Adobe Makes Flash on GNU/Linux Chrome-Only 404
ekimd writes "Adobe has anounced their plans to abandon future updates of their Flash player for Linux. Partnering with Google, after the release of 11.2, 'the Flash Player browser plugin for Linux will only be available via the 'Pepper' API as part of the Google Chrome browser distribution and will no longer be available as a direct download from Adobe.' Viva la HTML 5!"
And it appears that Mozilla won't be implementing Pepper anytime soon.
Deathbed (Score:5, Insightful)
Flash is on its deathbed anyway. Even Adobe realized that and is migrating everything to HTML5, even employing programmers to implement HTML5/CSS3 features in WebKit.
Adobe gives a 5 year migration period which is probably more that HTML5 needs to succeed widespread.
Legacy works (Score:5, Insightful)
Flash is on its deathbed anyway.
All the existing Flash animations and games on Weebl's Stuff, Homestar Runner, Kongregate, and Newgrounds are likely to keep SWF on life support for a very long time, be it through Adobe Flash Player or through Gnash.
Re:Legacy works (Score:4, Informative)
All the existing Flash animations and games on Weebl's Stuff, Homestar Runner, Kongregate, and Newgrounds are likely to keep SWF on life support for a very long time, be it through Adobe Flash Player or through Gnash.
You're kidding, right? The games will become apps for Chrome or your mobile device, and the animations are already on YouTube. Go check JoeCartoon's offerings for examples (X in a blender etc).
Flash is in its' death throes.
Re:Legacy works (Score:5, Informative)
You do realise that not all Flash content will migrate, right? A lot of it isn't being looked after by their authors any more.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Frankly I'm amazed that I had to make that distinction; I guess my grammar isn't as good as I thought.
Re:Legacy works (Score:4, Informative)
For what it's worth, I disagree; I can't see anyone that's making money from Flash games (e.g. Zynga) targetting a single browser, and most if not all of the Flash games I've played simply won't work on a smartphone. They might work on a tablet, but that's currently still a niche market (though one that is growing, I'll grant you).
That's not to say that new games won't be implemented in HTML 5, but we're a fair way from that being practical either given the current state of HTML 5 support.
Re: (Score:2)
Bottom line: upgrade or die. You are in an end of life cycle for Flash. You've been warned.
Permission to upgrade the format (Score:3)
Bottom line: upgrade or die. You are in an end of life cycle for Flash.
If the owner of copyright in a work available only in an end-of-life format cannot be reached for permission to upgrade the format, why should such work become unavailable to the public?
You've been warned.
A lot of these authors aren't even in the scene anymore to hear the warning.
Re:Legacy works (Score:5, Interesting)
All the existing Flash animations and games on Weebl's Stuff, Homestar Runner, Kongregate, and Newgrounds are likely to keep SWF on life support for a very long time, be it through Adobe Flash Player or through Gnash.
Did you read my post? Adobe itself is migrating to HTML5. Adobe offers a tool (currently in beta) to convert Flash animations to HTML5: http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/wallaby/ [adobe.com]
I bet it'll be part of -- at the latest -- CS7.
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Nobody does flash animations anymore. Why would you torture yourself for weeks to do that when you can use a modern rotoscoping app for animation and create a mpeg4 file in 1/10th the time.
Then embed it in a flash wrapper to play the video file to confuse fans that want the video file on their local drive.
Re: (Score:2)
Gnash mostly works well enough, it should be good enough to stand in until Flash is properly deprecated.
DRM Video (Score:5, Insightful)
In addition to the tons of legacy content that will never be converted (due to limitations in tools, or abandonment), there is a lot of new content for which HTML 5 in not appropriate.
For example, there are a lot of nice video streaming services out there, and they all have been forced to use some sort of DRM by content providers. While I refuse to accept DRM on products I buy, I don't have an issue with it for rental/subscription services as long as it is available on the platforms I use, which can be an issue even without DRM. With Silverlight DRM not being included in Moonlight, you already could not watch Netflix and some live sports, now with Flash being discontinued for Linux, there will be no way to watch Hulu Plus, Amazon Instant Video, or any of the streaming video provided by networks. This is a use of Flash that HTML5 will never replace, because of valid ideological differences in the purpose of open web standards.
I don't consider a tool that is used for 90% of commercial video streaming, with no migration path to other tools to be "on its deathbed".
Re:DRM Video (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't consider a tool that is used for 90% of commercial video streaming, with no migration path to other tools to be "on its deathbed".
http://dvcs.w3.org/hg/html-media/raw-file/tip/encrypted-media/encrypted-media.html [w3.org]
Re:Deathbed (Score:5, Insightful)
What I is the demise of flash being used for the wrong things, which is just as good. Flash will no longer be a requirement for video or richer interaction / graphics / animations as HTML5 takes hold, which is a good thing. People are quick to forget in all the HTML5 excitement though there are still plenty of legitimate applications that HTML5 can't do, or at least, won't do very well.
As an example, how about a SIP video softphone accessible from a browser? In Flash you would implement this through an applet that connects to a server application using RTMP (with RTMP over UDP for media) and you have access to a variety of codecs, where the server application performs the actual bridging to SIP destinations and any media transcoding. Is it possible with HTML5? Perhaps, if WebSockets was a mature enough technology and the streaming video / audio codecs were sophisticated enough, but they certainly aren't in the current state of the standard, though I would love to be proven wrong.
Re: (Score:3)
Why Isn't Flash Dead Yet? (Score:2)
It is BS like this from Adobe that will not make me shed a tear when Flash is eventually replaced.
Why no PPAPI? (Score:5, Interesting)
"And it appears that Mozilla won't be implementing Pepper anytime soon."
Why?
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Why no PPAPI? (Score:4, Insightful)
If it is, I'd like to see that pointed out on their Wiki pages. Right now, it simply mentions that they're not going to implement Pepper with no further explanation. When I go to the Pepper web site, I see all kinds of reasons why one would want to implement Pepper. If the Mozilla people just wrote a few words explaining the situation, it would make the situation much easier for confused users like me.
Goodbye, Adobe (Score:5, Funny)
Your days are numbered, and the number is not particularly large.
Re:Goodbye, Adobe (Score:5, Insightful)
Hmm, there's this little app called Photoshop that might keep them afloat for a while.
Re:Goodbye, Adobe (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Goodbye, Adobe (Score:5, Informative)
Flash is a tiny part of what Abobe does, don't expect them to be going anywhere soon.
And nothing of value of lost ... (Score:3, Interesting)
Oh, sure, I'm sure some people will complain that their favorite game or whatever runs on Flash, and therefore it's a horrible and tragic loss.
But for some of us, it's a performance hog, a security risk, and a general nuisance. I've been avoiding the use of Flash whenever I can get away with it for over a decade. I associate it with annoying ads and ever-cookies more than I do anything useful. In fact, I'm not sure I can name a single site I use that makes use of Flash.
I look forward to the demise of Flash. Sorry that some of you will miss out of Super Duper Happy Fun Cow Clicker or whatever, but I personally will not mourn its loss.
Re:And nothing of value of lost ... (Score:5, Insightful)
"In fact, I'm not sure I can name a single site I use that makes use of Flash."
So you never use youtube then? Or any of the TV catch up services? You never view any lectures on TED?
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
Flashblock will play many of those things directly as HTML5, except the DRM encumbered stuff of course, which I don't care for anyway.
Flash on Linux has been a pig since the day it was ported over. I for one, will be glad for the battery life improvements alone...
Re:And nothing of value of lost ... (Score:4, Interesting)
Actually, no apparently. And, if I do, I have native apps on my iPad for them ... none of them are running Flash.
My work computer has Flash, because that's part of the build, but I haven't had Flash on a machine I own in at least 10 years.
I don't see the attraction to You Tube for the most part (oooh, another cat video, I believe I'll vomit); I've got a PVR; and I've been meaning to watch a TED lecture but somehow never gotten around to it.
It may be hard to believe if you use Flash regularly, but some of us actually manage to exist without using it, and have for quite some time. It's literally not installed on my personal machine, and I believe never has been on this one.
I might have a VM that has it installed on it in case I find I absolutely do need it, but it would have to be something quite specific to make me go looking for something which will run Flash.
Re:And nothing of value of lost ... (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually, no apparently. And, if I do, I have native apps on my iPad for them ... none of them are running Flash.
Awesome, so the solution to replacing a small proprietary plugin like Flash is to buy an entirely proprietary OS and/or device.
Re:And nothing of value of lost ... (Score:4, Insightful)
"As I said, the solution is to simply not use Flash"
Sorry, the solution to what? Thats not a solution , its a problem that has to be solved if you want to look at a number of websites. You might drink the apple koolaid and believe Flash is the work of the devil but we're not all Jobs sheep.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
So you never use youtube then?
you do not need a flash player to watch youtube videos.
smplayer v0.7.0 [sourceforge.net] can play youtube videos just fine.
http://smplayer.sourceforge.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=5255 [sourceforge.net]
Support for youtube. Now you can open urls like http://www.youtube.com/watch?v= [youtube.com]..... using the Open -> URL dialog or dragging a link from a browser to the smplayer window.
Re:And nothing of value of lost ... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:And nothing of value of lost ... (Score:4, Informative)
In fact, I'm not sure I can name a single site I use that makes use of Flash.
You must not get out much. I just checked BBC, CNN and they both use flash. If I go to the top three news sites in Norway (VG, Dagbladet, Aftenposten) they all use flash. Okay they all use them for ads but for a business based on showing people ads that's a rather essential use. Kill flash and the ads won't go away, they'll become HTML5 ads.
Re:And nothing of value of lost ... (Score:4, Interesting)
See, I don't consider CNN to be worth reading -- they lost anything like journalistic integrity years ago in my opinion.
And, I don't give a damn about the ads people are running. All I see is Ad Block Plus or NoScript telling me that "this rectangle contains something you didn't want to see anyway". It was ads that made me hate Flash in the first place.
Let me clarify ... sure, sites that I use have Flash crap on them all of the time. But I don't have a player installed, and any of the stuff they are using Flash for has so far failed to make me think "oooh, I gotta get me some of that". It's just the crap in the corners I wasn't going to look at anyway. If I can't see the rest of your web page without it, I'll find another one.
In fact, every time I am forced to use a browser that does have Flash on it, it makes me want to kill someone from Adobe.
I'm not interested in their ads, and I'm sure as hell not giving them CPU cycles to animate some fucking monkey. :-P
Please, enjoy Flash to your heart's content ... but for me, it is, and always has been something I don't want on my machine. As such, I simply don't use it.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I look forward to the demise of Flash.
Initially this will hurt Firefox on Linux. It might be an indication that Adobe doesn't intend to put a lot of resources into Flash anymore, but the action itself should have very little impact on Flash.
Re: (Score:2)
What about gnash? (Score:2)
Is it a viable alternative against flash? According to http://gnashdev.org/ [gnashdev.org] last version is 0.8.9 published in march 2011.
Re:What about gnash? (Score:5, Informative)
The really nice thing about gnash ist the platform independence. No problem to watch a video on an old iBook with a Power CPU running Linux. Try that with the adobe player
Re:What about gnash? (Score:5, Informative)
It's not on the web page, but there is a 0.8.10 from a week ago:
http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/gnash/2012-02/msg00000.html [gnu.org]
Is flash really relevant these days? (Score:2)
I have uninstalled flash in the moment Piwik made the switch (gnash did not work with Piwik btw). Being on AMD64 flash was a chore anyway, so since then browsing was suddenly faster and more stable.
I can only imagine people playing these advergames would miss flash,
Chromium? (Score:2)
For Flash Player releases after 11.2, the Flash Player browser plugin for Linux will only be available via the “Pepper” API as part of the Google Chrome browser distribution and will no longer be available as a direct download from Adobe.
Damn, what about chromium, then? Is quite annoying already having to install the Flash Player through an installer that fetches it from Adobe. Now we will have to use the proprietary bits of the browser, too? No way.
Re:Chromium? (Score:5, Informative)
Looks like they have an implementation of the PPAPI:
http://www.chromium.org/developers/design-documents/pepper-plugin-implementation [chromium.org]
Re: (Score:3)
I don't see what that page has to do with the issue. Sorry if I misread it, but the problem is not that Chromium doesn't support it (since is basically the same browser as Chrome), is that Adobe says they are not distributing the player themselves, so it seems like you have to install Chrome to get the player, even if you plan to use it on other browser.
The end of an era (Score:5, Insightful)
I've been doing rich client development in Flash ever since 2000 and to me the Flash Player for x86/Linux was a big selling point. True x-platform RTE with a huge amount of awesome features and a very good programming language with AS2 and AS3. A free cli compiler for all major platforms including Linux and an awesome workflow for building custom UIs with the Flash IDE.
I don't think there will be such a widespread and powerfull platform again in the future - it's a shame Adobe missed out on the whole touch revolution in the Flash dept. Just last year I bought my last stack of OReillys for Flex and AS development for a project I had. ... Guess that will have been my last. Just this morning I though of stashing them away to make room for my new C++ stack.
For me, one thing is for sure: As awesome as Flash was, it is the one and only proprietary platform and technology I will ever have invested significant time in. From here on out it's only truely OSI compliant FOSS technologies and PLs for me. That was also the main reason I didn't move into Unity3D when I was doing game development a while back.
Flash/AS it was a great 11 years. You will be missed.
My 2 cents.
Five years from now (Score:4, Informative)
What the summary largely skips over is that this plan to abandon Flash on Linux is scheduled to take place five years from now. Adobe is planning to provide updates to their Linux Flash player until then. After five years it's likely HTML5 and Gnash will be up to the task of handling everything people currently use Adobe flash for.
Flash as a browser plug-in is deprecated. (Score:5, Interesting)
In Adobe's announcement regarding the end of mobile Flash support, they stated that they were conceding to HTML5 in the web browser and will be focusing on moving Flash to desktop platform application development. While I suppose it was subtly stated, the implication was that they intend to phase out Flash as a browser plug-in entirely. Linux/X11 was already the most difficult for them to implement and had the highest cost/benefit, so it makes perfect sense for it to be the first to go. I imagine Google wants to keep Legacy Flash for Chrome on Linux if for no other reason than to secure another leg up on the browser competition. Overall, Google probably would just assume Flash die off, but if they can get buy-in from Linux users and push WebM and Dart in the process, then it's worth the effort.
Security support for 5 years (Score:5, Informative)
From the press release:
"Adobe will continue to provide security updates to non-Pepper distributions of Flash Player 11.2 on Linux for five years from its release."
If we believe the (mainstream) migration from Flash to HTML5 will be accomplished in that timeframe, I don't see this being a big issue for Firefox or other Linux browsers not using the Pepper API
flash (Score:4, Informative)
RTFA (Score:5, Informative)
In a typical Slashdot display of sensationalism, the headline reads "Adobe makes flash on Linux Chrome-Only" but they've announced nothing of the sort. Adobe is switching Flash from the increasingly outdated and cumbersone Netscape plugin API to the new PPAPI (Pepper). There is nothing stopping Mozilla from implementing this API. And that's probably what's going to happen. I'd be surprised if there isn't already a team working on it.
WARNING: they'll remove it from yum repo's as well (Score:3)
Adobe removed their AIR packages from their repo's even though leaving the old v2.6 AIR was still relevant and useful for a lot of users. One could easily view this as being somewhat vindictive against Linux users because it couldn't have costed them anything just to leave the old version sitting in the repo. I imagine that they will also remove flash from their adobe yum repo making any installation potentially too difficult for many users and makes it harder **even if you want to use an old version of an OS**. They did leave a 32bit binary installtion but that fails in so many ways with complex dependencies.
e.g. I've had to use an old version of Fedora in a virtualbox [balsamiq.com] just to use Balsamiq [balsamiq.com] (the funky wireframe screen builder tool). I spoke to the people at balsamiq telling them about this dependency and they basically said that Adobe won't listen to them (I guess they are too small - but a bit stupid to deliver their product on someone elses platform that they have no control over)
Re:Ahem (Score:5, Insightful)
Indeed.
I (like most) hate flash. It’s a pain to get running, even more of a pain to get audio working correctly if you use something like jackd, sucks a tonne of resources, crashes all the time, etc.
That said, there have always been _just enough_ headaches around not having flash to make it worth the bother.
I doubt this will kill flash or even make any impact towards that goal. Linux firefox users just isn’t a big enough market. It will however be the shove I needed to look into getting away from requiring flash (alternate video player plugins to watch flash video (99% of my need for flash) and maybe greasemonkey scripts or something to deal with flash navigation on the few sites I can’t simply ignore.
I mean I can always install chrome as just a “flash browser” .. but that sounds really icky.
Re: (Score:2)
Linux firefox users just isn’t a big enough market
What about Linux Firefox users plus Linux Chromium Browser users?
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
Except Flash is only bundled with Chrome (not Chromium), and they're getting rid of direct downloads of flash, potentially making it impossible to legally get it for Chromium.
Re:Ahem (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
Unless I read wrong, chrome should still be fine. Even then though.. anyone using flash for navigation probably has a "if they can't use the site, tough" attitude. They are also excluding many users of smartphones... which is probably a bigger market than linux users.
Re: (Score:3)
anyone using flash for navigation probably has a "if they can't use the site, tough" attitude
I've yet to see a website where it would be absolutely impossible to replace site navigation with a text link as a fallback. Obviously there are times flash is appropriate. Site navigation isn't in my opinion one of them, or at the very least, gracefull degredation is generally a good idea.
There's a difference between Chrome and Chromium Browser.
It's the same difference between GNU/Linux and Linux and between America and United States. That is, a pedantic one that only means something to people who already have an opinion on the matter. I say chrome on linux, peo
Re:Ahem (Score:4, Insightful)
Actually, Chromium [Browser] is Chrome [Browser] without Google's "spyware" (loaded term, but you get the idea).
Re: (Score:3)
http://www.google.ca/chrome/intl/en/privacy.html [google.ca]
It's not too bad, if you're happy with essentially the same information being passed as for a Google search for every page you visit.
Re: (Score:3)
The net can't afford the risk of Google, arguably losing sight of its onetime "don't be evil" ethos, attaining a complete lock on the browser development agenda. Therefore Mozilla must not ever be "embraced and exterminated" by Chrome, and it will not be.
Re: (Score:2)
That said, there have always been _just enough_ headaches around not having flash to make it worth the bother.
Really? I have found that not having Flash installed is one of the better choices I made. Licensing aside (do you really feel comfortable agreeing not to develop any competing software?), the only thing I seem to be missing without Flash are annoying, CPU and memory consuming advertisements. Youtube videos can be downloaded with relative ease, Flash games add nothing to my life, and if my bank ever tried to make their website require Flash I would ditch them immediately. What compelling reason is ther
Re:Ahem (Score:4, Insightful)
Newer versions of firefox can even watch Youtube videos without flash...
So, overall, I don't think I'm missing anything without flash on my computer, except a lot of stuff I'd rather miss anyway.
Re: (Score:2)
With jackd?
Getting flash to talk through alsaplug to jackd was an _epic_ pain.. and glitchy as hell. There was also a plugin someone had made that kinda worked, but again.. really glitchy.
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Terminology (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Terminology (Score:4, Insightful)
Given we are talking about Flash (graphical application) and Linux (OS kernel), the posterior probability that one running GNU userland would use X11 (like xorg) is almost one. Licenses have nothing to do with that sentence.
Re: (Score:3)
The real problem is that ultimately it was not Linux that decided to call itself GNU or GNU/Linux, but it was Stallman who decided this. That's what made it controversial because it felt like he was co-opting it. Sure he had a lot of good reasons for his decision but it lacked tact and grace.
Right now the term GNU/Linux versus Linux serves as a positive correlation between those who want to make a political statement versus those who are talking about the technology.
Re: (Score:2)
I don't think it really achieves that.
Anyone who sees GNU and thinks what you just said already knows the full story. Everyone else either rolls their eyes, or assumes it has something to do with the license (I've heard more than a few people say "oh, that's probably licensed under the GNU").
Lets not kid ourselves. At most, if anything it serves as a kind of acknowledgment for the RMS crowd.
Comment removed (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Terminology (Score:4, Interesting)
Guess you don't know about this:
"Luckily for those who run Linux, the H.264 codec (also known as the Advanced Video Codec, or AVC) has a successful and effective open-source implementation known as x264. In fact, the x264 Project won the Doom9 2005 codec comparison test (see the on-line Resources). x264 continues to make progress and improvements, and it remains an active project."
Re:Terminology (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Terminology (Score:5, Insightful)
HTML V5 is gonna be locked down tighter than a nun's thighs and is controlled by one of the most aggressive patent trolls there has ever been and THAT is good? Has everyone kinda had a senior moment and forgot that H.264 is patented up the ass and is controlled by a conglomeration that will happily sue your ass if you look at them funny?
Well, most flash video is H.264 too, it's pretty hard to argue that HTML5/H.264 will be worse than Flash/H.264. Right now the alternatives to H.264 are as dead as Ogg Theora was to music but since everybody's blocking each other I assume the status quo will be maintained until the H.264 patents expire in the 2020s. You're pretending like this achieves something but I don't see how, except to continue promoting flash over HTML. You may notice that all the other players that now play YouTube videos dropped flash, but continue to use H.264. There's absolutely zero traction for moving away.
Re: (Score:3)
The thing was that it was Adobe that footed the bill for the H.264 licenses when it was flash based, not the browsers. And since Firefox is, essentially, a charity case, it'll be hit worse when the licence fee is shifted to them.
I believe atm the only way to view H.264 content in FF is through the use of a Microsoft developed plugin (and in this case, MS pays the bill), and that's Windows 7 only. And after the whole click-sniffing fiasco with their Bing Toolbar, I am really wary of installing anything brows
Nothing to do with HTML 5 (Score:4, Interesting)
Whilst I share your concern on the use of H.264 with regard to free and open access to all, this has nothing to do with HTML 5 in the slightest. The codec issue has been with us for years, regardless of platform or delivery method. Your rant should be directed at browser and web developers instead.
I'd go as far to say HTML5 is pretty much the only hope you have for a free and open codec to become widely adopted, in that it does not discriminate between formats. Only web developers (the encoders) and web browsers (the decoders) do that, so we should go bitch at them.
Re: (Score:3)
why, ohh why; isn't OGG a solution that all browser vendors can agree on?
FUD by a few MPEG-LA members is probably part of it.
Re: (Score:2)
Actually, I think they call it GNU/Linux because the userland utilities that come with the kernel (i.e. bash, ls, cp, tar, etc.) are all the GNU built variants, rather than, for example, the BSD variants.
This is mostly, I believe, to appease the rabid RMS fanbois.
Re: (Score:3)
regarding the "[sic]" - fanboi is used as a derogatory, typically emphasizing the particularly silly nature of the fanaticism in that case. From when I've seen it use, it's meant to be a bit meaner and condescending than just '"fanboy".
Re: (Score:3)
Yes. But freedom of speech also implies freedom of deliberate wrong pronunciation :-P
Re:Terminology (Score:5, Interesting)
If you care enough and agree with RMS about the "GNU/Linux" naming issue, you shouldn't have been running Flash in the first place.
Re: (Score:2)
Guilty on both counts ;)
In casual conversation, I refer to the OS as "GNU" -- If it's just Android ... you must acquit.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
here I happen to agree with RMS just because it describes it unambiguously and is shorter than saying "NonAndroidNonCrazyEmbeddedNonObscurePetProjectLinuxDistribution".
I will still run evil software as I don't want to run crappy graphics drivers that turn my hardware into a pile of shit, and lose streamed video and occasional audio, dialing the web back to 1994.
Re: (Score:2)
Another Debubuntuian user at Geeknet detected. Generating dump.
Re:Terminology (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Meh... (Score:4, Insightful)
I said this in an earlier comment, but I've always found there is _just enough_ flash still out there for it to be a headache not to have it.
Flash video is no problem (alternate players, worst case you can just download it and play it out of browser) .. site navigation can be dealt with sometimes.. but there are still a select few sites that you need for whatever reason (banking, work) that are largely flash based. And unfortunately linux firefox users are not a big enough market to push these sites away from flash.
Re:Meh... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Meh... (Score:4, Interesting)
Odd. The only two sites I've run into in a long time that required flash -
Square-Enix has some sites. Oooh, "big" loss there.
Oracle's support site that they just recently replaced - and there was a flash-free alternative that they tried to avoid telling people about.
Many video sites now have non-flash based players (H.264) too.
Honestly, flash isn't the big needed thing it once was. Hopefully it continues to fade into oblivion.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Don't forget un-deletable supercookies!
Err , not really (Score:5, Informative)
rm -rf ~/.macromedia
Re: (Score:2)
Or the BetterPrivacy plugin.
Re:Err , not really (Score:5, Insightful)
And to make sure they don't come back:
rm -rf ~/.macromedia; ln -s /dev/null ~/.macromedia
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
along with 75% of the web and any hope of pulling more users to use linux.
Smokescreen, an SWF player in JavaScript (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Actually I see someone writing a PPAPI plugin for Firefox, ala nspluginwrapper.
Re:Smokescreen, an SWF player in JavaScript (Score:5, Funny)
It's a fun rollercoaster.
Used to be a major pain to get flash running on linux. Then it got a little easier. Then 64bit came out and it got annoying again. Then they released a 64bit plugin and it got easier (unless you run jackd, then it's a royal pain in the ass). Then they stopped updating it and it became annoying.. then they did update it and it became easier again.. ANNNDDD now it's gonna get annoying again :D
Re:Mozilla? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3)
That's the idea. "post-webkit" would mean "after everybody moved to webkit". There are still exceptions, but it seems like pretty much everybody who needs a third party web rendering engine these days uses webkit, relegating Gecko to being used only in Mozilla products. As an example: pretty much all smartphones use webkit. Windows Phone is the exception, but it has virtually no marketshare at this point (which is too bad, it's nice to code for).
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3)
Sort of. Google has access to the Flash source, and the Flash shipping in Chrome is modified from stock flash; it has different version numbers and carries various patches Google has made but not (yet, possibly) upstreamed.
And http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3621263 [ycombinator.com] (from a Google employee) makes it pretty clear that Google is involved in helping maintain Pepper Flash.