Flash is dying a death by 1,000 cuts, and that's a good thing • Hacker News Board

Re: Flash is dying a death by 1,000 cuts, and that's a good thing

#41

Post by juggernautq » Tue, Aug 25, 2015, 3:31 PM UTC

0x0 wrote: post #30

juggernautq wrote: post #18

Please help me understand this obsession about building a secure software. I understand there are sensitive information like bank account, email address(maybe? if you are important). But most of stuff on your computer is crap for, I'd say, 99% of the users(me included). And for an average user the convenience trumps everything. All of this is fine if there is a perfect replacement for flash. No, there isn't. I don't…

So YOU're the one with the hacked pc sending insane amount of botnet spam emails and DDOS attacks my way. Thanks, buddy, appreciate it :) Maybe your PC is currently DDOS'ing github as well. If so then you are really doing a wonderful service to a lot of other people too!

That's not going to be solved by replacing flash. Or, in my opinion solved by update computer security.

Computers will get hacked. Any dominating pc OS, once found a security hole, will add thousands to the bonet.

This is really a fact. Also means, if you are targeted by some hacker, you will get DDOSed. Requiring all user to be security aware is not practical.

Re: Flash is dying a death by 1,000 cuts, and that's a good thing

#42

Post by exodust » Tue, Aug 25, 2015, 3:35 PM UTC

These articles are getting boring and repetitive. "Someone think of the children" is the only line I haven't seen yet in these copy and paste yawn-fests. This one actually squeezes "dying" and "death" into the one headline.

Flash is a tool that provides more power and performance in games targeting laptop/desktop browsers who have the Flash player - and there's millions out there.

Adobe have stated the new focus and direction of Flash is console-quality games and "premium video". The latter can be argued all day as to whether HTML is completely up to the task. But it sounds like Adobe don't give a damn about web page ads. They moved on ages ago judging by the roadmap which was written ages ago.

There's Adobe Air for those who want to use the Adobe Flash tools to make games, and target native mobile platforms. It's completely reasonable.

We all [should] know that HTML5 is not up to achieving console-quality games. Nor should it be. The current HTML game scene is dominated by 1980s looking games in the browser. That's fine, but the thing is they're not even as good as 1980s games, and they don't perform consistently cross-browser, often not loading depending on the browser. Or, they load but "no sound" or terrible frame-rate, or other glitches. Maybe a conflict with your ad-blocker. At least Flash is sandboxed from your browsing environment, with all assets nicely folded into the one binary for highly compact, efficient delivery.

Makes you laptop fan spin up? Yeah.. like playing just about any modern game does.

I actually hope Adobe keeps innovating and improving Flash. I'm a fan of open source, but I also make exceptions for things that are up to version 18 and been with us since the 90s. That's just me. If you don't want the flash player on your computer, then simply uninstall it.

Re: Flash is dying a death by 1,000 cuts, and that's a good thing

#43

Post by juggernautq » Tue, Aug 25, 2015, 3:41 PM UTC

joonoro wrote: post #35

juggernautq wrote: post #18

Please help me understand this obsession about building a secure software. I understand there are sensitive information like bank account, email address(maybe? if you are important). But most of stuff on your computer is crap for, I'd say, 99% of the users(me included). And for an average user the convenience trumps everything. All of this is fine if there is a perfect replacement for flash. No, there isn't. I don't…

> Please help me understand this obsession about building a secure software. You probably already know this, but it's so your things don't get stolen and your computer doesn't get exploited and possibly used against other people's computers. Wouldn't you agree that these are bad things? > most of stuff on your computer is crap And the 1% (such as your bank information) is the most important and would affect you the m…

> You probably already know this, but it's so your things don't get stolen and your computer doesn't get exploited and > possibly used against other people's computers. Wouldn't you agree that these are bad things?

In general, yes, these are bad things. But it is all about trade off, would you expose your bank account to watch some cat video.. maybe not. Would you expose your browser history to view some hot girl, to me, at least, yes I will do it in VM.

The current software world basically just kills off that possibility of me saying "yes, I'd like the trade some personal info for convenience. "

Re: Flash is dying a death by 1,000 cuts, and that's a good thing

#44

Post by exodust » Tue, Aug 25, 2015, 3:46 PM UTC

cousin_it wrote: post #28

codeshaman wrote: post #20

While I agree that it might be time for Flash (the proprietary plugin) to be retired, I'm totally against dancing on it's grave, as is the tone of this article. We have to respect it for what it brought to the world. Flash has enabled many technologies and companies, like online video (youtube?), music playback (....) , games, cartoons and so on. I remember how amazed I was by the perfection of the first flash websit…

Yeah. Say what you will about the the bad old times of Dreamweaver and Flash, but back then, visual artists could actually contribute to the Web without going through "web programmer" gatekeepers. Unfortunately programmers have recaptured the power since then, declared the old technologies broken in ways that only programmers can understand, and brought nothing in return. IMO that's not an accident. Many programmers…

Dreamweaver was a different kettle of fish.. not the same, it was worse because it messed with HTML code, injecting its own horrible mess of stuff including nasty javascript. Early Dreamweaver at least.

Flash doesn't mess with HTML, it actually forms a fairly good connection with javascript on the page with pretty seamless data exchange between the page and the SWF, back and forth.

Re: Flash is dying a death by 1,000 cuts, and that's a good thing

#45

Post by exodust » Tue, Aug 25, 2015, 3:57 PM UTC

TazeTSchnitzel wrote: post #22

codeshaman wrote: post #20

While I agree that it might be time for Flash (the proprietary plugin) to be retired, I'm totally against dancing on it's grave, as is the tone of this article. We have to respect it for what it brought to the world. Flash has enabled many technologies and companies, like online video (youtube?), music playback (....) , games, cartoons and so on. I remember how amazed I was by the perfection of the first flash websit…

> Flash has enabled many technologies and companies, like online video (youtube?), music playback (....) , games, cartoons and so on. We had online video and online music before Flash. The tag. > I remember how amazed I was by the perfection of the first flash website that I've seen. You could interact with spheres, it made high quality sounds and had cool animations and transitions. That was in Netscape Navigator 4.…

DHTML was a horrible buggy inaccessible mess for anything more than extremely basic stuff. No design tools, and they didn't perform nearly as well as Flash. And sound? I highly doubt that in 1998 there was any capability for syncing sound files to animations outside of browser plugins like Flash, or shockwave or other lesser known plugins.

Re: Flash is dying a death by 1,000 cuts, and that's a good thing

#46

Post by ufmace » Tue, Aug 25, 2015, 4:02 PM UTC

I don't know enough to write it myself, but it would be neat to see someone who did write a really good history of the evolution of the dynamic web. We've had so many technologies rise and fall, Java, ActiveX, Flash, Silverlight, and now HTML5/JS, plus however many dozens of minor players that never really caught on. It'd be nice to have a comprehensive record of who pushed what, how they all evolved and caught on, or didn't, why the technologies that lost out did so, and what the pros and cons were.

Re: Flash is dying a death by 1,000 cuts, and that's a good thing

#47

Post by ufmace » Tue, Aug 25, 2015, 4:05 PM UTC

wtbob wrote: post #14

hacker_9 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not really. Thesedays disabling javascript would likely render any webpage unusable.

> Thesedays disabling javascript would likely render any webpage unusable. Not any web page, and not completely unusable, but it's getting worse every single day. It makes me sick to see the open web perverted so badly. Web pages should be documents to be read, not programs to execute!

> Web pages should be documents to be read, not programs to execute

Says who? Seriously.

Some things are better off as documents, sure, but having a secure and efficient way to run apps over the web has enabled a huge number of awesome things.

And exactly what is so non-open about it? HTML5, JS interpreters, and almost all of the major browser engines are all open-source.

Re: Flash is dying a death by 1,000 cuts, and that's a good thing

#48

Post by exodust » Tue, Aug 25, 2015, 4:13 PM UTC

Aoyagi wrote: post #7

Yes, it'll be great when all Flash advertisements with loud music become HTML5 ones and you'll need a 3rd party tool to block them. Absolutely the best thing along with killing off one of the most powerful and yet relatively easy to develop with tools on the web. But hey, at least I was reminded of this site http://flashvhtml.com/

Interesting, hadn't seen that.

Flash version runs a lot smoother (as expected)... Firefox, desktop. Sound didn't work in the HTML version at all, and frame-rate was slower.

Re: Flash is dying a death by 1,000 cuts, and that's a good thing

#49

Post by k__ » Tue, Aug 25, 2015, 4:38 PM UTC

codeshaman wrote: post #20

While I agree that it might be time for Flash (the proprietary plugin) to be retired, I'm totally against dancing on it's grave, as is the tone of this article. We have to respect it for what it brought to the world. Flash has enabled many technologies and companies, like online video (youtube?), music playback (....) , games, cartoons and so on. I remember how amazed I was by the perfection of the first flash websit…

Flash and Internet Explorer stole us probably 10 years of technological advancement.

The state of the open web slowed down because of them.

And I see this happening again with native mobile apps.

Re: Flash is dying a death by 1,000 cuts, and that's a good thing

#50

Post by kitsunesoba » Tue, Aug 25, 2015, 5:00 PM UTC

cousin_it wrote: post #28

codeshaman wrote: post #20

While I agree that it might be time for Flash (the proprietary plugin) to be retired, I'm totally against dancing on it's grave, as is the tone of this article. We have to respect it for what it brought to the world. Flash has enabled many technologies and companies, like online video (youtube?), music playback (....) , games, cartoons and so on. I remember how amazed I was by the perfection of the first flash websit…

Yeah. Say what you will about the the bad old times of Dreamweaver and Flash, but back then, visual artists could actually contribute to the Web without going through "web programmer" gatekeepers. Unfortunately programmers have recaptured the power since then, declared the old technologies broken in ways that only programmers can understand, and brought nothing in return. IMO that's not an accident. Many programmers…

I don't think developers have problems with user-enabling technologies (at least I don't). What we do have problems with, however, are technologies that suck away our battery life and CPU time with little or no return, all while bringing a steady stream of exploitable security holes. If Adobe had actually made a serious effort to make Flash a lean, secure machine it'd still be around. Instead, they decided to just keep tacking on new features rather than spending several releases doing heavy optimization and only reactively dealt with security, so here we are.

The bottom line is that nobody but Adobe is to blame for the death of Flash.