Adobe Announces that in 2020, Flash Player Will Reach Its 'End-of-Life' in Light of Newer Technologies (webkit.org) 154
Adobe said on Tuesday it will stop distributing and updating Flash Player at the end of 2020 and is encouraging web developers to migrate any existing Flash content to open standards. Apple is working with Adobe, industry partners, and developers to complete this transition. From a blog post: Apple users have been experiencing the web without Flash for some time. iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch never supported Flash. For the Mac, the transition from Flash began in 2010 when Flash was no longer pre-installed. Today, if users install Flash, it remains off by default. Safari requires explicit approval on each website before running the Flash plugin.
In a blog post, the company wrote: "Adobe has long played a leadership role in advancing interactivity and creative content -- from video, to games and more -- on the web. Where we've seen a need to push content and interactivity forward, we've innovated to meet those needs. Where a format didn't exist, we invented one -- such as with Flash and Shockwave. And over time, as the web evolved, these new formats were adopted by the community, in some cases formed the basis for open standards, and became an essential part of the web. But as open standards like HTML5, WebGL and WebAssembly have matured over the past several years, most now provide many of the capabilities and functionalities that plugins pioneered and have become a viable alternative for content on the web. Over time, we've seen helper apps evolve to become plugins, and more recently, have seen many of these plugin capabilities get incorporated into open web standards. Today, most browser vendors are integrating capabilities once provided by plugins directly into browsers and deprecating plugins. Given this progress, and in collaboration with several of our technology partners -- including Apple, Facebook, Google, Microsoft and Mozilla -- Adobe is planning to end-of-life Flash. Specifically, we will stop updating and distributing the Flash Player at the end of 2020 and encourage content creators to migrate any existing Flash content to these new open formats."
OMG! (Score:5, Funny)
Hallelujah!
The alternatives aren't really much better. (Score:5, Insightful)
This is a Pyrrhic victory at best. The alternatives often aren't any better, and in many ways are worse.
At least with Flash we had the ability to just not install the plugin, or to remove it or disable it if it were installed, and then we wouldn't be forced to endure it.
But that's not always the case with these built-in technologies. It's even worse with some of the JavaScript-based ones. It can become much harder, if not impossible, to separate "good" JavaScript from "unwanted" JavaScript for any given page. At least when Flash was used we could just block that part of a web page, without necessarily breaking the entire site. Having to dick around with an extension like NoScript to partially block scripts often doesn't work, especially when a site combines useful and unwanted JavaScript code into a single script.
WebAssembly [wikipedia.org] is particularly insidious. While minified or obfuscated JavaScript can be difficult enough to decipher, WASM's binary encoding makes it even harder to figure out what remotely-served code executing in the browser will actually try to do. It's like Java applets all over again.
It's much the same for the embedded audio and video capabilities of modern browsers. They can be useful when they're wanted, but this also leaves them open to abuse (such as when used for advertising purposes).
We've gone from getting screwed in one way to getting screwed in a slightly different way, and neither of these screwings feels good.
Re:The alternatives aren't really much better. (Score:4, Informative)
I've had this problem solved for ages. I just use the Disable HTML5 autoplay plugin [google.com]
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Who the fuck said you had the right to read the code running on a website? Do you have that right for a PC game? I don't fucking think so.
Well, In my country, I actually do. Both of them.
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Is worse for everyone but big corps and big media who can use it to make sure video only plays on approved OSes on approved devices.
When the alternative is not being offered digital video at all, I don't really care. HTML5 mostly supports the same codecs as Flash. And Flash is much more of a black box than HTML/JS is currently even with DRM.
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HTML V5 is WORSE in every measure, it sucks more resources, uses more CPU cycles, uses a codec that is a minefield of patents
Major web browser engines other than Apple WebKit can play VP8, Vorbis, VP9, and Opus. How are these "a minefield of patents"? SWF can only use Sorenson Spark (similar to ye olde DivX) and MPEG-4 AVC, which is still patented.
has everyone forgotten the fact that DRM is now gonna be baked into browsers just to support HTML V5? I
SWF's strength was vector animations. HTML5 EME affects video, not vector animations.
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uses a codec that is a minefield of patents
Which codec would that be? The same H.264 that Flash used?
HTML5 video also offers the option of VP9 [wikipedia.org] video. VP9 is royalty-free [webmproject.org] for all use cases and outperforms H.264 [medium.com].
So just use VP9 and be happy.
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I've had the opposite experience. I don't remember the last time I saw Flash anywhere.
Re:OMG! (Score:5, Informative)
Kids love those games and won't accept PC's without them.
Not if they've never seen the game before. I assure you that if you had the original .fla, the game would compile to HTML5/JS just fine in Adobe Animate. Or a reasonable facsimile could be recreated.
Childhood is deprecated and by the time current kids reach 2020, they'll have otherwise the game.
How to track down authors? (Score:3)
I assure you that if you had the original .fla, the game would compile to HTML5/JS just fine in Adobe Animate.
What steps would the parent of the child who wants to play the game go about tracking down the author of the file in order to initiate conversion? And whose responsibility would it be to fund a month of access to Creative Cloud for each author whose works are affected?
Or a reasonable facsimile could be recreated.
Provided the author doesn't sue anyone whose "reasonable facsimile" becomes popular [slashdot.org].
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What steps would the parent of the child who wants to play the game go about tracking down the author of the file in order to initiate conversion?
That was a response to this - because it's certainly not true.
there's a lot of on-line games that are not practical or reliable in JavaScript/Html5 yet
Regardless, the answer is that the parents of the child are in charge and too bad if the child wants to run Flash. The home IT department says no.
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The home IT department says no.
Does the home IT department also have a habit of taking away the previous console and all its games once the next-generation console is purchased?
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Are you equating the quality of Flash games with iconic console games? By the time 3 years passes, no one will care about the flash games. As it stands, I have emulation set up for everything I played prior to Wii. And I still spend time on NES games.
No kid just yet, but I have plenty of experience owning console games.
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Are you equating the quality of Flash games with iconic console games?
I was more giving an example of the replacement of one video game platform with another incompatible platform.
I have emulation set up for everything I played prior to Wii.
Everything, including SWF?
I know Retrode supports Super NES, Genesis, Game Boy, Master System, and Nintendo 64. Which cart readers did you buy to dump the cartridges you purchased for other consoles?
I still spend time on NES games.
So do I, on both sides of the screen.
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Everything *I* played - I never played SWF games; always looked like junk to me. But I do have several DOS and Windows games running under DOSBox. You Don't Know Jack runs great on Windows 95 on top of DOSBox - other games I use 3.1 or 98. I imagine I could easily get older SWF games running directly on the Flash .exe on Windows 95/98. These are all launched from a TV remote from MythTV, and I can exit most of them with the remote also. Windows is set to shut down when the autorun game exits, but the g
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I've been hearing "Flash is dead" for a long time, but it still lives. For one, there's a lot of on-line games that are not practical or reliable in JavaScript/Html5 yet. Kids love those games and won't accept PC's without them.
Their games will be okay. I hear the gnu version, gnash, is scheduled to be nearly 80% compatible with flash by 2020.
Re: OMG! (Score:4, Insightful)
Kids will accept whatever I decide to give them. Why do you let kids run your life?
Re: OMG! (Score:2)
Then I guess those kids don't need a PC.
Re:OMG! (Score:4, Informative)
Kids love those games and won't accept PC's without them.
Kids will accept whatever they're given, because the alternative is nothing.
That said - my 8 and 6 year old wouldn't even know what to do with a PC. Though they're quite comfortable using an iPad, they have no interest in using a traditional PC.
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Really? [mozilla.org] The tools are definitely there so we can't blame HTML5 for not providing the ability.
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Whom can we blame for authors or their estates becoming difficult or impossible to contact?
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For one, there's a lot of on-line games that are not practical or reliable in JavaScript/Html5 yet.
Like what? Offer an example.
When will MLB catch up? (Score:4, Interesting)
Maybe by 2040 or so Major League Baseball Advanced Media will finally ditch Flash Player for HTML5 to show baseball games. Believe it or not an outfit that is positively drowning in cash just can't be bothered to update their web players. Seriously!
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Because it works spectacularly, and the video quality is superb.
MLBAM's iOS apps also "work spectacularly, and the video quality is superb" - without Flash. They obviously know how to accomplish this without using out-of-date, malware-prone technologies... they just need to invest a small amount of that pile of cash they've been collecting from subscribers like me.
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Since when do you need flash to watch MLB TV? I just installed the apps on my apple tv and xbox and phones and ipads and it plays the games. never had to install flash
On PC, of course (Score:2)
It is long past due to kill it with fire, nuke it from orbit, double tap it, etc.
Re: On PC, of course (Score:2)
NHL Center Ice is so bad that I have concluded that the NHL doesn't want people to watch the games.
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Since when do you need flash to watch MLB TV?
You need it for PC. I am blacked out of Red Sox games because they're playing Seattle and I live in Portland. I wanted to see if a VPN would bypass that restriction and it did, but I had to allow Flash to run in Chrome first.
Also, while it bypassed the restriction I couldn't get video to play. Not sure if Linux,Chrome or MLB on that.
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There are some non profits who have created some good actual applications using flash. Unfortunately, many of these do not have the funding to rewrite in a modern frameworks.
Hmm... (Score:1)
Re:Hmm... (Score:5, Informative)
No. They renamed the production suite to Animate because Flash wasn't the only supported output format, and they were already (almost certainly) planning to deprecate SWF.
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Well, they did try to open-source the programming language as an extension of ECMA-Script.
Fishy smell around a business giving up its market (Score:1)
Why would they even do this? Has the security situation gotten to the point where their hand is being forced or do they simply want to abandon their technical debt in the same manner that any industrial operation wishes to abandon their industrial waste, into the commons?
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Their production tool already supports HTML5/JS. Hardware acceleration and security are both a huge cross-platform headache that browser vendors have already taken on. And they still haven't been allowed on the iPhone with Flash.
They're only dragging their feet because of complaints of content producers.
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Because nobody uses Flash anymore. There is no designer in the world that can get work these days just on Flash. Flash has been dead, only there for legacy. There is also a huge amount of work to keep it maintained, the code goes back to the 90s at least and wasn't well written to begin with.
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I haven't seen one in years. The cheapest ones I purchased 5 years ago had ActiveX but also could work with "Other browsers" which was just MJPEG. I've got one that's over 7 years old where the JavaScript was so crappy it stopped working altogether in modern browsers but no Flash.
I've actually seen some that use a Flash interface more than a decade ago but very few that encode in the Flash codec (which is a predecessor of WebM BTW)
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Because Apple point blank refused to allow flash on the iPhone.
As a result, Adobe sticking to their guns on flash and content creation for flash caused web developers to look elsewhere.
Adobe decided the way forward was to refresh their content creation tools (where they actually make money) to help developers with non-flash content.
With that in theory done, the flash platform represents a cost, and their whole marketing message is now that you don't need flash, so they are paying for something that, per the
At long last! (Score:5, Insightful)
Now, if the many sites that still assume it's present and default to it over HTML5 could finally start working properly when Flash isn't available, the Internet will be a much better place. I'm looking at you [crappy TV news channel websites of your choice goes here].
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Personally I'm irritated at how many of the crappy TV news channel websites have switched to HTML5. Blocking flash is easy, blocking their autoplaying HTML 5 videos reliably is hard. I just have to turn off javascript entirely, which isn't good because sometimes there's a slideshow I'd like to use.
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Obligatory HSR Reference (Score:1)
https://youtu.be/L0nuQ5o2DYU [youtu.be]
Dangerous Behaviours, Predictable Results (Score:3)
Most of what we need the internet for is being replaced and overshadowed by graphic-heavy bells & whistles. We could use the internet safely if we applied a more minimalist approach to design and if we standardized video or dynamic UI for the internet better than we are now.
Ethics watchdogs need to step up and start really trying hard to break the current push for more javascript.
The web browser should display a page that can be interacted with effectively and efficiently, without all the added bells & whistles, because those bells & whistles are often introduced to create security vectors for black hatters.
Most people using the internet have limited safety understanding. Flash is one of those platforms that can seriously harm a computer if the Flash object is designed as malware [zdnet.com]. Couple this with the loose security in users still using IE that often utilizes ActiveX [howtogeek.com] and the results are predictably negative.
MSFT can try as much as they want but I'll never trust them very much and everything they release has to be combed through by teams of 3rd party security experts in order to protect their clients.
Again, using Firefox & Noscript, coupled with a given user's paranoia, will prevent most malware type issues.
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standardized video or dynamic UI for the internet better than we are now.
Ethics watchdogs need to step up and start really trying hard to break the current push for more javascript.
Dynamic UI = JavaScript. Anything else is static. You talk about flashy graphics, but on web applications, the real bandwidth hog would be reloading the entire web page every time the UI needs to update.
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You talk about flashy graphics, but on web applications, the real bandwidth hog would be reloading the entire web page every time the UI needs to update.
Google AJAX and Single Page Applications.
Re: Dangerous Behaviours, Predictable Results (Score:3)
Guess what AJAX stands for.
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Do you know what the J in AJAX stands for?
Native applications aren't static (Score:2)
Dynamic UI = JavaScript. Anything else is static.
The last time we discussed the pros and cons of JavaScript and WebAssembly [slashdot.org], the consensus in the comments appeared to be that people want web pages ought to be static apart from form submission and CSS checkbox hack menus. For dynamic UI, make a native application that users can download, install, and use.
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comments appeared to be that people want
Define people. Slashdot users are not typical users and installing an application is above many of their skill levels (as is typing a web address into the address bar).
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I get a call from family members like the people you're describing and I always have to come up with an excuse as to why I can't fix their computer. Usually I just try to help them but only if they answer some questions quickly.
I find that I can usually solve the problem by step 2, but I always send the questions to them via email so they can work it out.
I find this helps even noob computer users to learn to fish.
1. Can you summarize the problem in under ten words?
2. Call me back when you can summarize the
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Would the following be an ideal reply?
Can you summarize the problem in under ten words?
Router on, cables connected, but websites give "server not found".
What did you do now?
Restarted PC, router, and modem.
Why did you do that?
ISP phone rep told me last time to do that, saying it'd snap the circuits out of a stuck state.
What did you find when you googled the summarized ten word problem?
"Server not found" on both Google and Bing.
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This would appear to solve so much trouble caused by JS.
More info for those interested:
http://webassembly.org/docs/se... [webassembly.org]
Aaaaaand:
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Actually, you can have dynamic UI often with nothing more than CSS trickery. If your application happens to fall in that category and you implement it in that way, the browser will behave much more smoothly and in fact there's less to micromanage.
Of course there are things that plain CSS cannot do, but it can do far more than a lot of people do not realize.
In short, guess my message is don't go too crazy doing something visual with javascript without seeing if CSS has a way of doing it first.
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Dynamic doesn't mean animated in this context. It means updating with external data based on the inputs.
I dread Jan 1, 2021 (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: I dread Jan 1, 2021 (Score:3, Insightful)
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Will there really, though? By then, just about every Windows OS except Windows 10 will be End of Life, and the majority of people browse the web with Chrome which has flash built-in. By then, I suspect Firefox will mostly be gone and most will be on either Chrome or Edge -- both with built-in flash... which they'll simply disable permanently. Neither Android nor iOS support flash directly, and most browsers already have warnings for it and have content disabled by default -- with plans to remove the fun
Not really (Score:2)
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Most vulnerabilities stop being an issue if browser+plugin developers don't allow automatic blind execution. This is a lesson that should have been learned since the MS-DOS virus days. Since flash no longer auto-executes, there's much less concern for 0-days.
If anything, it's a flaw with web browsers themselves. Web browsers tended to have vulnerabilities for much longer than what w
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Most vulnerabilities stop being an issue if browser+plugin developers don't allow automatic blind execution.
Let me know when browsers "don't allow automatic blind execution" of proprietary JavaScript by default either.
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Done [browser.org].
Netscape 2.0 also counts, as it's miles ahead in stopping blind execution compared to stock modern browsers. It also had bandwidth saving features too, allows manually loading images. Modern browser developers must think those two features would never have any use.
What is Lynx's usage share? (Score:2)
Done: Lynx
You are technically correct. Pardon my moving the goalposts, but I had browsers in wide interactive use among English speakers in mind. Wikipedia's article about that browser [wikipedia.org] gives no indication of usage share, and most sources found through Google lynx browser usage share lump it into "Other", which isn't helpful.
Netscape 2.0 also counts
Pardon my moving the goalposts, but I had browsers that still receive security updates in mind. The 2.0 series no longer receives security updates. When Netscape Navigator as a whole ended support
Snark time! (Score:2)
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In its defense (Score:3)
I was a Flash aficionado back in the early 2000s. Back then it was a good way to get something moving on your page or to provide a bit of interactivity. HTML 5 was some way off, iFrames were clunky, and JavaScript libraries like jQuery weren't very mature yet. Plus the player had a small footprint and was pretty widely installed on the browsers of the time. For a time it was a great way to deliver video.
As a technology it was a decent stopgap measure IMHO but it was on borrowed time as open standards caught up. Not many slashdotters had anything positive to say about it because it was a closed standard, but I have fond memories of seeing what the future of the web looked like, even if it was implemented in a doomed technology.
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I dont think HTML5 or SVG monstrosity can come close in resource consumption
Which benchmark of Canvas vs. SWF is most honest nowadays?
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I dont think HTML5 or SVG monstrosity can come close in resource consumption
With a Servo-like engine, it actually might. Aside from that, WASM could serve your needs just as well.
Why so long? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Why wait... (Score:2)
I'll be counting the days! (Score:2)
Once I can find a suitable website that has a free flash-based countdown tool.
Attention Major League Baseball, Pandora (Score:3)
Update your damn websites.
Both of you have iOS and Android apps which don't use Flash... so you apparently have (or know where to find) at least one or two people whose skill sets are less than a decade out of date.
It's not a particularly hard problem... so what's the holdup?
Sincerely,
A Paying Customer
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Both [MLB and Pandora] have iOS and Android apps which don't use Flash
Would you prefer that use of MLB or Pandora on a PC require installing a Windows app or a macOS app, with GNU/Linux and FreeBSD users left out?
True "end of life" (Score:3)
On Jan 1, 2021, they should send out an update that completely uninstalls and removes Flash, period.
Nothing short of that matters, millions of computers will remain infected, millions of websites will continue to be exploited.
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On Jan 1, 2021, they should send out an update that completely uninstalls and removes Flash, period.
Yeah, shame on people actually being able to make choices. It's not like they could just disable it by default if it's already installed and not install it on new machines.
It's easy to beat up on Flash, but I'm very disturbed by the accelerating trend of killing and deleting things on a schedule, rather than letting the market decide. That's especially true when 3rd parties, like Mozilla and Google, can decide when someone else's technology needs to die for the good of the people.
Apple announced Flash dead in 2010 (Score:4, Informative)
Thoughts on Flash [apple.com]
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I remember that announcement. I also remember then Android came out with flash support and without half the internet broken and then ate Apple's lunch in the smartphone market. That announcement was full of self justifications at a time when they simply weren't true, e.g. Youtube's pitiful library on the iPhone compared to a PC.
They were premature.
VMWare (Score:3)
I hope VMWare gets it act together and comes up with some better technology for vCenter soon enough.
I couldn't ever figure out why change the lean, relatively fast and responsive vSphere client to the flash-based mess. At least you can still do most things via vSphere but some need the web interface (e.g. vMotion where you move both the VM and the data in case the VM is stored on local drives).
At least Cisco has gotten rid of it for their IMC modules (for some servers, not all).
Is there truly a replacement for Flash? (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm gonna miss the casual browser games with the sweet stylized graphics you only find in Flash games. What is the replacement easy to use programming and creation environment for artists?
Re:Is there truly a replacement for Flash? (Score:5, Informative)
What is the replacement easy to use programming and creation environment for artists?
Open up the .fla file in Adobe Animate, go to the Command menu and choose "Convert to HTML5 Canvas from AS3 document formats"
Debug a bit. Done.
The cost of Creative Cloud (Score:2)
Open up the .fla file in Adobe Animate
The difference is that like Macromedia Flash before it, Adobe Flash allows resale of a used copy, whereas Adobe Animate does not because it's offered exclusively through the Creative Cloud rental service. Someone who bought a used copy of Adobe Flash may not feel it worth it to continue to pony up for Creative Cloud every month for the rest of his life.
Re:The cost of Creative Cloud (Score:4, Informative)
Are these games in active development or something? Sign up for a 30-day trial, open / convert / save / done. Never touch it again.
For new games, you can learn HTML/JS directly, and it's an open standard.
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Sign up for a 30-day trial, open / convert / save / done. Never touch it again.
I thought trial-exported projects had conspicuous watermarks.
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Before CC, the Adobe trials wouldn't even let you use the save feature - I think the only watermarks were in video renders. I ran the current CC trial last year for 30 days and I was able to save with no problem and no visible watermarks in Photoshop and Illustrator. This is because you have to activate the trial with an Adobe account and the software won't function in trial mode until you do.
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Also, some of that functionality exists in CS6, I think. I don't know, I don't use Flash and the rest of my CS suite is at 5.5 because I'm not a subscriber.
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And... if I don't have the source code?
Will there continue to be a standalone player that will let me play all the SWF files I've downloaded over the years?
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Lots of discontinued programs have been preserved by end users to continue running pretty much forever (by emulation or virtualization). Flash already has an .exe player for SWF files included with the flash installer. Get an old offline installer for Flash Player and you're good to go - you don't want an insecure older version of Flash in your browser, though.
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Adobe has been famous for trying to keep standalone versions of the Flash player exclusive to developers. At one point, they wouldn't let you download it unless you registered an account with Adobe, and today you have to do stupid tricks such as adding "&standalone=1" to the end of download URLs. Those tricks are of course not documented and tend to work and not work at random. What else do you expect from a company where the installer will instantly delete itself when you run it, BEFORE it has actua
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All it takes is one person to keep a copy of the standalone installer to preserve the old stuff. It has no business being used on the web anymore, and that's the rallying cry here.
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The problem is that there's serious social pressure not to do so. I keep having to turn to pirate networks to get archives of free software, let alone old commercial software.
Stuff like Windows Live Mail 2009, which I needed as an intermediate upgrade. Microsoft killed 2009 and tore every trace of it from the web since it was "insecure", but a direct upgrade from Outlook Express to Live Mail 2012 doesn't work, so I had to upgrade from OE to 2009 to 2012. I never intended to use 2009 for production use, b
A bit late? (Score:2)
I thought Adobe already had an announcement to kill its Flash years ago.
About time... (Score:2)
Maybe now some of the holdouts that I encounter that still use Flash (ABC Australia iView catch-up TV for one) will finally stop using Flash and start using HTML5.
Re:Gone in a ....... (Score:5, Funny)
Re: Gone in a ....... (Score:2)
... bout 50 seconds?
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Do not vote for fear, do not vote for hate [thisishistorictimes.com].
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It's not like [classic SWF games are] going to be ported to HTML5; that would be a lot of work.
The majority of work would be in tracking down the authors for the FLA source files and providing a rental of Adobe Animate CC with which to exporting them to HTML5.
HTML5Zombo.com exists (Score:2)
Way ahead of you [html5zombo.com]