HTML 5 Takes Aim At Flash and Silverlight 500
snydeq writes "While Adobe, Microsoft, and Sun duke it out with proprietary technologies for implementing multimedia on the Web, HTML 5 has the potential to eat these vendors' lunches, offering Web experiences based on an industry standard. In fact, one expressed goal of the standard is to move the Web away from proprietary technologies such as Flash, Silverlight, and JavaFX. 'It would be a terrible step backward if humanity's major development platform [the Web] was controlled by a single vendor the way that previous platforms such as Windows have been,' says HTML 5 co-editor Ian Hickson, a Google employee. But whether HTML 5 and its Canvas technology will displace proprietary plug-ins 'really depends on what developers do,' says Firefox technical lead Vlad Vukicevic. It also depends on Microsoft, the only company involved in the HTML 5 effort that is both a browser developer and an RIA tool developer. 'That's a big elephant in the room for them because you can imagine the Silverlight team [whose] whole existence is to add [this] functionality in. [But] if Internet Explorer puts it already in there, why do we have Silverlight?' asks Mozilla's Dion Almaer." The RIA guys are quoted as saying they're not worried, because HTML 5 + CSS 3 is 10 years out. Are they just whistling in the dark?
Re:Total nonsense (Score:0, Informative)
When they talk about embedding video, they're referring to Flash-based video sites like YouTube. Think a little.
HTML5 will press forward with or without Microsoft. YouTube already has an HTML5 demo, and as a site owned by Google, they will embrace the new technology. In the meantime, Firefox continues to gain in the market, and Apple has a little thing called the iPhone that has a "real" browser.
Re:It's the tools stupid (Score:5, Informative)
You have to be kidding about Silverlight overtaking Flash. Not only has Silverlight failed to take any notable market share to date, many projects that started with Silverlight have switched to Flash (or even Java and JavaScript).
Even Microsoft Popfly itself is so unpopular you can go for months at a time without hearing about it, and I bet you hadn't heard about it for months until just now.
Re:HTML5 is awesome (Score:4, Informative)
Why is the site you link to [dloh.org] in your piece show as 100% black in Firefox 3.0.11?
Disclaimer: I am no web developer.
Re:RIA? (Score:3, Informative)
Web standards have a horrible past... (Score:1, Informative)
We're currently in the process of taking our large open source web-based application and re-writing the entire front-end in Flex.
We just got tired of the cross-browser headaches, especially with javascript/layout. As more and more browsers get released into the wild we found ourselves spending a large percentage of time just testing and working around issues with each browser rather then making real progress with the application itself.
Moving to Flex essentially eliminates any cross-browser issues for us, not to mention all the additional goodies it offers.
Browsers haven't implemented the standards that have been out for the last 10 years properly, I'm not holding my breath waiting for them to get it right anytime in the future.
I have an ARM, you insensitive clod (Score:5, Informative)
I'd also prefer SELF in the browser and with Native Client you'll be able to add SELF to your web pages!!!
From the front page of the Native Client site [google.com], with my emphasis:
That doesn't bode well for compatibility with ARM subnotebooks, ARM PDAs and PDA phones, PowerPC set-top boxes, etc.
And even on devices with a GenuineIntel or AuthenticAMD CPU, it's far from ready. From the release notes [googlecode.com]:
Re:It's the tools stupid (Score:2, Informative)
What is Popfly? O_o .......... No, I'm serious.
http://www.popfly.com/ [popfly.com]
Microsoft Popfly is the fun, easy way to build and share mashups, gadgets, games, Web pages, and applications.
It looked briefly interesting to me about a year ago. I have no idea what the current state of it is.
Re:Yeah, but javascript sucks (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Microsoft? (Score:3, Informative)
... but none of their browsers support any of the HTML5 specs
IE8 supports bits and pieces [microsoft.com] of HTML5. It's a very far cry from full support, but your claim that "none of their browsers support any of the specs" is plain wrong.
Re:It's the tools stupid (Score:4, Informative)
but can there editors be used from within the web browser embedded into a site so that it can be modified from any computer the owner is working at?
Sure. Just use Javascript + *Pick/build your favorite CMS app*, and voila. HTML 5, while having more capability, is still HTML.
Re:Total nonsense (Score:2, Informative)
With worldwide IE market-share now down to 65% (http://arstechnica.com/microsoft/news/2009/06/may-2009-browser-stats-rivals-chip-away-at-ie.ars [arstechnica.com]
I don't think you can say that the world is waiting any longer for Microsoft's word on the matter.
When IE usage is below 50%, are you still going to say that Microsoft's endorsement is necessary?
Re:It's the tools stupid (Score:3, Informative)
And heinously buggy. Most of the crashes I've seen in Safari have Flash in the backtrace (and usually Flash_EnforceLocalSecurity()). Some flash sites crash browsers with such ease and regularity that it borders on painful to visit them at all---particularly some of those flash games that display random flash ads before you can play them. Those crash Safari and FireFox about 50% of the time.
From a quick skim of the 'net, I see reports that it is not only the #1 cause of crashes in Safari, but also in FireFox (both on the Mac and in Linux). It is probably the #1 cause of IE and FireFox crashes on Windows, too, if I were guessing. To describe Flash as an abomination is an insult to abominations.
Re:Silverlight is better than Flash, but I don't u (Score:3, Informative)
"Does this situation indicate that the market is no longer receptive to proprietary standards (at least in areas such as the web, where open standards are the norm)?" I definitly think so and a lot of other webdevelopers certainly think so too.
Re:It's the tools stupid (Score:3, Informative)
Except on the iPhone
Re:It's the tools stupid (Score:4, Informative)
1x1 flash is for permanent cookies. Browsers have all sorts of cookie controls and max cookie storage times whitelists and blacklists flash doesn't. Any site can set a cookie and cookies in flash never go away unless you go to a special adobe site that allows you to browse your flash cookies and delete some or all of them.
Re:Microsoft? (Score:3, Informative)
Microsoft might be part of the w3 organization, but none of their browsers support any of the HTML5 specs, i dont call that being involved, instead they have specifically decided not to support these standards, and try to slow down, and break apart the web.
Happened many times, they were members of the Corba consortium and derived DCOM from the technologies there, early they were members of the OpenGL consortium it ended with DirectX 3 being a plain COM based copy of OpenGL, their membership in the W3C consortium has been going on for longer than a decade.
But to Microsofts defense they behave more nicely. The last stunt they pulled was to rip off SVG and label it under their own name (XAML) incompatible of course, while not supporting the official SVG standard, but that has been several years ago!
FF doesn't have the html5 support, duh. (Score:1, Informative)
Amazingly enough, firefox doesn't actually do everything.
native client on 64 bit... (Score:3, Informative)
And even on devices with a GenuineIntel or AuthenticAMD CPU, it's far from ready. From the release notes [googlecode.com]:
Unfortunately, this is a more fundamental problem. Native Client makes use of x86 CPU's segmentation features to provide memory protection. These are not available on 64-bit CPUs (except when running a program in 32-bit mode). So native client will NEVER work for a fully 64-bit browser. I do not see any way of providing equivalent memory protection without segmentation, short of dynamic instruction rewriting (emulator-style) which has an order of magnitude more overhead (say, 2x overhead, versus 5% overhead for native client).
Re:It's the tools stupid (Score:4, Informative)
Browse any directories below that and files with the
rm -Rf ~/.macromedia/Flash_Player/*
rm -Rf ~/.macromedia/Macromedia/*
In windows they are stored under C:\documents and settings\Local User name\Application Data\Macromedia\
Re:HTML5 is awesome (Score:3, Informative)
yet it doesn't work on any of the browsers in stalled on my computer.
Re:It's the tools stupid (Score:3, Informative)
Moonlight is the open source Linux version.
-Rick
It is more similar to java (Score:2, Informative)