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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

#361

Post by koonsolo »

bobajeff wrote: post #355
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…

Flash isn't part of the Web. It's not vendor neutral. If Adobe decides to deprioritise a platform that mean the users of that platform with experience less support in terms of bug fixes, performance and security. If Adobe decides not to support a platform period that means users of that platform are left without a means to access Flash content. If you are a user this is unacceptable. More importantly these things hav…

I fully agree with you. But like I said, if technology is replaced, it should be replaced by better technology.

For websites, HTML5 offers enough to be considered a proper alternative. Yes, I probably dislike Flash websites as much as you do.

But for games, HTML5 just doesn't cut it compared to Flash (or yes, even Java applets as someone else mentioned ;)). And the sad truth is that by design, each browser vendor will have it's own implementation with it's own quirks.

(I seem to be getting a lot of down-votes on my original post, although I don't think I said anything incorrect)

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

#362

Post by jasonthevillain »

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…

The next time this happens can you please disable it entirely?

The things on my site (video, some ads) that use flash will fall back nicely to HTML5 is Flash is disabled, as will most of the web. Click to activate is the worst of both worlds.

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

#363

Post by magicalist »

JupiterMoon wrote: post #51
magicalist wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Especially on Youtube which still uses Flash by default No since January[1]. Maybe you have an old cookie set or something? [1] http://youtube-eng.blogspot.com/2015/01/youtube-now-defaults...

If you disable Flash completely then Youtube works fine with HTML5 video. However, when Flash is set as click to play then Youtube still prompts to enable Flash. Annoying.

I'm late to respond to this, but this is really not true (speaking as a several-year (and current) user of click to play Flash).

I would suggest checking the https://www.youtube.com/html5 page sp332 suggested to see if you have checks in all those boxes and making sure you're using a recent version of whatever browser you're running[1]. Only if your browser doesn't support the needed html5 video features does it switch back to flash.

[1] https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=778617 for the ongoing Firefox bug, but you should be good with MSE in recent Firefox on Youtube in particular (see last comment in that bug)

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

#364

Post by BatFastard »

koonsolo wrote: post #346
brighteyes wrote: post #344

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 de…

koonsolo is right on with all his points. Flash is better then HTML5 all around.

Though personally I can understand why Adobe dropped support for linux, the market is just too small. Even though this community probably has a higher percentage of linux user then just about anywhere.

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

#365

Post by cpeterso »

digi_owl wrote: post #348
cpeterso wrote: post #318

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Good point, especially considering that Chrome no longer supports NPAPI plugins. :)

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

#366

Post by bobajeff »

koonsolo wrote: post #361
bobajeff wrote: post #355

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Flash isn't part of the Web. It's not vendor neutral. If Adobe decides to deprioritise a platform that mean the users of that platform with experience less support in terms of bug fixes, performance and security. If Adobe decides not to support a platform period that means users of that platform are left without a means to access Flash content. If you are a user this is unacceptable. More importantly these things hav…

I fully agree with you. But like I said, if technology is replaced, it should be replaced by better technology. For websites, HTML5 offers enough to be considered a proper alternative. Yes, I probably dislike Flash websites as much as you do. But for games, HTML5 just doesn't cut it compared to Flash (or yes, even Java applets as someone else mentioned ;)). And the sad truth is that by design, each browser vendor wil…

The Web is better, it's vendor neutral and not depended on whims of Adobe. Sure it may not be convenient for developers but as a user it's very convenient.

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

#367

Post by cpeterso »

zvrba wrote: post #338
cpeterso wrote: post #321

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These music streaming sites use Flash because they want DRM.

Is there alternative to Flash which also gives you DRM?

For browsers that support EME, they can use the "Clear Key" key system that is part of the EME standard. It's not as secure as other DRM (because the decryption key is briefly exposed on the client), but it does not require any third-party license server like Google Widevine, Microsoft PlayReady, or Adobe Primetime. For a streaming music service, it is probably an adequate deterrent for ripping streams.

http://www.html5rocks.com/en/tutorials/eme/basics/#clear-key

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

#368

Post by Sanddancer »

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…

Plugins allow you to more easily experiment with different distribution methods, languages, etc. Flash, Unity, the JVM, etc, all have areas that they're much better at, such as tooling support, language support, etc. Sticking everything in a monoculture is a terrible idea.

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

#369

Post by grumblestumble »

pflanze wrote: post #335
grumblestumble wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The web has become an application delivery platform, like it or not. While there are arguments against forcing DRM on consumers, for video production workflows and project management, DRM is a necessity. I'm assuming you've worked with private Github repos with access control, right? Same idea.

How are private Github repositories using the same idea? Normal access controls are just implemented at the data source, limiting read (or write) there. DRM is implemented in the hardware of the user so that some programs that the user uses can access the data, but not those programs fully under control of the user. If you can access a Github repository then you can do so with software fully under your control (and h…

Okay, so maybe not the best analogy. Contact access expiration via git is far more primitive, sure - if you have access today you can clone a private project and have a snapshot of it in that state, once your access rights are revoked you just won't see any further work. Unfortunately, this 'freedom' leads to far more problems than it solves - horrible corporate bureaucracies around where you may or may not check code out to, remote wipe capability, contractor laptops, etc. There are many real-world use cases where, in order to accomplish the completion of a project, you need to provide an external resource with access to sensitive data for a limited amount of time. Think manufacturing, commercial video production, medical data, game development - pretty much anything where you outsource a specific phase of product development to a third party. Without DRM, these workflows are limited to online-only, where assets are streamed and can't be stored locally. This is a dealbreaker when, for example, you need to send part specs to a manufacturer in the middle of China.

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

#370

Post by Manishearth »

kenko wrote: post #331
Manishearth wrote: post #311

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Data doesn't go to pocket until you start using it, and even then, you have to click through a few pages to get there. Pages which make it abundantly obvious that its a third party service. Mozilla did user testing before integration and found that people do want it. Remember that techies complaining on HN doesn't mean that the majority doesn't like it. It's not different from the privacy implications of having Googl…

"Mozilla did user testing before integration and found that people do want it. Remember that techies complaining on HN doesn't mean that the majority doesn't like it." I'm really not convinced by this as an argument. People might like all sorts of harmful things, once they see them. And the fact that people might want something that provides the functionality that Pocket provides, or something like it, doesn't mean t…

This is an argument against "users didn't like it", not in itself a reason to use Pocket. Though if you couple this with the fact that Pocket integration isn't much different from search does help its case.
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