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Firefox makes click-to-activate Flash the default

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Re: Firefox makes click-to-activate Flash the default

#82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We need a real open-source alternative to flash player. We quietly built the alternative to Flash over the last 10 years. It's called the web. A standard document in the web browser can play audio, video, display vector graphics, utilise OpenGL, supports direct drawing via Canvas, and it is deeply scriptable with a mature, open programming language. What else do you need?

Sorry, i meant alternative to the closed source flash player, keeping the same spec and not breaking compatibility. As implied by the comment.

You might be interested in https://github.com/mozilla/shumway

Re: Firefox makes click-to-activate Flash the default

#83
post #31
post #30

One option was to go down the Click-to-Play route which offers a HORRIBLE UX. Especially on Youtube which still uses Flash by default. Disabling Flash however, Youtube actually seamlessly falls back to HTML video. Well done. But I can't help but think, outside the Youtube world (BBC for e.g.). LOTS is going to break. I wouldn't take this tact with my parents or clients.

I much rather click to play over autoplay of videos, including on Youtube. My browsing workflow involves a lot of middle-clicking links to open them up in background tabs. Autoplaying video is major annoyance in this context.

This is something that Safari on OS X gets so right, that I've long been amazed (and annoyed when I have to use other browsers) that the other browsers don't copy the functionality.

In Safari, if you tab out a new page, it will load the content but pause it until you show the page. So you can tab out a bunch of video pages and they each only autoplay when you tab through them.

Wanting the same functionality on Chrome seemed to involve plugins or clicking (which has now turned into right clicking and choosing play).

Re: Firefox makes click-to-activate Flash the default

#84
post #60
post #42

Bugs are always bad (and security bugs even more so) - but I've always felt that Flash gets a disproportional amount of hate/hype in the media. To some degree it should be normal that the more widespread a technology is - the more it gets targeted for security exploits. If you run the popular browsers/plugins against the National Vulnerability Database, you'd get the following results (as of January 2014): - Internet…

Remote code execution exploits were found in Firefox at least once per month during the first half of 2015. The only reason we didn't hear about these cataclysmic exploits is because it wasn't Flash. January 20, 2015: https://community.rapid7.com/community/metasploit/blog/2015/... February 25, 2015: https://msisac.cisecurity.org/advisories/2015/2015-018.cfm March 1, 2015: https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/security/adviso…

Mozilla seems to take anywhere from 1 to 3 months to fix these severe bugs. Adobe takes days.

Source for this complete and utter FUD? Certainly not the links you gave:

Jan 11, 2015: Originally reported to Mozilla as a low-severity DoS, which turned out to be already patched in trunk Jan 13, 2015: Firefox 35.0 shipped with patch

It's hard to get dates out of the others because the bugs are still hidden, but the "fixed in" is often a security fix update after a release, which means it can't possibly have been > 6 weeks.

Re: Firefox makes click-to-activate Flash the default

#85

I uninstalled Flash a few days ago, because I didn't want to deal with the updates anymore. Since Flash was unbundled from Mac OS X it has become a pain to update. I simply don't understand why I need to go to the Adobe site to get the updates. Flash isn't super relevant anymore anyway, the main thing it's used for on my computer is Flash tracking cookies, and I can do without those. I do wonder how some of the track…

The update process is horrendous. Redirect to Adobe's website, follow a 3-step 'wizard' - where Step 2 is a placebo 10-second loading bar saying it is "initialising" - and Step 3 is an advertisement for installing other crap from Adobe. After all that you have to download a DMG, close all your applications and reinstall from scratch. Why not just build in an auto-update in the background and be done with it...

If you're on Windows and are not careful you risk ending up with McAffee as a drive-by!

Re: Firefox makes click-to-activate Flash the default

#86
post #58
post #42

Bugs are always bad (and security bugs even more so) - but I've always felt that Flash gets a disproportional amount of hate/hype in the media. To some degree it should be normal that the more widespread a technology is - the more it gets targeted for security exploits. If you run the popular browsers/plugins against the National Vulnerability Database, you'd get the following results (as of January 2014): - Internet…

So Flash is second in terms of number of high severity bugs and first in terms of the percentage of bugs that are high severity, only being beaten by Internet Explorer . By your evidence the hate for Flash is quite justifiable.

It's second to IE in both those metrics, but "percentage of bugs that are high severity" seems like a strange thing to be measuring in any case.

Re: Firefox makes click-to-activate Flash the default

#87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry, i meant alternative to the closed source flash player, keeping the same spec and not breaking compatibility. As implied by the comment.

You might be interested in https://github.com/mozilla/shumway

I knew of gnash, but this is another story.

Amazing, thanks.

Re: Firefox makes click-to-activate Flash the default

#88
post #79
post #10

Seems like only a temporary block. Mozilla isn't brave enough to put it out of its misery like it belongs. Still some big sites using it though, like Twitch.

If Mozilla finally managed to implement the encoding Twitch uses for mobile devices, I'd finally be able to uninstall that pile of shit. Sadly it's a licensing issue.

Yes, Twitch is using HLS, which is patented. The rest of the industry is moving to DASH-via-JS-and-MSE. Even Steam Broadcasts use MSE now.

Re: Firefox makes click-to-activate Flash the default

#89
post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Flash - sure, since Adobe doesn't really care that much. But HTML5? That's in browser's hands and support depends on your browser choice only. Did you mean any specific codec for video playback, or something else?

EME is not present on Linux yet I think. I don't really mind this however it does mean no Netflix without Google Chrome..

EME is there, but you don't have the CDM.

Outside HTML5 scope, though.

Re: Firefox makes click-to-activate Flash the default

#90

God will Flash just die already. Firefox is my primary browser and I run it without Flash. On the very odd occasion I need it I have IE in protected mode which has Flash built in. If a site does use Flash I will seek an alternative though as I hate it that much. On a side note Firefox without Flash is so much smoother. IMHO it is the fastest and most stable browser when it doesn't have Flash bogging it down.

The problem is the long tail of sites or site features that don't work without flash and users who rely on those sites or site features. I've heard Facebook video and last.fm streaming don't work without Flash for eg.

Maybe you missed this ? But this whole discussion on the death of Flash was started by Facebook: http://thenextweb.com/facebook/2015/07/13/flash-aah-aah-its-...
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