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Windows 8 Won't Support Plug-Ins; the End of Flash?
An anonymous reader writes "The Microsoft Windows Engineering Team has announced that the Metro interface web browser in Windows 8 will not support plug-ins — Adobe Flash included. Users will still be able to open a traditional browser interface to make use of legacy sites that rely upon plug-ins. This news follows a recent blog post by the Internet Explorer 10 team pushing the use of HTML5 video as a replacement to Flash video. With Google, Apple, Mozilla, Opera and other major players already backing HTML5 — is Adobe Flash finally dead?"
And people are still saying Microsoft is evil? They just made HTML5 video reality. It wouldn't have happened without this.
Remember all those rumors of Microsoft wanting to buy Adobe?
This is payback for saying "No" to Uncle Stevie. You can be sure that if the deal had gone through, flash would not only have been supported, but integrated into the next release of IE.
So it won't be possible to play NewGrounds games with that browser?
Boring...
The lack of Adobe Flash support shouldn't be the issue here. The real thing that should concern us is that it won't support *ANY* plug-in. It seems like everything is becoming a walled garden these days. For a long time, the trend for browsers was MORE "modability" and freedom, not less. Now we're going backwards.
I just hope Mozilla doesn't get any ideas. Firefox is still the best browser out there for add-ons.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Maybe, or maybe, the IE team, like the Firefox team, is awfully tired of their software being used as a vector for Flash's seemingly infinite supply of vulnerabilities.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
I won't ever use Windows! If it can't show me the WHOLE web then it's just a crippled toy!
Flash is nothing but a giant XSS Vessel, or something to convey annoying ads (my favourites are the one that play sound randomly, or cover the whole page you're viewing). Then again, HTML5 will probably just embed these 'features' into the browsers now, instead of being able to disable these things by not installing Flash.
"the Metro style browser in Windows 8" METRO! Not the desktop-IE. Reading, guys, reading...
Gotta admit, sometimes the Microsoft-Apple dictatorship approach to platform design benefits users.
This is one of those times. Flash was slick at one time, but it's become a crutch used by too many lousy designers. Adobe has had too little incentive to improve it and performance and security have suffered.
In Windows 8, IE 10 is available as a Metro style app and as a desktop app. The desktop app continues to fully support all plug-ins and extensions.
Anybody want my mod points?
Flash is the single buggiest, leakiest, most insecure and least reliable piece of software on your average PC.
Adobe keeps it out of scrutiny despite its many problems. Using it means relying on a company with a history of buying promising products, only to let them fester through a lack of updates. Writing code for Flash is like throwing it into a failed tributary of history.
Let's move away from these weird closed standards.
Let's step back....is this more of a problem for Adobe Flash or Windows? If I'm a normal person with the choice of buying an Android or Windows tablet, am I going to buy the one that plays Flash or the one that doesn't?
I don't think Microsoft really has that much clout anymore. There are consumer choices now, and they can just arbitrarily decide to drop support for something without repercussions.
Adobe doesn't really care about Flash, as long as there's other alternative. They care about selling designing software for those technologies, and that can be either Flash, Silverlight or HTML5. Sadly, HTML5 isn't really there yet, and it's missing a lot of stuff that Flash and Silverlight have.
I know many major corporations depend upon Flash for displaying content in online training. Their response will be "We will have to spend how much if we upgrade to the next version of Windows?" This means that they will have to pay to have all of that training reworked (and it won't be cheap).
It looks like Windows 8 will be another Windows Me/Vista.
Flash isn't dead until Netcraft confirms it! :-P
Once again, this is a stupid title for an article.
Here's the truth: Windows 8 supports everything Windows 7 supports. In Windows 8, there will be TWO IE browsers, though. The "regular", desktop browser which acts the same as IE9 does today (i.e. it will support plugins) and a "Metro-style" browser, which is more geared towards touch and tablet use. THIS is what won't support plugins. That's it!
If you need to use a plugin, you can push a button and be taken to the desktop version of IE. Or, you know, use a different web browser.
+1 IDisagreeSoHeMustBeATrollOrAnAstroturferOrAShill
The people who run Slashdot obviously noticed, because they sure as hell aren't saying no to these ads MS is putting in the queue.
"Sacrifice for the good of The State" - The State
I can think of a dozen other categories under which to put this article; DRM would never have occurred to me.
.sig withheld by request
Metro IE is plug-in free ... Click a button in it to view it in the "other IE" or launch IE from the "Desktop" and you get good old IE 10 complete with chrome and plug-ins and all the blinky Flash ads you can handle!
How else will I block 90% of all adds by simply disallowing execution of .swf content?
Killing Flash would make adblock/noscript's job a lot harder, not to mention prevent you from being able to see all the older, non-maintained sites out there that still use Flash sitenavs.
I for one am saddened at the move to video in HTML5--it may make multimedia native, but it blurs the lines between what should rightly be handled by something other than the browser and the browser engine itself.
Microsoft said the Metro interface will be loaded with a minimal Windows 8 back end (DLLs, drivers, etc), to make loading it quick and use less memory, if they supported plugins that would put an unknown amount of time on loading and memory usage and rely on 3rd parties for a fast browsing experience, especially on slower tablet devices.
It's okay, nobody is gonna use that.
While Flash may not exist as a plug-in for browsers, its code can still be compiled down into other usable formats and knowing Adobe, they will be bringing those formats to bear to remain relevant.
Even if the biggest sites turns away from flash it will linger on for years to come. If Microsoft does this, the users of Windows 8 will suffer for it or install another browser with the capabilities they need. Personally i would never buy a device that doesnt handle flash. Not because i love flash but because i need it to be able to view much of the internet.
The only people this will hurt are the users of Windows 8.
HTTP/1.1 400
That spells the end of a lot (not all) of Java's usefulness too.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
We can only hope.
Lacking <sarcasm> tags,
So Microsoft is fairly collecting royalties on what technologies they have researched and developed
Which read-write file system for removable storage media is 1. supported in Windows and 2. not patented?
Adobe Flash: I'm not dead.
The Internet: 'Ere, he says he's not dead.
Google: Yes he is.
Flash: I'm not.
The Internet: He isn't.
Opera Software: Well, he will be soon, he's very ill.
Flash: I'm getting better.
Mozilla: No you're not, you'll be stone dead in a moment.
The Internet: Well, I can't take him like that. It's against regulations.
Flash: I don't want to go on the cart.
Apple: Oh, don't be such a baby.
The Internet: I can't take him.
Flash: I feel fine.
W3C: Oh, do us a favor.
The Internet: I can't.
Google: Well, can you hang around for a couple of minutes? He won't be long.
The Internet: I promised I'd be at the Robinsons'. They've lost nine today.
Apple: Well, when's your next round?
The Internet: Thursday.
Flash: I think I'll go for a walk.
Mozilla: You're not fooling anyone, you know. Isn't there anything you could do?
Flash: I feel happy. I feel happy.
[Microsoft glances up and down the street furtively, then silences Flash with his a whack of his club]
W3C: Ah, thank you very much.
The Internet: See you on Thursday.
launch IE from the "Desktop" and you get good old IE 10
Thank you, traveler, for this post from the future. I am reassured that "good old IE 10" will have been running Flash. What's IE 11 going to have been like?
Hope I got my time-travel grammar right there. ;^)
(Otherwise, spot on, as many have pointed out.)
Note that Metro interface is designed mostly for tablets and as a simplistic interface for casual users.
But aren't "casual users" the ones most likely to be playing SWF games on Newgrounds and Facebook and the like?
But you're right, it won't kill of Flash because it's used for other stuff than video too.
Including vector animated series such as Homestar Runner and Weebl and Bob.
The existing video sites will just sniff the user-agent and serve HTML5 video instead of Flash if required.
SVG animation is reportedly even more CPU intensive than Flash animation, and converting it to H.264 or VP8 would bloat its bitrate by a factor of ten.
they have to do it for iPhones and iPads anyway.
How well do iPhones and iPads display SVG animation?
sad to say adobe will find some way to continue making the web miserable with a poor video product.
This is actually quite brilliant. Remember the clusterfuck that was ios not supporting flash due to battery drain, exploits etc? I would have loved to have to option of viewing flash on my iPhone, and this gives it to the user. Have a slick, lean, mean (slightly crippled) browser that will cater for most day to day browsing needs and at the click of a button, if required, a more fully featured, more battery hungry alternative.
Great for choice and great for battery life :)
What else exactly is going on in the tech world? You have tons of new information about the next version of the most popular operating system in the world coming from a developers conference of all places. It's literally the definition of both news for nerds and stuff that matters. Not everyone who reads /. is a linux zealot. We have jobs developing for windows, and this news is crucial.
The developers are moving the security vulnerabilities from the plug-in's back to the core app ... That's all.
That spells the end of a lot (not all) of Java's usefulness too.
Er, but nobody ever actually uses Java for web applets or whatever, they use it as a normal programming language to write traditional apps.
We live, as we dream -- alone....
Yeah, as if anybody listens to what the devs think. It's corporate politics.
ok i agree that slash advertisements are bad.. but to be fair.. Most of the desktop world runs Windows which is MS. and any news of an actual difference between current and expected version is actual news when it can effect ~2-4 billion people.
'...if only "Jumping to a Conclusion" was an event in the Olympics.'
Metro IE is plug-in free ... Click a button in it to view it in the "other IE"
But how easy will it be for users to find the "Use Desktop View" button that the article mentions?
Sadly, Flash is used for more than just video clips and silly games.
Some major products use Flash websites. The latest version of BMC's monitoring tool, for example (ProactiveNet), has a Flash frontend. For reasons best known to BMC, they migrated from a relatively normal, albeit JavaScript heavy, web frontend to Flash. I'm sure there are other examples.
At work, at least, any browser I use has to support Flash. It would be really handy to have remote access to the monitoring site from a tablet device, but the iPad has ruled itself out for our field engineers due to a lack of Flash.
Sigs are so 1990s. No way would I be seen dead with one.
Another timothy post. Why can't he read the news article in question before posting?
I don't care what the rationale is, the death of Flash would be a good thing.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
...an HTML 5 animation program, Edge. Also some nice up and coming options out there like Hype (great for simple animations). Don't mind getting away from Flash at all. My only current issue with all the HTML 5 animation builds are the larger file sizes.
In fact, killing flash would be a win for adobe. They can then force-upgrade all those flash using developers out there to the latest version of the adobe suite that generates HTML5 output.
I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
Or just blood in the water. Apple dealt the first wound with iOS. Google followed up with Android not supporting java well (when I last used Android). Microsoft is just following the pattern.
Thank you, Microsoft.
Plug-ins are a hack to get around an issue that doesn't exist anymore.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
MicroSoft has been down this road several times before,trying to close their system. You'd think they would have learned by now.
That makes no sense what so ever. Microsoft is ditching their very own RIA technology in "No plugins" mode. Are they punishing themselves?
They could have very easily supported "HTML5 + Silverlight" only. And personally, I think that might have been a smart thing to do. But they didn't.
Just give the guys props for once and move on.
So, is Silverlight considered a plugin too?
That means Android on tablets has a unique advantage over their 2 main competitors...
That's fine for tablets or phones, but what about the desktop. Forcing no plugins? That's not good (except for stopping all those toolbars). How long before that's true in the traditional mode browser as well?
Should it be there by default? No. That's one thing that really bugs me about Chrome and auto-flash. But that it can never, ever be there even if I want it? That bugs me worse. I can uninstall Flash on my Android phone. And that's how it should be. That's not hard or difficult at all. HTML5 browser compatibility doesn't require you to extra add-ons. I use Java at work. Is MS going to rewrite router code for us to only use HTML5?
I8-D
I don't doubt that, but I do doubt the IE team has any saying in that decision if the top hierarchy wants Flash for business reasons.
Dilbert RSS feed
If management isn't listening to the devs, the devs need to learn how to communicate.
or, simple sit in your cube and complain that no one listen to nothing you aren't telling them.... You heard me.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Maybe, or maybe, the IE team, like the Firefox team, is awfully tired of their software being used as a vector for Flash's seemingly infinite supply of vulnerabilities.
Or maybe, just maybe, Microsoft is tired of anything being a vector for software they don't own. Here goes the anti-trust lawsuits again, especially if they use any form of Silverlight... and you can bet your ass Adobe will sue then (and win or settle for a large sum).
I8-D
Everyone who keeps saying they need Flash to view their websites, please list them. I've had Flash disabled for THREE FUCKING YEARS and apart from video, a situation which is rapidly changing thanks to YouTube and Vimeo, I haven't missed anything.
If a website requires Flash to navigate or view its content, it's an epic FAIL.
And please no "Newsground", games != Web.
How about no, because there's more to Flash than video.
Does that mean it won't support their own "plugins" as well? Of course they still have IE 9 for backwards compatibility, but between this move and Apple's stance you can say good bye to Flash within two years.
I can't live without Adblock. Admittedly, I don't use IE if I can avoid it but I guess this means the new IE10 will never gain my favor.
Provided M$ fully support scalable (vector) graphics in IE, why not. One cannot do scalable 2D graphics in HTML5 with canvas and Javascript. The Web standard for vector graphics is SVG but IE9 has limited support for SVG at this time; unfortunately, the same applies to all major browsers. This move is part of a software commoditization campaign started by Apple and Sun (now Oracle): if you sell hardware then make sure that you don't depend too much on third party software. Microsoft could also benefit from it and it is consistent with their "no dependencies" paradigm.
You tend to forget that Windows 8 on ARM (and thus on most tablets) only supports Metro, no legacy desktop x86 apps.
With Google, Apple, Mozilla, Opera and other major players already backing HTML5 — is Adobe Flash finally dead?"
No, cause browser makers can't agree on what format to use, not all codecs work on all browsers
That spells the end of a lot (not all) of Java's usefulness too.
The only place Java has ever been used significantly is on the server side (J2EE.) Java desktop apps do have a small niche where write-once-debug-everywhere is a big deal.
Nobody, but nobody, uses Java Web Start. Some people tried in the '90s, but the download/startup time was so awful that everyone hated it. JWS is deader than RealPlayer.
Not web applets, Java web start. They are two entirely different things.
Web start applications *ARE* traditional applications that can be easily launched from within a browser with library dependency info stored in the metadata so that any libraries that are not already on the client machine will automatically get downloaded. The application is cached on the client machine so that it does not download it again unless it changes.
You can launch a web-start application exactly like starting any other java application, although the dependencies are not automatically resolved as they are with the java webstart plugin.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
To be honest I just wish websites would stop plastering multimedia content all over the damn place. In addition annoying the bejeezus out of people, it's one of the biggest user-experience hinderances for businesses changing over to VDI. Citrix has made life tolerable in this regard with client-side Flash rendering, but there's not an awful lot to be done about tackling HTML5, so the death of Flash would make an obnoxious problem even more so.
Does this mean that silverlight will get the same treatment?
So no add-block, no firebug and no no-script? No thanks.
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
I guess these idiots don't realize ppl are contractually obliged to deliver content through flash because it has some content protection measures, where HTML5 has none.
So, good luck to MS, because they're not going to be able to change that...
usefulness?
IMO, uselessness would be a more accurate term....
Meanwhile the other half of the internet that is serving your video games, services, and websites will continue to run on Java.
Does this mean that SMIL, or some equivalent my finally be available natively in browsers?
HTML 5 is pretty much just a marketing term. It did add video standards, which is part of what is needed to finally do away with Flash, but most of the things people attribute to HTML (Canvas and/or SVG) have existed long before the HTML 5 buzzword, and the HTML 5 standard just makes Canvas mandatory.
But, the real problem is the event model in Javascript. Controlling SVG or Canvas elements must be done with with Javascript, and it is rather terrible with events. In order to really kill off flash, something like SMIL is needed, and as of today, it still is not supported in any browsers (other than emulation through flash). SMIL is markup language, so it would play well with all other XHTML elements, if it was just available!
SMIL has been a W3C recommendation since 1998, so why don't we have it yet?
Free unix account: freeshell.org
> is Adobe Flash finally dead?"
That's one scenario. Another might be, a significant number of users will get frustrated with the number of websites that don't work with the metro browser, and dump it.
I'm not a fan of flash and want to see it dead, but I think trying to force the issue on the browser level is more likely to reduce browser penetration than it is reduce flash usage.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
Last time I checked, you download a web-start app just once, and it is cached on the client. The only time you ever have to download anything other than the metadata (which is typically less than 1K or so) again is when something changes, and even then you only re-download the part that has changed, or at most a newer revision of a third party library.
Unless it was ignorantly packaged all into one file so that if any single part of the application changed, then you had to download the whole thing again.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
This isn't a flash issue, it's a major "see the internet as we want you to or not at all" issue. For just one example, the moment I discovered Noscript awhile back, it became absolutely required for internet access. A browser that won't use it is a browser I'm not usin'. I don't trust Microsoft to manage the security of my browsing experience. What knowledgeable person would?
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
at least I'm pretty sure that it won't let you format it in UDF
Therefore UDF isn't practical to replace patented FAT32 on USB flash drives.
FAT12/16 with 8.3 names
So in other words, USB flash drives using unpatented file systems are limited to 2 GB.
Does a NAS qualilfy as removable storage ?
Only if stores regularly sell hard drives in NAS enclosures. And has Microsoft patented CIFS (formerly SMB), the protocol that Windows uses to communicate with a NAS? Furthermore, how easy would it be for a USB flash drive to present itself as a USB network card with a NAS on the other end?
Third party plugins can add support for other FS;
How does the plug-in get onto a non-network-connected computer without being on a patented file system? And how can a hobbyist file system developer afford a certificate to get his own plug-in digitally signed in order to load under the Kernel-Mode Code Signing policy of 64-bit Windows?
'removable' seems superfluous in your question.
I mentioned "removable" because I was looking for something to replace patented FAT32 on USB flash drives.
With IE that limited in win8, it's likely to push more IE users to Firefox/chrome/other third party browsers. Seems like an odd direction for them to go to me. As far as the evils of flash. Well, I don't need Microsoft, or you, or anyone else telling me I can/can't run some piece of software. If I want to run flash, I should be able to run it. If I want to run WackyPlugin 12.0, I should be able to run that too. I think flash performs somewhat badly, but in my opinion it still brings things to the table on websites that make it worthwhile when compared with the competition. If you're running an old core2 based system with only 4GB ram then perhaps you've got to make some harder choices about what you can/can't do with your computer than I have had to make.
I love this quote from the IE10 blog post:
"For example, Gmail video chat degrades gracefully in the absence of Adobe Flash."
Exactly. Once Flash is killed, the whole web can "degrade gracefully" to cope with the reduced feature set and reduced performance of HTML5 vs. what we had in Flash.
I think what needs to be kept in mind is that Metro/Windows 8 is being designed to run on ARM *and* x86. 3rd party plugins (flash) create a 1st and 3rd world web experience across devices/architectures based on how well that 3rd party supports a platform.
This is just a way of making sure that the experience on the desktop and your mobile appliance is equivalent. If adobe wants to make an app that gives users a richer experience, so be it.
Non-geeks don't "make and publish vector animations."
So everybody who has ever submitted an animation to Newgrounds is a geek. It appears we define geek differently.
Heck, very, very, very few geek users make and publish vector animations...
Only because Flash CS series is so expensive, and Synfig hasn't got enough love.
I'm a normal person with the choice of buying an Android or Windows tablet, am I going to buy the one that plays Flash or the one that doesn't?
If you are a "normal person" you'll buy an iPad so apparently the answer is that you'll buy the one that doesn't.
That spells the end of a lot (not all) of Java's usefulness too.
> Firefox.
So I guess Microsoft is now admitting that Silverlight is worthless?
HTML 5 is platform agnostic since it is a standard anyone can implement
And since Open Screen Project, anyone can implement an SWF player.
and H.264 is a standard that anyone can license for any platform.
Not for platforms that can be redistributed, such as most Linux distributions, for a reason that I'll explain in the next paragraph.
Any platform can support H.264 with a small fee which is probably less than the price of a cup of McDonald's coffee.
Say I were to buy an H.264 license for an operating system that can be redistributed, I'd have to track to how many people the operating system is redistributed in order to know how many less than the price of a cup of McDonald's coffee I am obligated to pay to MPEG-LA.
When the ipad came out, I don't recall Apple going on and on about their ipad browser and how superior it was. The marketing was centered on the product, not some integral part of the product that should JUST WORK. Mind you, I'm not an Apple fanboi -- I make fun of fanbois -- but in my experience, the more Microsoft zeros in on a particular feature of an upcoming operating system, the more likely that feature will be unintelligible, incompatible, buggy, and generally unusable.
Whether I go to 8 or skip it as we did Vista depends on the initial reviews and how soon service pack 1 comes out, and what it fixes. But it seems like Microsoft could do themselves a favor and spend more time on (a) listening to what users really want and (b) implementing same, and less time on promoting in what new way the engineers have have pissed on individual pieces of the OS.
It's like Ubuntu wrote news releases about a new "ls" command. That's an automatic fail. We just want it to work, in a recognizable fashion.
The main point, I guess, is that I'm not looking for a "new experience" from my operating system. It's primary purpose is to manage and run applications in a relatively safe, fast, reliable, compatible and non-annoying manner. What I'm looking for in a new OS is safer, faster, more reliable and compatible, and less annoying. What I usually get is new failure modes, brand new exploits, new hardware requirements, and a whole 'nother level of annoying.
Yes, Windows 8 is supposed to work well with touch, something we've been promised at least twice in the past (XP tablet edition, Win 7 tablet edition... can't speak for Vista) and was botched horribly. (Parenthetically, that the design goal of Windows 8 is that the same interface will work equally well with KB/Mouse, Finger, and Stylus, tells me that it probably won't deliver a satisfactory experience with any input method.)
In the name of all that's holy, instead of bragging about some new spiffy paradigm that you're all going to love, (which in this case is "we've removed a feature!!! Aren't you glad???") why not just assure us that poking a dialog box will bring up the virtual keyboard in a place where it doesn't COVER UP THE DIALOG BOX. That we can manipulate icons without learning cabalistic finger gestures designed to imitate the actions of a three button mouse. This would be a lot better sell to someone who has spent a few minutes with Android or IOS and then tried to use Win 7 tablet, and knows what it lacks.
And really truly, I'd like to know that this "Metro" interface isn't just Windows Media Center rebranded. Because that isn't going to be good enough. We have a wired mouse on a long extension cord on the PC connected to our TV because of the drawbacks of Win 7 Media Center, (the routine things you can't do with the Media Center remote, and the terrible functionality of the media center wireless keyboard) and we have no confidence whatsoever that Windows 8 Metro will be substantially more usable. Except, of course, in carefully controlled demos on stage.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
Slashdot posters that live in their parents basement misrepresent Microsoft. Only the Metro version of IE10 will not support Flash. The standard version of IE10 will. It makes sense if you think about.
Microsoft charges for anything newer than the latest service pack for your particular LTS version (XP, Vista, 7). Linux distributors, on the other hand, provide free upgrades to the newest LTS. One could have upgraded from Linux in 1993 to Linux in 2011 without spending more than bandwidth charges.
And what about their Silverlight? Will they kill their own child?
You don't get any patent protection at all and, just as you haven't bought the copyrights to windows, android or OS X when you buy the OS, you don't buy the patents either.
People still use Internet Explorer?
who prays for Satan? Who in 18 centuries has had the humanity to pray for the 1 sinner that needed it most? ~Mark Twain
Not only does he force people who use GPL'ed code to contribute back in the name of "freedom"
He requires only those people who modify and distribute covered works to contribute back, not just those who use it or distribute it as they received it. Microsoft ordinarily doesn't allow people to modify and distribute works at all, apart from MSDN sample code.
but he assigns freedom to the code itself which is an inanimate object. It is not a person. Only people or organizations representing people should have rights.
A full discussion of corporate personhood is beyond the scope of this article. But suffice it to say that when Mr. Stallman speaks of assigning freedom to a work, it's a legal shorthand for assigning freedom to all who own a copy of the work.
Please describe how this is different from my seven year old machine with XP on it.
Of course, I've been installing package upgrades, but not a new version of the OS. I have a (quite) updated system, and at the same time, I have an old operating system.
An upgrade from one Ubuntu LTS to the next (6.06 to 8.04 to 10.04) is like an upgrade from one Windows LTS to the next (XP to Vista to 7) or from one Mac OS X LTS to the next (10.5 to 10.6 to 10.7). Even Apple charges less for Mac OS X LTS upgrades than Microsoft charges for Windows LTS upgrades.
Microsoft is phasing out Windows XP support without offering a free upgrade to something that is supported. Canonical, on the other hand, offers a "get the next LTS for free" button in Update Manager.
The counterparts that get automatically installed the first time you try to play an h264 file.
The first time the user tries to play such a file, you get a warning to the effect "This media requires a non-free decoder. Installing and using this decoder may violate patent law or other restrictions in some countries. Click Install only if you have verified that these restrictions do not apply to you." If a computer is on United States soil, the only lawful response is Cancel. After the user has clicked Cancel, the dialog shows up again for every subsequent H.264 video.
This is no different from iOS devices not supporting Flash, or allowing any app that does support Flash or other embedded programming environment.
Microsoft has already said they will not allow non-validated Metro applications and won't allow distribution via any method other than their app store.
Sound familiar? By not supporting Flash (or other plug-ins), they make sure nobody can develop for their platform without them getting a cut. It's weird how Microsoft jumped on that bandwagon, especially after all the digs at Apple for doing exactly the same thing.
And we all know how hard it is to circumvent that issue.
How? By pirating* gstreamer-plugins-ugly? Or by pirating VLC? Such packages are not licensed for use in the United States.
Flash is available for Linux.
Flash doesn't install itself into the operating system's video framework as a demuxer and decoder the way, say, DivX does. Instead, it installs itself as a web browser plug-in.
It should be entirely feasible for a browser to maintain a whiteless of content types & codecs and then inspect the framework to see if its available.
By "whitelist of content types and codecs", how do you propose that this whitelist be efficiently updated once a security vulnerability has been discovered in old versions of one codec?
My Ubuntu actually came with these codecs -- I bought it from Dell, and Dell licensed the codecs.
Dell no longer sells new Ubuntu PCs.
In this case, they are in a legal grey area
The operator of a web site should not recommend that end users use codecs that "are in a legal grey area" unless it wants to be sued for inducing infringement.
And remember what happened with GIF? Patents do expire.
For one thing, Unisys waited until there were about four years left in the LZW patent to fight use of GIF in free software. MPEG-LA started much earlier in the lives of its members' patents. For another, it was easier to get Microsoft to include partial PNG support in IE 6 than it will be to get Microsoft to include any support for WebM in future versions of IE.
when there were no free web browsers
Imagine how different the past 20 years would have been if NCSA Mosaic had been released as an open source project.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
Flash does a whole lot more than HTML5 does - including providing access to web cams etc. To consider Flash dead just because flash cannot be embedded directly as a tile on the metro interface is stupid. Users can always opt to use a browser with flash enabled. I will be very surprised if many users on Slashdot don't install a new version of the flash plugin everytime they install an OS from scratch.
Security vulnerability.
As a result, there is no Linux support.
There could be - Netflix works fine on my Android tablet.
That said, I use Amazon Prime streaming more and more every day. Meanwhile I was running a packet capture on my router last night to try to figure out why Netflix streaming isn't working on my Roku anymore (shock: it's their servers). Oh, Roku is a linux device too - I've had that for a couple years now.
Now that I'm thinking about it, Netflix insists my e-mail address is invalid, so I never get e-mail updates anymore. And their prices just went up. I think I'm seeing a trend here.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
HTML5 cannot replace webcams to the best of my knowledge. Any site that wants to use your web cam will need flash. I know google is working on doing this with HTML5 but, to the best of my knowledge, it hasn't been released yet and, even when it is, will it be done using pure HTML5? Will it be done with open source code? Maybe but unless it's done in a way that's free and open source (which it very well may be if google does it) and all sites that use web cams adopt this immediately then, unless that's done, then people will still need flash.
So it means that Steve Jobs was right again?? More than five years ago??
Flash will still remain the dominant figure in stand-alone interactive applications and character animation. Its introduction to the web was a well-intended idea, though it was painfully pursued much longer than necessary.
So, you're saying a huge monopoly consisting of the two major operating system developers is generally a bad idea? I thought everybody knew that.
plugins still work in when used in IE. Just not when it's part of the desktop so I think this whole article is a bit premature and apparently no plugins include Silverlight so it's not about payback.
Microsoft had already decided to ditch silverlight long before they started talking about buying adobe, so what's your point again? :-)
They're not inherently evil they're just like every other corporation in the world looking out for their interests. Look at Apple who everyone loves they're no different really. They get their hooks in you with itunes you cannot even download a free app unless you make an account and give them your credit card info. From there on it's all about making you a crApple idiot.
But Microsoft is integrating a browser deeply into Windows 8? And using that browser to hurt their competition? Sounds like textbook monopolistic practices.
This is far worse than the case with IE was, that they lost; this is Microsoft doing what even the most fanatical Linux user could not assume, and abusing their monopoly to actively attack their competitors. Microsoft can and will be smacked down hard for this. Windows 8 ban in Europe coming soon...
Great Intellect...
They will support Xbox Live protocols and apps, so perhaps XNA and Silverlight would be part of the OS and not a plugin!
Your car analogy breaks down in two ways: First, as I understand it, automakers try to keep parts available for out-of-warranty repairs for older models. Second, cars are protected by patent, not copyright, and patents expire much sooner, allowing third parties to make replacement or upgrade parts for cars that are still on the road.
. . . because that's the reason I do NOT run IE at all.
I require a Firefox browser, that runs. .. FLASHBLOCK, AdblockPro, Noscript, Ghostery, TrackMeNot, HTTPSEverywhere, (and many many more) - - and IE just doesn't run those. So I don't run IE. Ever. So. . this Win8 change won't be a big deal for me.
The web, without these plugins, is a fucking absurdity. Hell, it's bad enough WITH these plugins, and separate mailinator accounts for every login. Fucking spammers need to eat shit and die.
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
Is there any difference in IE vulnerability with or without Flash?
I mean, IE does a pretty good job regarding viruses without anyone's help...
What version of HTML5 will Microsoft support? I thought independent HTML5 benchmarks had IE as the least compatible browser. Are we going back down this road again?
Yes, because if it wasn't for Flash, Windows would have rock solid secure.
So fucking what? You have to download something, oh noes.
The "something" for some platforms happens to be illegal in some major markets. VLC? Infringes U.S. patents. Gstreamer-plugins-ugly? Infringes the same patents.
Remember, Flash doesn't come on any system at all. You have to download it, too.
Flash Player and Adobe Reader tend to be included on a new PC. Flash Player is included with Internet Channel powered by Opera (the Wii's web browser). And someone who watches vector animations will already have Flash.
Flash is dead. Move on. Why are so many having problems with this? Why do Slashdot posters even care about an Adobe proprietary format on the web?
You can't write a Metro app in Java (yet, anyway... it's not technically impossible to implement a WinRT projection to Java), so web start for those is moot. And for classic desktop apps you'd just use desktop IE10, which retains full support for plugins.
Also stops Chrome Frame from working.
This analogy isn't perfect either, as a TV has a lot more close substitutes than a PC operating system. Come replacement time, you can buy another TV from another maker that can display all the same videos. It has composite in for legacy game consoles, component in for your existing DVD player or game console, VGA in for your computer, HDMI in for your cable/sat/Netflix box and your Blu-ray player, etc. This TV is likely to be cheaper than the one you owned before. You can't as easily buy a compatible PC operating system that runs all your existing applications; Wine is garbage for many widely used apps, and it doesn't run device drivers at all.
No, indemnification is something that never happens. They'd be promising to cover the legal costs of every shit baseless lawsuit that happens whether there's any grounding or not. They could be 100% right, and indemnification would still be signing their own death warrant, a death by a million papercuts at a few tens of millions a pop.
You think SCO was a big deal? SCO had nothing to stand on and still cost the free world hundreds of millions in legal fees. If Google offered indemnification, you's see 100 SCOs pop up overnight for no other reason than to take Google out. The lawsuits would still be dragging on 15 years from now.
Remember, this is America; you can sue for anything. Indemnification would mean that not only could a competitor sue Google for specious reasons (gee, *that* isn't happening, is it?), but also sue anyone using Google's products and it would be like suing Google directly except Google would have no control over defending the suit.
Jesus God Almighty himself couldn't offer patent indemnification. Apple would crucify Him well before he got to thirty.
Annoymous people that are not clear shouldn't be writing such FUD.
i see this as a good thing. everything coming together now with HTML5. No more myriad of 3rd party plugins to make things work. HTML5 has the power!
Apple bans Flash, they are heroes backing open standards, and not at all dicking over a company that was largely responsible for the Mac being a relevant computing platform in the first place.
Microsoft bans all plug-ins, and they are screwing over Adobe for not selling to MS.
They will probably only support Active-X shit in their browser. Hooray for the open We oh, bugger.
There are two rules for success:
1. Never tell everything you know.
You know, since when has Microsoft been able to put a product on the market that was not flawed, full of bugs and just a sad excuse for other more open formats, there may be some that like it, but over all the freedom to develop technology, will cause this product to fail.
Thank you. But when I used the shortcut dell.com/ubuntu, it was telling me "No configurations are valid for the chosen filters." And even with your query, Dell's search appears to be broken, as several of the results list only "Genuine Windows® 7" in available operating systems.
Maybe there should be some kind of ASCAP-like entity that collecs and distributes the royalties (small fixed fee per patent, adding up to, say, the cost of an OEM Windows license).
That was what MPEG-LA was supposed to be for patents related to video.
last I heard any H.264 decoder for consumers was un-encumbered for non-commercial use.
Then what's this US $0.20 per unit?
Ok, first off, PNG isn't a replacement for GIF in that it doesn't support animation
Apart from ads, most images on a web site aren't animated. The only conspicuous animated GIFs I see nowadays are on YTMND.com, and that site began operation after the LZW patent had already expired. Correct me if I'm wrong though.
Second, WebM is already supported in IE, just not out of the box. This isn't even a legal grey area -- you can just download it.
And somehow convince someone with the administrator password (the IT department for the break room PC at work, or the head of household at home) to install it. Or has the Windows Media framework changed to allow installing a pluggable codec to one user account?
Really, it is not up to the browser-maker to decide who can/can not make a plugin. That is pure bullying. Isn't this up to the USER to select what s/he wants to use? I understood that was the policy behind FF etc.
The browser really is an OS on the top of the OS. So what is the next step? Are we going to be limited in what type of application can we write for an OS??? M$ is already trying to limit what documents can be published and distributed on the net. This issue is not about Flash but user-rights.
Flash is also a programming language. While most flash websites are very poorly designed those that are well made do have a polished appearance compared to HTML/CSS. Wouldn't be one of the reasons for the hatred is that there are more-n-more Flash websites? Wiping the floor with html/w3c?
What REALLY needs to retire is HTML/CSS. We need a proper programming language.
Mr. ORACLE! Open Source Programmers!!! Is there anybody in-there??!! Time to come out with a level 5 language!
YTMND launched in 2001.
Yourethemannowdog.com opened in 2001, but YTMND.com itself and the YTMND-o-Matic tool didn't debut until April 2004 according to YTMND's about page, and its hosting wasn't stable enough for the site to take off until April 2005.
Somehow, I think a codec provided by Google is one of the safer things you could possibly ask an admin to install -- certainly safer than, say, Flash.
Admins in organizations with locked-down It policies are hired to install what the employees need for doing the work that makes the company money. More web sites use Flash than the features new to HTML5; therefore, it's easier to make the business case for installing Flash organization-wide than Google Chrome Frame organization-wide (for HTML5 sites) or the WebM codecs for IE9 organization-wide (for sites with video, which are mostly entertainment sites that shouldn't be browsed on company time anyway).
The sublicenses that are "a 'tax' for 'for pay' services where you are already being charged money for the content" are the (b) sublicenses. I was referring to the (a) sublicenses, which apply to "branded encoder and decoder products" such as x264 software. For the (a) sublicenses, only the first 100,000 units and units beyond the enterprise-wide cap are royalty-free. A developer of software distributed under a free software license has no way of enforcing that fewer than 100,000 copies shall be distributed.
From there, each server would have to make sure
Wouldn't each such server operator still have to sign an agreement with MPEG-LA in order to have the license to distribute, even without royalty?
the individual developer isn't "distributing" anything -- it's in a CVS repo
And once the repo has been checked out 100,000 times, pay up.
If the repo doesn't change, and has a fixed-binary that people can download, then probably not much defense along these lines,
However, if it is source only, then it is not a program -- in that it can't be run...it's a "spec" for a program that has to be compiled. Each instance of a program that is compiled is different .. if only by the date & time stamps in the modules -- but these days, given everything is dynamically linked, and different people use different compilers/linkers/libraries, it's all but impossible to get identical binary copies of the same program on 1 machine as on another if they both start from source -- unless both machines have the exact same build and runtime environment.
As the license fee is attached to distribution of the "product", and the source
is NOT the product, but a way to create a product, then how would the licensing fee apply?
Flash is the most complete animation tool-thing out there for the the serious web developer - today; tomorrow it will be there as well, maybe it will not need to do all it has to do today because there will be other tools available to complement what the web can be. Today flash is widely used to stream video because its the fastest at it.
Maybe what you are complaining about is that you do not have the patience to learn how to use flash.
Sure is proprietary, and fer-sure, the learning curve in flash is steep; its not for the faint of heart.
The plugin is free to download any-day.
If you work with flash selling one or two jobs pays for the program, and I mean one or two banner adds ,after that its profit.
So why all this wining?
Even better then Flash was Director, but too heavy it was (for the dial-up web of 15 years ago); it never took off.
Flash has security holes, sure it does, HTML5 has security craters.
HTML5 to become a standard; till they can patch the craters (which is mostly agreeing with each other); start looking at 2025 and beyond. ..
whatever..
I dont know why people are always saying flash is dead, every year its the same thing.
please, take a look at flash 11 and check its pulse before making statements like that.
pulse: ... and when kids play with 80+ million color polygons dancing in front of their eyes, kids like it and kids come back for more;
Flash 11;
64 bit native;
super fast HD video;
delivers 66-80+ million polygons per second on the fly, rendered on-the-fly by the GPU, most smartphone nowadays come with a GPU;
the CPU is left free to do other things such as running the OS, your email client, etc;
chrome supports it;
firefox supports it;
IE? Is it still around?
last time I used IE was IE 4.0 that came with Win 98 so I could go online for one single time; and do one single action with IE; which was to download Netscape and start using it.
IE does not need to have plug in support; what-so-ever. Its like the spare tire that comes with your car that came with no wheels, use it once to download a browser and you never have to touch it again.
sorry man, flash is kicking and screening, and going though another cycle. This next cycle in Flashs life is a leap, not just a jump forward.
whats dead are linear 2d web sites, thats dead.
Flash is the most complete animation tool-thing out there for the the serious web developer - today; tomorrow it will be there as well, maybe it will not need to do all it has to do today because there will be other tools available to complement what the web can be. Today flash is widely used to stream video because its the fastest at it. Maybe what you are complaining about is that you do not have the patience to learn how to use flash. Sure is proprietary, and fer-sure, the learning curve in flash is steep; its not for the faint of heart. The plugin is free to download any-day. If you work with flash selling one or two jobs pays for the program, and I mean one or two banner adds ,after that its profit.
So why all this wining?
Even better then Flash was Director, but too heavy it was (for the dial-up web of 15 years ago); it never took off.
Flash has security holes, sure it does, HTML5 has security craters.
HTML5 to become a standard; till they can patch the craters (which is mostly agreeing with each other); start looking at 2025 and beyond. ..
whatever..
I dont know why people are always saying flash is dead, every year its the same thing.
please, take a look at flash 11 and check its pulse before making statements like that.
pulse:
Flash 11;
64 bit native;
super fast HD video;
delivers 66-80+ million polygons per second on the fly, rendered on-the-fly by the GPU, most smartphone nowadays come with a GPU;
the CPU is left free to do other things such as running the OS, your email client, etc;
chrome supports it;
firefox supports it; ... and when kids play with 80+ million color polygons dancing in front of their eyes, kids like it and kids come back for more;
IE? Is it still around?
last time I used IE was IE 4.0 that came with Win 98 so I could go online for one single time; and do one single action with IE; which was to download Netscape and start using it.
IE does not need to have plug in support; what-so-ever. Its like the spare tire that comes with your car that came with no wheels, use it once to download a browser and you never have to touch it again.
sorry man, flash is kicking and screening, and going though another cycle. This next cycle in Flashs life is a leap, not just a jump forward.
whats dead are linear 2d web sites, thats dead.