Skyfire For Android Enables (Some) Flash Video

harrymcc writes "Skyfire, a browser formerly available only for Windows Mobile and Symbian, is releasing a beta for Android. The most notable feature: It can identify Flash video on Web pages and convert it to HTML5 and H.264 on the fly, so it'll play on Android phones. It doesn't support all video, and may be rendered somewhat superfluous when Adobe ships Flash Player 10.1 for Android — but it's an impressive trick."

Comments

Re:lol

[h4rr4r]

To be fair flash is a piece of shit on all platforms. It only exists because it makes creating content brain dead easy.

Is it a security nightmare like opera?

[h4rr4r]

I would rather not have someone recording every page I visit, which is what opera does with its man-in-the-middle attack is a feature browser.

Re:What could go wrong?

[teh31337one]

It's not actually doing Flash video, it signals Skyfire's servers to fetch the video and transcode it from its original format to HTML 5 video. http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-20003714-1.html

Cool, how can I block it?

[straponego]

Does anybody know if the default Android browser will allow blocking Flash when 10.1 ships? I think it's possible that I might find a use for a Flash program on a phone sometime, but if I can't block it by default I'd rather not have it at all. Screen, bandwidth, CPU and battery are at a premium on mobile devices. I'd rather not sacrifice them so I can watch a visual bedlam of ads for products that I will never buy (if you throw Flash ads at me, I boycott you. Ads only affect my buying choices negatively; so really, I'm doing you a favor by blocking your ads, marketing weasels. And I'm saving you money too!).

Re:What could go wrong?

[nine-times]

Of course, it's got to use a lot of CPU cycles on the server side to do this at any sort of scale, built into a browser. But I guess if you are making enough money off your browser, then cool.

That depends on whether they're really "transcoding". Most Flash these days is H264 anyway, so it might just be doing something to bypass Flash and give the device access to the video stream. Of course, most sites are going to start doing this anyway (giving HTML5-capable browsers the ability to bypass Flash and go straight to the video), but this might work as an interim solution.

Re:lol

[EvanED]

I thought Flash was some kind of perfect standard for video and it was already supported on every platform in existence. After all, that's why everyone is so pissed at Apple for failing to support Flash, right?

Just because Flash sucks doesn't mean that "I can't get the content I want" is better.

The only reason any device might not support Flash right now is if the manufacturer is evil?

That's a Red Herring. Adobe would love to provide Flash support for the iPhone, but Apple won't allow it. That's what matters, not whether Adobe was quick-on-the-draw to get support to Android.

Android does support Flash?

[BlueBoxSW.com]

I just kind of assumed with all those bashing the iPhone for not supporting Flash that Android did it out of the box.

Is there any mobile that supports full Flash well?

Re:Android does support Flash?

[evJeremy]

I'm pretty sure the n900 does.

Re:Android does support Flash?

[kurt555gs]

The Nokia N900 supports Flash in it's own browser, or Firefox, or Chromium. Unlike iWhatever or Android there are no limits put on you. Oh, and you have root access, and can develop in whatever you want, and don't have to ask anyone for any permission, to do anything.

So there!

Uh oh.

[Anonymous Coward]

From the license agreement:

When you use the browser, Skyfire has access to, and in many cases will monitor, your Browser Usage.

also

Personal information collected by Skyfire may be stored and processed in the United States or any other country in which Skyfire Labs, Inc. or its agents maintain facilities. By using Skyfire products and services, you consent to any such transfer of information outside of your country.

I understand that to work Skyfire needs to translate some stuff from Flash to HTML 5, but the word "monitor" is a little scary. Also I don't appreciate the fact that the GPS turned on before I even got a chance to read the terms of use.

So... speaking personally... I'm not accepting.

It is not a discharger

[Ilgaz]

If vendor of device is wise and OS is open enough to talk to chips, H264 will be possibly decoded on chip. Just like my Nokia does while running flash embedded video. Of course, it is a video and video does have some load on battery, just like if I launched a m4v from its file browser.

Please don't get brainwashed by Steve. Today, a Mac Mini having Nvidia 9400, Flash 10.1 does play 1080P HD video with 4% CPU, if it is running Windows. If it runs OS X, it uses a lot of processing power since until 10.6.3, there was no way to talk to GPU to do its job.

Re:Is it really Transcoding?

[buchner.johannes]

It is neither, it works per proxy server.

Like Opera Mini, earlier versions of Skyfire for Windows Mobile and Symbian were proxy browsers that compressed Web pages on the server side before transferring them to the phone. With this Android edition, the Skyfire folks are shifting strategy. Android’s Webkit-based rendering engine is already capable of displaying Web pages swiftly and accurately, they figure, so they’re not trying to duplicate it. Skyfire for Android uses the same Webkit rendering that Android’s default browser does–but rolls it into a browser with a bunch more features.

The most notable of these new capabilities is Flash video playback. For that, Skyfire still uses a proxy approach: When you come to pages with Flash videos, it identifies them, compresses them, and converts them to H.264 and HTML5, then transfers them to your phone for playback.

Would have been too cool if they had managed to do it on the client. I'd have wanted it as a Firefox plugin ...