn't running, and sometimes you wind up with a group of overlapping placeholders in some corner of the page, and you are not even sure what they do. One of those placeholders might eb important to site layout, others might be collecting data or something...
 
Zarathustra[H] said:
What we really need is for all the major browsers (Chrome/Firefox/IE/Edge) to all get together and coordinate a date on which they blacklist the flash plugin and kill it off once and for all.

Make it a date with plenty of notice allowing sites to replace their Flash based code, and then just do it.

Based on the front page story today, we have yet another critical security bug patched in Flash. Flash just needs to die the hell off.
Click to expand...

Exactly. They shouldn't even bother giving a date with any notice. They should do it overnight.

Flash is seriously way past its expiration date and continues only to serve as security holes in browsers.

I mean why in the hell is it one of the only plugins that requires administrative level privileges to install? That right there speaks to how poorly written Flash is.
 
Last edited:
Sonicks said:
Exactly. They shouldn't even bother giving a date with any notice. They should do it overnight.
Click to expand...

There's still a lot of stuff out there that requires Flash for PCs. It will die off but it will be a few more years.
 
Zarathustra[H] said:
Thats what my flashblock plugin does in Chrome.

Only problem is, many pages (though fewer than in the past) have flash integrated into them to the point where the layout breaks if flash isn't running, and sometimes you wind up with a group of overlapping placeholders in some corner of the page, and you are not even sure what they do. One of those placeholders might eb important to site layout, others might be collecting data or something...
Click to expand...
If a website is built in this way then it isn't worth anyone's time, anyway, so good riddance.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Youn
like this
I have flash disabled entirely on my chrome. Works great, it's on chrome://plugins/
 
Cakemeister3 said:
Can Flash be disabled in Edge altogether? If so, maybe I'll try it.
Click to expand...
GbptlWD.jpg

Yes, although i preferred the way opera and now chrome handles it which is the right click to play placeholder, so you don't break websites. Why wouldn't you, you could always do that and just about any browser.
 
It should be no surprise Flash is crap. Adobe products tend to be buggy as shit, and their engineers and tech support tend to be next to useless.
 
heatlesssun said:
There's still a lot of stuff out there that requires Flash for PCs. It will die off but it will be a few more years.
Click to expand...

Forcing them off sooner rather than later will get anyone who still relies on Flash to get on board with the post-Flash world.

From a development standpoint, giving them no choice to continue with Flash is the better option. It's similar to the EMV/Chip and PIN conversion retailers are currently undergoing. The only retailers still using old mag swipes are doing so because the projected liability cost is cheaper than converting X amount of locations to chip and pin. At some point, the fees that are being incurred and imposed by PCI standards will outweigh the mentioned liability at which point they will have no choice to convert. End support for flash now and watch it fade within a year.
 
Sonicks said:
Forcing them off sooner rather than later will get anyone who still relies on Flash to get on board with the post-Flash world.
Click to expand...

History shows though when it comes to migrations of this size and scale, it's difficult to force because of the amount of disruption. There'd simply too many people complaining too ignore when all manner of things breaks by dropping Flash altogether.
 
Zarathustra[H] said:
What we really need is for all the major browsers (Chrome/Firefox/IE/Edge) to all get together and coordinate a date on which they blacklist the flash plugin and kill it off once and for all.

Make it a date with plenty of notice allowing sites to replace their Flash based code, and then just do it.

Based on the front page story today, we have yet another critical security bug patched in Flash. Flash just needs to die the hell off.
Click to expand...

I don't appreciate that sentiment at all. I'm really tired of browser developers telling me what I can and can't install. If I want to install a plugin that's not validated or doesn't meet their definition of "modern security standards," then I'd like to be able to do so. I've had to go to great lengths to get a custom compiled version of Firefox just to use the only plugin out there that does something specific I want done. I don't relish the thought of having to do the same for Flash.

It's not that I think Flash is a good thing to use, but I don't appreciate this "father knows best" approach where I don't even get to pick and choose what I get because the browser developers are acting as gatekeepers and taking away options based on their own values. I just don't like it on principle... people should be responsible for their own decisions. It sounds like the same kind of logic people use to say we shouldn't be allowed to keep guns in the house.

Rev Lemmon said:
Can html5 replace flash for games? Until then flash will live.
Click to expand...

Not by itself. You would have to combine it with some other technologies to do so. For instance, CSS, JavaScript... HTML5 by itself is great for canvas effects and video, but you need to combine it with something that can register mouse clicks and locations. It's non-trivial, especially since an entire generation of web developers was trained to use Flash, rely on the GUI in Adobe's products, and have no idea how to write lines of code. As HTML5 wasn't finalized until two years ago, the first university graduates that might have been trained on it in school won't graduate until 2018 at the earliest... and that will be from fairly forward-thinking schools, too. Adobe is developing an alternative authoring suite based on HTML5 and the other technologies from what I hear, and Flash is already being shifted to legacy support. But it's going to take time to replicate the abilities of Flash, retrain developers, etc. I'm on the other end of that... I never wanted to pay for Adobe's tools and couldn't afford an education, so I learned everything by reading the HTML documents. HTML5 finally gave me the power to do trivial effects Flash people had been doing for years.

Flash will go away, even Adobe tacitly acknowledges that it's seen better days... but trying to get in a hurry and force obsolescence down people's throat isn't going to make things better. I suspect that if we forced Flash out the door now, we'd probably end up with a proprietary equivalent like Silverlight... or maybe even desktop "apps" that only work on certain platforms. Everyone is assuming that people will just naturally go with HTML5, but really everything is moving towards apps. Getting rid of Flash now will just accelerate that process. A lengthy transition that gives people time to retrain on HTML5 and related technologies is the best chance we have of promoting it.

I think getting rid of Flash altogether will remain an unrealistic goal until at least 2020.
 
Last edited:
Writing games is nontrivial period, especially if it's from scratch. I've done such a thing on a GBA emulator in C before, for a class; was not fun (lol custom collision detection...). Chances are, there probably aren't many (if any) mature game creation packages written for canvas and javascript (but I may just be behind on these things). Compare this to flash, where that's almost what it was practically made for. So security is nice, but I'm kind of with athenian200 on this one. I'm using an old-as-heck version of Waterfox myself, because I hate how Firefox keeps shoving mandatory changes down my throat. It's slowly dying out in support in various pages, so soon enough I'm going to pretty much be forced to upgrade. Not fun.

Plus, I use Datatables on many of my web pages, and its CSV/PDF/XLS/Copy utilities rely on Flash to actually do the heavy lifting... because browser security policies don't allow anything else to. In fact, I think that Flash is about the only way to get something to the clipboard (unless that has changed). The alternative is grabbing all of the data you're interested in as JSON and then giving it to a server side file that will process it and create an appropriate document and then give a download prompt... which is a hell of a lot of bandwidth wasted for a hell of a little good. One of the points of AJAX and such is to not only make the page more responsive, but leverage the processing power of the CLIENT computer in computation of some tasks. The more you can use javascript, the less load on your machines. Considering how powerful a smartphone is compared to the computers that we used to have, you can generally rely on client computers to be more than up to your tasks, if they're coded well.

Maybe I've missed some advancements in web standards, but imo until Javascript/HTML/etc is fully prepared to safely do everything that Flash does, Flash should not be phased out. Web sites should only be moving towards greater capabilities, not lesser ones, regardless of security.
 
Goes to out to garage to turn on spare computer with windows 10

Sees that Edge still has no option to open home page in new tab

keeps Edge unpinned and unused until basic functionality is added
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top