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Without Flash the current web tech stack might look different

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Re: Without Flash the current web tech stack might look different

#111

Post by pjmlp »

Laforet wrote: post #60
dyarosla wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think Flash screwed up security because of the way users could control what Flash had access to (through a Security Sandbox Controller on the Macromedia/Adobe website) Imagine that instead Flash went the way of App Permissions: asking users for permission to access, read, and write different things to the browser. Could you imagine? Advertisers wouldn't be able to pull as many annoying/shady things, and security wo…

Madobe once closely guarded the Flash player code base, yet their approach rapidly shifted to total abandonment in the early 2010s after realising that the chance to have a presence on modern smartphones had already sailed. All the issues that followed were symptoms of neglect. A similar lack of comittment is also what doomed AIR which had a chance to succeed - after all there was a tonne of existing content waiting…

Flash is well present in modern smartphones, given that it also compiles to native code nowadays.

Re: Without Flash the current web tech stack might look different

#112

Post by pjmlp »

freehunter wrote: post #30
StillBored wrote: post #12

The question is, do any of the existing web stacks come close to the beginner friendly aspects of the original flash? I don't think so.. I can imagine any of my musician friends installing $FRAMEWORK and building a web site full of their own animations, menu's, and music playback.. Flash for all its "evilness" still IMHO hasn't been matched.

Similarly, Visual Basic. Has anything since allowed non-programmers to build a GUI as easily as that? Just drag and drop, then double click the button and follow the on-screen prompts to glue it all together. It gets a lot of shit from real developers, but what can match it?

Delphi, Borland's response to VB but with a saner programming language, with AOT compilation to native code (VB only got it on version 6).

Re: Without Flash the current web tech stack might look different

#113

Post by [deleted] »

IIAOPSW wrote: post #99
theamk wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't remember the flash permissions model being problematic. I saw two main problems with flash: - it was a lightweight and compatible way to insert animated ads. The animation consumed a lot of CPU. This is why most people blocked flash, and why most Apple refused to support it on ipads. - it had horrible security record. For some reason, Adobe could not fix the bugs in the Flash plugin. This is why IT department…

That's Job's stated reasons. My understanding is that Apple/Adobe rivalry goes way back. "Thoughts on Flash" was Job's "now the tables have turned" moment. Once upon a time Adobe wouldn't make a version of their software for Apple machines cause it was to niche.

[deleted]

Re: Without Flash the current web tech stack might look different

#114

Post by Joeri »

fenomas wrote: post #78
theamk wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't remember the flash permissions model being problematic. I saw two main problems with flash: - it was a lightweight and compatible way to insert animated ads. The animation consumed a lot of CPU. This is why most people blocked flash, and why most Apple refused to support it on ipads. - it had horrible security record. For some reason, Adobe could not fix the bugs in the Flash plugin. This is why IT department…

> it had horrible security record I think this is overstated. Sure there were Flash 0-days, but then it was probably also the highest-value 0-day target in the world. In those days Flash was more widely installed than any single browser, or even OS. It may well have been the most widely-installed application period. The point being, if Flash was inherently horrible for security (in some way that, say, Java wasn't) th…

I found a security issue in flash accidentally while working on a CAD viewer in 2005. They fixed it promptly, but even a minimal amount of fuzzing would have uncovered it. I'm not so sure they did all they could on the security front.

Re: Without Flash the current web tech stack might look different

#115

Post by pdkl95 »

> In my opinion without Flash the current web tech stack might look different.

Without Flash you couldn't do anything at zombocom[1]!

[1] http://zombo.com

// Now that HTML+JS has has the features necessary to implement the "flash intro page" experience, I have yet another reason to leave javascript disabled.

Re: Without Flash the current web tech stack might look different

#116

Post by j45 »

amatecha wrote: post #35
dyarosla wrote: post #13

I think what Flash (the program) really excelled at was giving creators the ability to draw, animate and program interactive objects, all wrapped in a single neat package . I would contest that no other software, even today, has come close to being able to do these three so seamlessly at once (Really, I encourage you to try to name one!) Sure, when it came down to it you can say it had poor performance, security, fil…

Well, before Flash was around, there was HyperCard (and in fact ActionScript is derived from HyperTalk, the scripting language used in HyperCard). If you're not familiar, definitely take a look. It's also somewhat of a precursor to the WWW :) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HyperCard

HyperCard, Filemaker Pro, Flash, Access, there were a lot of tools in this space to allow problem solvers to create experiences. I don't think it's about being the first, as much as being relevant to a different audience to achieve their results. Each did that well.

Re: Without Flash the current web tech stack might look different

#117

Post by fenomas »

vizeroth wrote: post #108
fenomas wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it had horrible security record I think this is overstated. Sure there were Flash 0-days, but then it was probably also the highest-value 0-day target in the world. In those days Flash was more widely installed than any single browser, or even OS. It may well have been the most widely-installed application period. The point being, if Flash was inherently horrible for security (in some way that, say, Java wasn't) th…

Just because no one managed to create WannaCry for Flash doesn't mean the security problems are overstated. They've published over 50 vulnerabilities in Flash this year, when the installed base is in the toilet. Java may be worse (or it may not be, but I would avoid installing either on most client machines), but blowing a bigger hole in the system's defenses doesn't really make the slightly smaller hole any less of…

To be clear I was talking about the era when a lot of people were working on Flash - on attack or defense. These days (since, say, 2013-ish?) I doubt there are many working in either direction.

The point being, in its heyday Flash was a bigger target than any web browser, and I don't think its attack surface was much smaller. If Flash had 10x more vulnerabilities than browsers did that'd be bad, but I don't think that was the case.

Re: Without Flash the current web tech stack might look different

#118

Post by rtpg »

npgatech wrote: post #25
dyarosla wrote: post #13

I think what Flash (the program) really excelled at was giving creators the ability to draw, animate and program interactive objects, all wrapped in a single neat package . I would contest that no other software, even today, has come close to being able to do these three so seamlessly at once (Really, I encourage you to try to name one!) Sure, when it came down to it you can say it had poor performance, security, fil…

Processing, especially the javascript library is ready to go on HTML canvas.

the thing is that Flash basically gives you "dynamic illustrator".

A litany of tools for manipulating images and building animations right in the program, without needing to write a single line of code.

And then, on top of that, you can actually.... write code! And it works quite well!

Flash is one of the funnest programming environment to use for "interactive art". Straightforward things are almost always straightforward, and it's much easier to WYSIWYG your way through a lot of tedium.

Re: Without Flash the current web tech stack might look different

#119

Post by kbenson »

sillysaurus3 wrote: post #95
kbenson wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Yeah but certainly they were planning to launch an app store when Jobs penned his open letter on flash. That was almost two years after the opening of the app store, and almost three years after the release of the iphone. I'm unsure whether they really had a fully thought out app store strategy initially, or whether they stumbled into it sort of by accident. Even if an app store was planned, I'm not sure they reall…

This is correct. People were clamoring to write native apps, but Steve tried to deflect them by saying it'd introduce too many security problems. Carmack blasted him publicly, saying that if Apple can't figure out how to secure a unix-based OS then they were incompetent. I wish I saved the pamphlet that Apple sent to developers during the iPhone 1 era. It was hilarious. It was all about how to use Safari to write web…

I remember a while back (6 months? A year? two?) there was an interesting submission (well explained blog rant) about how saving webapps to the desktop/phone as apps was basically broken, and regressing, IIRC (I apparently didn't favorite it, and I can't seem to find the magic words for search to bring it up), Apple was a primary offender, but Google wasn't perfect either. If I'm remembering correctly, that's a big about face from their stated original intent.
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