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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

#341

Post by geofft »

yarrel wrote: post #236
marksc wrote: post #198

Mark from Mozilla here. To be clear, by "blocked" Flash we really mean enforced click-to-activate. User choice is always a #1 priority at Mozilla. We regularly block vulnerable plugins. What made this block different was that we did it before Adobe made an update available. Now that Adobe has released an update, it is no longer true that every version of Flash Player is blocked in Firefox. However, we're glad to see…

Can you call for a formal EOL on HTML5 DRM as well, please?

That's completely technically meaningless without EOLing NPAPI, and Google's currently the only people brave enough to do that. Firefox's EME implementation is strictly less of a threat to your privacy than the current status quo, by design.

NPAPI has its own privacy and security and stability reasons to meet a swift doom, even independent of the DRM question.

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

#342

Post by geofft »

acdha wrote: post #157
dingaling wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We quietly built the alternative to Flash over the last 10 years. It's called the web. The 'Web' can't play video or audio, the 'Web' needs plug-ins to do so. Plug-ins like H264 decoders and Flash.

That's like saying “The ‘Web’ can't display images, the ‘Web’ needs plug-ins to do so. Plug-ins like libjpeg or giflib”. Right now, you can put a or tag on a page and it will work in something like 95% of the browsers in use. That's already better than Flash and going up as IE8 users upgrade to newer versions of IE or install Chrome/Flash. Sure, you can't rely on users not recompiling their browser to disable it but…

Yup. Remember back when you actually needed helper applications to display certain image types?

https://www.as.cmu.edu/application/pref_1.gif

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

#343

Post by koonsolo »

marksc wrote: post #198

Mark from Mozilla here. To be clear, by "blocked" Flash we really mean enforced click-to-activate. User choice is always a #1 priority at Mozilla. We regularly block vulnerable plugins. What made this block different was that we did it before Adobe made an update available. Now that Adobe has released an update, it is no longer true that every version of Flash Player is blocked in Firefox. However, we're glad to see…

Hi Mark,

Technology should be replaced by better technology. To give you some background: I've written games for all kinds of platforms: PocketPC, Windows Mobile, (Desktop) Windows, Linux, OS X, Flash (AS3), HipTop, J2ME devices and some smaller proprietary devices.

Some of those platforms offer write once, run everywhere. On other platforms every device has it's own quirks and you have to test on every device and implement workarounds.

You might not like Flash, but it is great at running on every platform/browser with the same code base. If you test it on one platform, it runs on all others. (Adobe is also very good at keeping it backwards compatible)

Now, I ask you, what's the alternative for Flash? Does HTML5 offer write once, runs the same on every platform/browser(version!)? No it doesn't, and it never will. Even simple HTML pages are full of browser checking hacks.

Now, if you can offer a programming platform where the games I develop on, run exactly the same on every browser, on every platform, I have no problem killing Flash. But let's be honest here, only plugins can guarantee such a thing.

As to Alex Stamos, the top games on Facebook are all Flash. You know why? Because developers don't have to worry whether or not those games will run inside the users browser. Because once Flash is installed, they will run without issues. HTML5? No such guarantee.

So before you declare EOL, please have a proper alternative, where I don't have to pull my hair and cry all night because browser X on platform Y version Z seems to break the end boss of level 5 in my game because its implementation slightly differs from all the rest.

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

#344

Post by brighteyes »

koonsolo wrote: post #343
marksc wrote: post #198

Mark from Mozilla here. To be clear, by "blocked" Flash we really mean enforced click-to-activate. User choice is always a #1 priority at Mozilla. We regularly block vulnerable plugins. What made this block different was that we did it before Adobe made an update available. Now that Adobe has released an update, it is no longer true that every version of Flash Player is blocked in Firefox. However, we're glad to see…

Hi Mark, Technology should be replaced by better technology. To give you some background: I've written games for all kinds of platforms: PocketPC, Windows Mobile, (Desktop) Windows, Linux, OS X, Flash (AS3), HipTop, J2ME devices and some smaller proprietary devices. Some of those platforms offer write once, run everywhere. On other platforms every device has it's own quirks and you have to test on every device and im…

While I do understand where you are coming from - it can be more convenient to target a single implementation - the fact is that Flash has not been what you describe, for a while now. Flash officially announced it would no longer support Linux, and Flash is not usable in most mobile browsers either, for example.

Even plugins can't really get you what you want here. Yes, HTML5 has limitations, as you described, but plugins aren't the solution. HTML5 is closer, and moving in the right direction at least.

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

#346

Post by koonsolo »

brighteyes wrote: post #344
koonsolo wrote: post #343

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hi Mark, Technology should be replaced by better technology. To give you some background: I've written games for all kinds of platforms: PocketPC, Windows Mobile, (Desktop) Windows, Linux, OS X, Flash (AS3), HipTop, J2ME devices and some smaller proprietary devices. Some of those platforms offer write once, run everywhere. On other platforms every device has it's own quirks and you have to test on every device and im…

While I do understand where you are coming from - it can be more convenient to target a single implementation - the fact is that Flash has not been what you describe, for a while now. Flash officially announced it would no longer support Linux, and Flash is not usable in most mobile browsers either, for example. Even plugins can't really get you what you want here. Yes, HTML5 has limitations, as you described, but pl…

Mobile doesn't need browser plugins, because it has apps. AS3 compiles to Android and iOS, just as it should. So I agree with Adobe that mobile doesn't need to support Flash. BTW, the same AS3 codebase for Flash runs as mobile apps. Do the HTML5 games support all versions of all browsers on the most popular mobile devices? Not on mine at least :(.

One codebase, runs everywhere, Flash in the browser, apps on mobile devices. Personally never had an issue with it.

Although I must agree with you that it's sad Adobe dropped Linux support.

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

#347

Post by dblohm7 »

kozukumi wrote: post #50

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.

Mozilla performance dev here: Our data backs this up. 4 out of 10 of our top most frequent janks are due to Flash initialization. I'm working to make that all work asynchronously until the time comes when we can kill NPAPI altogether.

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

#348

Post by digi_owl »

cpeterso wrote: post #318
digi_owl wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One slightly annoying thing i found right now is that if i have a plugin set as disabled in about:addons, it will not show up on the update checker found in the top link.

The (unprivileged) Plugin Check website can't detect disabled plugins because they don't show up in navigator.plugins. Ideally, Plugin Check should be an automatic check built into Firefox. The advantage of the Plugin Check website is that it works in any browser.

> The advantage of the Plugin Check website is that it works in any browser. Do that carry any value these days?

Heck, it seems weird that Mozilla can push plugin warnings directly to the addons ui but can't indicate if a plugin can be upgraded.

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

#349

Post by baby »

chris-at wrote: post #326
baby wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh please don't remove pocket, this is one of the awesome feature of Firefox along with Tree Style Tab (and if it was just me I would add Tree Style Tab by default as well) (And of course I go against the public opinion here on HN, but I wonder how many people did actually use Pocket before trashing it?)

Pocket had an add-on that was working just fine. The old one even needed less space than the new button and didn't require a cookie. I'd reinstall the old one but "This add-on has been removed by its author".

It's debatable but I think something like pocket is fundamental to a 2015 browser experience. The bookmarking system has been bad since its beginnings.

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

#350

Post by baby »

marksc wrote: post #198

Mark from Mozilla here. To be clear, by "blocked" Flash we really mean enforced click-to-activate. User choice is always a #1 priority at Mozilla. We regularly block vulnerable plugins. What made this block different was that we did it before Adobe made an update available. Now that Adobe has released an update, it is no longer true that every version of Flash Player is blocked in Firefox. However, we're glad to see…

This is great. Let's continue: add Tree Style Tab natively
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