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Flash Crash (Warning, may crash your browser)

flashcrash.dempsky.org

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Re: Flash Crash (Warning, may crash your browser)

#52
post #47
post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I updated my post to explain why the bug is irrelevant.

Anything, including corrupt files, that can crash it is relevant because it is also a security vulnerability.

By my understanding, there will always be lots of ways to intentionally crash a browser. I know very little about crash-related security vulnerabilities, so I didn't see this threat as relevant.

Re: Flash Crash (Warning, may crash your browser)

#53

Why are Flash's bugs only a problem when when Steve Jobs mentions it? Is Flash really a problem or are we just overcome by Job's reality distortion field? Flash does stuff that HTML cannot currently do. In this respect hackers should thank Adobe as Flash helped move applications off the desktop and onto the web. When HTML5 has matured, the gaps in HTML will be filled and unless Flash has something new to offer, it wi…

The issue is that Flash seems to be getting worst. And we see a light at the end of the tunnel (new features being added to browsers to do what we use Flash for).

So the building of frustration with Flash over time, a general dislike of closed systems, and a light at the end of the tunnel has combined into the general "fuck you flash" feelings that seem to have sprang up over the last few months in developers. Which is awesome! As the web needs to outgrow proprietary plugins.

Re: Flash Crash (Warning, may crash your browser)

#55
post #53

Why are Flash's bugs only a problem when when Steve Jobs mentions it? Is Flash really a problem or are we just overcome by Job's reality distortion field? Flash does stuff that HTML cannot currently do. In this respect hackers should thank Adobe as Flash helped move applications off the desktop and onto the web. When HTML5 has matured, the gaps in HTML will be filled and unless Flash has something new to offer, it wi…

The issue is that Flash seems to be getting worst. And we see a light at the end of the tunnel (new features being added to browsers to do what we use Flash for). So the building of frustration with Flash over time, a general dislike of closed systems, and a light at the end of the tunnel has combined into the general "fuck you flash" feelings that seem to have sprang up over the last few months in developers. Which…

"As the web needs to outgrow proprietary plugins."

I agree. What bothers me is all this "frustration" showing only after Steve Jobs mentions it. I highly doubt his reason for bashing Adobe is due to his love for open web standards --

What I dont get is how hackers can side with Apple against Adobe given the iPhone App store mess... The model of the App store is against everything the open web stands for -- I think hackers should be more upset with Apple than Adobe.

Re: Flash Crash (Warning, may crash your browser)

#56
post #3

Much praise to the Google Chrome team for handling this sort of thing gracefully.

It handles it less gracefully than I would have assumed. If you are running flash in multiple Chrome windows, this will corrupt ALL of them, instead of just the one visiting the page linked above. Wasnt one of Chrome's huge selling features the idea of memory independence?

Interestingly enough the "libflashplugin.so" bar popped up on Gmail for me the last time that all my Flash instances crashed. I never realized that GMail used Flash. (The bar only seemed to pop up on tabs that were using Flash, not all tabs had the warning at the top)

Re: Flash Crash (Warning, may crash your browser)

#57
post #48
post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Memory independence + plugin that isn't designed to run multiple processes = plugin that can only run in one process. Imagine if Flash, forced into running twice, tried to read and write from the same cookie / any other kind of data, without any concurrency tools of any kind. Chrome has to run Flash how Flash wants to be run, because doing otherwise could cause massive problems with any plugin. This is part of why it…

This sounds a bit fishy to me. Of course Flash can be run from multiple processes simultaneously since it naturally runs inside of multiple browsers simultaneously, and I assume Chrome has some internal (socket based?) IPC that they're using anyway...

Part of the difficulty is that this problem applies to all plugins. Flash may be able to handle it just fine, in which case it could just be a poor plugin, but what about any other plugin out there?

Heck, Firefox uses a lock-file in your profile to prevent multiple instances from running. What's to stop a plugin from requiring such a file, writing / reading it frequently, and having no error handling because it's only designed to run singly? Ultimately, you either harden the separations to run multiple instances of it, breaking many in the process and possibly damaging data irrecoverably, or you just let the plugin decide and have backwards compatibility, which is hugely important for a browser.

Re: Flash Crash (Warning, may crash your browser)

#58
post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It handles it less gracefully than I would have assumed. If you are running flash in multiple Chrome windows, this will corrupt ALL of them, instead of just the one visiting the page linked above. Wasnt one of Chrome's huge selling features the idea of memory independence?

Interestingly enough the "libflashplugin.so" bar popped up on Gmail for me the last time that all my Flash instances crashed. I never realized that GMail used Flash. (The bar only seemed to pop up on tabs that were using Flash, not all tabs had the warning at the top)

Gmail uses flash for the file upload progress bar when adding an attachment. Will HTML5 allow developers to add this feature?

Re: Flash Crash (Warning, may crash your browser)

#59
post #20

ClickToFlash for Safari/Webkit on Mac is one of the best add-ons I've found. http://clicktoflash.com/ http://github.com/rentzsch/clicktoflash

Yes, but oddly it seems to circumvent Safari's protective spawning of Flash to a separate process when it does load. When I clicked the browser-crashing Flash app, it actually crashed Safari, and Activity Monitor never picks up the separate Flash process anymore.

Are you sure you're not running Safari in 32-bit mode? The separation is only set up when Safari is running in 64-bit. That setup worked fine for me; clicking the plugin loaded it, and a few seconds later it crashed and turned into the block without crashing Safari.

Re: Flash Crash (Warning, may crash your browser)

#60
post #48
post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Memory independence + plugin that isn't designed to run multiple processes = plugin that can only run in one process. Imagine if Flash, forced into running twice, tried to read and write from the same cookie / any other kind of data, without any concurrency tools of any kind. Chrome has to run Flash how Flash wants to be run, because doing otherwise could cause massive problems with any plugin. This is part of why it…

This sounds a bit fishy to me. Of course Flash can be run from multiple processes simultaneously since it naturally runs inside of multiple browsers simultaneously, and I assume Chrome has some internal (socket based?) IPC that they're using anyway...

Flash on multiple browsers has completely separate cookie and data stores. Flash on a single browser has a single cookie and data store. Without introducing a complex forking/merging infrastructure for that data (which only Adobe would be able to create anyway) you're stuck with a single process for the plugin for all of the tabs in a single browser.
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