Say Goodbye to Adobe Flash Player for Android

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A Bad Day

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As much as HTML5 looks promising, it needs security work. Flash programs have two layers of encryption so breaking into them is somewhat difficult.

HTML5? Right click, open source, and it will reveal everything.
 

chomlee

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I have been noticing that many of the sites have been switching over to a different source of streaming. I am assuming this is because they are using HTML5 instead of flash.
 

sylvez

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[citation][nom]john_4[/nom]Linux is open source too yet is very secure so your point is...If your cards are out in the open for everyone to scrutinize then it does not take long before there are no holes left to exploit.[/citation]

I believe he meant the security of the codes (intellectual property). Its too easy to access the codes, and all it takes is a good enough programmer to replace all the images/sounds and call it a new game/app.
Well, afaik anyway. Not a HTML5 programmer full time.
 

tachi1247

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So does this mean that if I do a factory reset on my phone then I will no longer be able to install flash? Or is the flash app linked to my google account?
 

schmich

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Wrong move in my opinion. Google should have worked with Adobe to keep flash as it is. Don't need more things, just keep it supported.

This is a step backwards, especially when it comes to Android taking its first steps in the netbook/notebook/desktop market. Flash isn't going away for a while and it works flawless on my 16month old SGS2. Can do HD video without any lag.

If there are any out there who say good riddance: have you uninstalled Flash on your desktop/laptop? Thought not.

We'll just have to save the flash apk. I feel sorry for the average Joe who doesn't know it's possible to just side-load Flash.
 

proxy711

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[citation][nom]A Bad Day[/nom]As much as HTML5 looks promising, it needs security work. Flash programs have two layers of encryption so breaking into them is somewhat difficult.HTML5? Right click, open source, and it will reveal everything.[/citation]
Ya adobe has been at the pinnacle of security for.....HAHAHAHAHA.....em..sorry couldn't even type that with out laughing.
 

theabsinthehare

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Flash sucks period. It filled a hole back in the day, when media was new on the internet, but audio/video streaming and animation are now fundamental parts of the web. Having a proprietary system for a basic part of the web is bad, and not only that, flash hasn't been that great to begin with. There have been security issues, licensing issues (The reason console browsers never had Flash was because Adobe refused to license to them), performance issues, porting issues.
Apple realized that it was time to change, and sometimes you need to make some sacrifices and use a heavy hand to get changes done. Yes, it sucked in the beginning when iOS didn't have flash and HTML5 wasn't ready, but I believe it was Apple's decision to completely get rid of Flash on their mobile devices that has caused the world to adopt HTML5 so fast.

Regardless of your feelings for Apple, this was a *really* good thing for the web as a whole, and I can't wait until Flash is completely dead.
 

cRACKmONKEY421

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Yes, bad move. Way to stick to the vision Adobe. Why not just kill flash for PC too then? Maybe then we can have a unified web experience. I've always hated phones do not successfully deliver the same web as computers. It's gotten a lot better, but screen resolution and processing power is enough to literally just have a smaller version of the exact same thing. Sure, you would still needs apps to optimize layout for the size. But now instead of waiting for phones to catch up to the PC's web browser experience, we have to wait for the web to seamlessly support mobile and PC. Always wished x86 compatible were somehow magically good also.
 

jerm1027

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[citation][nom]A Bad Day[/nom]As much as HTML5 looks promising, it needs security work. Flash programs have two layers of encryption so breaking into them is somewhat difficult.HTML5? Right click, open source, and it will reveal everything.[/citation]
Open-source does not mean insecure. Quite the opposite really. Google Chrome (derived from the open source Crhromium project) has run 4 straight years without being compromised at a hacking contest. It was then compromised through the Flash plug-in.
Ubuntu is leaps and bounds more secure than any Windows operating system, especially for the typical home user. There is practically no malware written for the system.
The open source model allows for multiple programmers to look at the code, identify security flaws, and patch them faster than the proprietary model can even identify them. And as Adobe has made clear, it sometimes may not be in the best interest of a company to patch a piece of software when they can release a new version and force you to upgrade. *coughcoughCScough*
 

eternalkp

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flash sucks? please
I am not sure what android is doing. this sucks for a lot of people
i love adobe flash. believe it or not, a lot of websites are still supporting flash
and i don't think everyone will convert to html5 soon.

i love how apple users quickly jumps in and credits apple for this nonsense
this is a step backward.
i see some cool new features on my cousin's google galaxy nexus with jeally bean but i don't think i will upgrade my galaxy s3 to jelly bean when the day comes
 

internetlad

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[citation][nom]getreal[/nom]STEVE JOBS WAS RIGHT AGAIN! Flash sucks on mobile. Apple was right, like usual.Android is now copying Apple yet again![/citation]

Not sure if trolling or just didn't read the article.
 

theabsinthehare

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[citation][nom]eternalkp[/nom]flash sucks? please I am not sure what android is doing. this sucks for a lot of peoplei love adobe flash. believe it or not, a lot of websites are still supporting flashand i don't think everyone will convert to html5 soon.i love how apple users quickly jumps in and credits apple for this nonsensethis is a step backward.i see some cool new features on my cousin's google galaxy nexus with jeally bean but i don't think i will upgrade my galaxy s3 to jelly bean when the day comes[/citation]

"I am not sure what Android is doing."
Android is not doing anything. This is Adobe's decision.

What exactly do you love about Flash?

How is moving from a closed, proprietary software that requires licensing, to an open, standardized solution a step backwards?
 
HTML5 has lower video performance than Flash. My crappy netbook used to be able to play fullscreen video when it was flash based, but now that many sites have switched to HTML5, video is super choppy. How exactly is slower, "better"? Oh right, it isn't.
 

douglaskuntz

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[citation][nom]chomlee[/nom]I have been noticing that many of the sites have been switching over to a different source of streaming. I am assuming this is because they are using HTML5 instead of flash.[/citation]

So, you're able to right click on youtube, and get the source for their HTML5 video player? The audio and video players are not written in pure HTML, and viewing source only shows the HTML, not the application code...

I've also seen sites that have HTML coded so that you cant actually see the Image links when viewing source (preventing you from right clicking and downloading an image, OR from viewing source, and getting the image by it's direct URL, or through wget, etc).

[citation][nom]eternalkp[/nom]flash sucks? please I am not sure what android is doing. this sucks for a lot of peoplei love adobe flash. believe it or not, a lot of websites are still supporting flashand i don't think everyone will convert to html5 soon.i love how apple users quickly jumps in and credits apple for this nonsensethis is a step backward.i see some cool new features on my cousin's google galaxy nexus with jeally bean but i don't think i will upgrade my galaxy s3 to jelly bean when the day comes[/citation]

Honestly, Flash has a metric tonne of problems. It is extremely resource intensive, even on current 4-core, 6-core, 8-core, 10-core and 12-core systems. And you can validate this for yourself. Switch youtube over to HTML5, and bring up a video that is HTML5 compatible. Watch your system load (Task Manager on Windows, Activity Manager on Mac, Top on Linux/Unix). Then, close out the browser, re-load youtube, set it back to Flash only, then watch the exact same video. I can almost guarantee that you'll be pegging at least 1 core at 100%. Java is the same way. Yes, it will run "Everywhere", but it wont run Anywhere well...
 

theabsinthehare

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[citation][nom]nitrium[/nom]HTML5 has lower video performance than Flash. My crappy netbook used to be able to play fullscreen video when it was flash based, but now that many sites have switched to HTML5, video is super choppy. How exactly is slower, "better"? Oh right, it isn't.[/citation]

Slower isn't better. "Open" is better than "Closed."
This is the first iteration of HTML to have video tags, performance will improve with time. Flash wasn't great when it first came out either.
With Flash, Adobe chooses which platforms to support and which not to; Adobe chooses what features exist and who to license to; Adobe chooses what to fix and when to fix it.
With HTML, you can watch those videos on anything that supports HTML, and the code is open and standardized.

Moving from Flash to HTML5 is a big move, and there are some bumps involved, but "I don't want to because I might see some performance loss," is not an acceptable excuse.

Quit being selfish and realize that moving to open standards isn't just about you, it's about the web as a whole.
 

koga73

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Today is a sad day.

HTML5/CSS3 can't come close to the ease, performance, and quality of animation that flash can produce. Flash uses vector while the web uses raster. There are still many features that flash supports that HTML5 just doesn't such as capturing audio/video from a mic/camera... being able to interact with device hardware (something html CANNOT do), and WebGL is pathetic and only supported by chrome and firefox.

As for adobe not being "open" as theabsinthehare pointed out... this was one of the best things about flash! In flash I can make a single appliaction and it will work on any and every device flawlessly while with HTML5/CSS3 every device has its own rendering engine and renders the content differently and as a result developers have to spend WAY more time getting things to look the same across platforms.

With the new HTML5 and CSS3 standards we should have had a new Javascript standard as well. Javascript is a horrible scripting language with hardly any support for object oriented programming. This is indeed a step back.
 

cscott_it

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I've noticed a lot of people are confusing where a previous poster says "Open Source"

He doesn't mean that the programming is or isn't open source (like GNU).

He means right-clicking, and opening the source, stealing/copying code, etc.
The code in Flash player was more secure was what he was getting at that it was harder to crack open, make a few small changes, and republish someone else's work while putting your name on it.

Hope this helped clarify. I can't attest either way, as I haven't worked with HTML5 yet. Should probably look into it at the very least.
 

theabsinthehare

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[citation][nom]koga73[/nom]Today is a sad day.HTML5/CSS3 can't come close to the ease, performance, and quality of animation that flash can produce. Flash uses vector while the web uses raster. There are still many features that flash supports that HTML5 just doesn't such as capturing audio/video from a mic/camera... being able to interact with device hardware (something html CANNOT do), and WebGL is pathetic and only supported by chrome and firefox.As for adobe not being "open" as theabsinthehare pointed out... this was one of the best things about flash! In flash I can make a single appliaction and it will work on any and every device flawlessly while with HTML5/CSS3 every device has its own rendering engine and renders the content differently and as a result developers have to spend WAY more time getting things to look the same across platforms.With the new HTML5 and CSS3 standards we should have had a new Javascript standard as well. Javascript is a horrible scripting language with hardly any support for object oriented programming. This is indeed a step back.[/citation]

Actually, HTML5 can record audio/video from mic/camera using the API navigator.getUserMedia().

What do you mean by "interact with device hardware?" Video hardware? HTML5 canvases are hardware accelerated on all major browsers (Chrome, Firefox, Opera, Safari, Internet Explorer).

How is WebGL "Pathetic?" Also, WebGL is supported by Chrome, Firefox, Opera and Safari.

In flash you cannot make a single application that will work on any and every device flawlessly. You can make a single application that will work on only devices/operating systems Adobe supports. Flash on a POWER architecture system? Nope.

Javascript and HTML are developed by two different bodies. Whether or not we get a new javascript standard doesn't really reflect on whether or not the current HTML standard is good or not.
 

ravewulf

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[citation][nom]douglaskuntz[/nom]So, you're able to right click on youtube, and get the source for their HTML5 video player? The audio and video players are not written in pure HTML, and viewing source only shows the HTML, not the application code...I've also seen sites that have HTML coded so that you cant actually see the Image links when viewing source (preventing you from right clicking and downloading an image, OR from viewing source, and getting the image by it's direct URL, or through wget, etc).[/citation]
Actually, you can view the full source. Javascript is just text and is either written directly in the html document or linked in the html document. Try looking in Firebug or built-in developer tools and you can search through it all, set break points, watch variables, etc. All easily viewable from within the browser. You can even type in your own code to execute stuff on the page and change it however you want (re-enable right click on pages where it is disabled, get rid of overlays hiding content underneath, change formatting/color/text, etc).

For example on image sites that don't let you save the images (by placing a div or other html element over the images) you can use the built-in developer tools or Firebug to show the source of the image container (going directly to the spot in the code by clicking on the image in the page with the "inspect" or similar tool) and the image url will not be far away.

Granted, any server-side code can't be viewed (php, jsp, asp(x) ), but that's a different matter.
 
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