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?"

Comments

Microsoft

[ge7]

And people are still saying Microsoft is evil? They just made HTML5 video reality. It wouldn't have happened without this.

Re:Microsoft

[Anonymous Coward]

Using patented shit formats. So yes, they are.

Re:Microsoft

[ge7]

As opposed to what? All the formats are patented.

H.264 is technically better format too. That's why it should be picked, not based on some religious free software views.

Re:Microsoft

[ge7]

The lack of plugin support will only serve to kill Metro as a browser platform, not Flash.

iPad doesn't have Flash either and it's doing all fine. Note that Metro interface is designed mostly for tablets and as a simplistic interface for casual users.

But you're right, it won't kill of Flash because it's used for other stuff than video too. The existing video sites will just sniff the user-agent and serve HTML5 video instead of Flash if required. They're both H.264 encoded anyway, so it should be easy, and they have to do it for iPhones and iPads anyway.

Re:Microsoft

[poetmatt]

so microsoft has magically changed because they are pushing HTML5? Wow man, I'd better forget all of those antitrust cases and anti-google marketing and anti-apple marketing, plus patent trolling and patent litigation.

Leopards don't change their spots.

Re:Microsoft

[Mr_eX9]

And the story has the DRM/Straitjacket icon? Seriously, WTF? The reporting on this story is just terrible, even by Slashdot standards.

Headline: "Windows 8 Won't Support Plug-Ins ..."
Reality: "... Metro interface web browser in Windows 8 will not support plug-ins ..."

This announcement sounds perfectly reasonable to me--not having plugins in the Metro browser closes a lot of security holes and eliminates crap like Flash that's proprietary, hurts performance, etc. It's a competitive move that raises the bar for other browsers to become more secure and stop supporting things that people don't want.

Microsoft is not the evil company that this site thinks it still is. Time to find a new whipping boy, Slashdot.

Re:Microsoft

[qxcv]

As opposed to what? All the formats are patented.

Yes, but the primary patent on VP8 is released under an "irrevocable free patent license". From Wikipedia:

On May 19, 2010 Google released VP8 codec software under a BSD-like license and the VP8 bitstream format specification under an irrevocable free patent license...

OTOH H.264 is covered by a range of patents, and payment for the use of the codec is mandatory in all countries which recognise software patents. Whilst there may be some submarine patents still lurking on parts of VP8, it sounds like a far safer bet in the long run. I suspect that the only reason Apple and Microsoft want H.264 is because it raises the cost bar for potential competitors in the browser market. It's difficult to create a free browser when you have to cough up for codec licensing to some patent troll. With H.264 everybody loses, but the small players lose slightly more :)

Re:Microsoft

[drinkypoo]

Microsoft is only going to support the codecs they want to support, so this is just another way of leveraging what's left of their monopoly position — it's just more evil. The real goal is to murder Flash which competes with Microsoft's own technologies, like the supposedly-soon-to-be-abandoned Silverlight. Silverlight is pure canned shit compared to Flash. You can't even sync video to vtrace on XP. Microsoft literally traded a seat on their board for Netflix using Silverlight instead of Flash. As a result, there is no Linux support.

Fuck Microsoft, and fuck the horse that rode in on them.

Re:Microsoft

[wsxyz]

Of course not. Silverlight is HTML5.

Re:Microsoft

[sinthetek]

H.264 is technically better format too. That's why it should be picked, not based on some religious free software views.

Not all concerns about the Freedom to use a technology are matters of obsessive fanboyism or faith. There are plenty of pragmatic concerns associated with IP that only the most reckless would choose to ignore. A technology can be 1000x better than anything else that exists but still be effectively useless or a huge risk to end-users or business management. As an end user, I don't want my choices limited by how many technologies a prospective vendor can afford to employ. As a developer, I want to be able to create or fix technologies I encounter without much bureaucracy, being hindered by secrecy or risking having all of my hard work phased out through planned obsolescence strategies. As a business owner, I don't want the items purchased by my business to be hindered by cumbersome, nuanced, legal agreements. In my view, the diversity and innovation facilitated by Free software is almost always better even in cases where proprietary counterparts have a few more features or slightly better performance. Essentially, the freedom to do what you want has its own innate value that, while hard to quantify, should be thoroughly considered before making *any* important decisions, both technology-related and otherwise. It's not always easy to predict when and how those restrictions might hinder your opportunities in the future.

Re:Microsoft

[bobdinkel]

I consume HTML5 video almost daily. Support for HTML5 video in recent browsers is solid. I work for an organization that produces several national and international publications and we publish HTML5 video content daily. Numerous news sites are publishing HTML 5 video. If you want to serve video to iOS devices (and most of us do), you're going to use HTML5. It's here. Really the one problem that I don't see resolved with HTML5 is DRM. Arguably that isn't a problem. But I have a hard time imagining Hulu or Netflix rolling out an HTML5 UI anytime soon.

Re:Microsoft

[smash]

And besides, the ground vp8 is standing on is fairly shaky, legally. It hasn't been to court yet, but google are refusing to indemnify anyone against patent litigation because they aren't confident in the codebase being patent free.

Re:Microsoft

[sglewis100]

I have several customers who have purchased iPad and the lack of flash support is a big turn off to all of them. I have one person specifically who has decided to sell their iPad and wait until they 'mature' into a device that will actually run the websites he's interested in. The iPad is doing alright for a fad device, but when you hobble something then expect users to be somewhat put off by it. Just image how much better they would continue to do if they had just added flash support.

It's good you dropped in the anecdote. Before I read about your one person, I was beginning to think the vast majority of people couldn't care less and tens of millions of these suckers were going to be sold every year.

Re:Microsoft

[Pieroxy]

they aren't confident in the codebase being patent free.

And how could they be? By reviewing the 1.5 trillion software patents already on record?

Re:Microsoft

[Anonymous Coward]

If only they had some software that could search through millions of documents

Re:Microsoft

[ge7]

Do they consider silverlight is a plugin?

Yes, and Silverlight won't run in Metro either.

Re:Microsoft

[TheRaven64]

How usable is Windows XP RTM edition? Not very - full of known security holes and missing some new APIs. Service Pack 3 was the last major release of XP, and it is only 3 years old.

Re:Microsoft

[jedidiah]

It's not "when it was released", it's when it was "sold to you".

XP is far younger when you consider the meaningful age from the point of view of a consumer.

XP is only really as old as it's last service pack.

Re:Microsoft

[TheRaven64]

I was beginning to think the vast majority of people couldn't care less and tens of millions of these suckers were going to be sold every year

Tens of millions, worldwide, is a tiny number of sales compared to mobile phones or computers. El Reg published some statistics the week showing that something like 3% of the population of the UK had an iPad. I'd certainly be happy if 3% of the UK population gave me £1 each - and Apple's profit margin is a lot more than £1 per device - but it's still nowhere near a majority. It's about 73% of the tablet market, but it's a tiny fraction of the personal computing device market.

Re:Microsoft

[neonmonk]

Just because it's Situation Normal, doesn't mean it's not All Fucked Up.

Re:Microsoft

[said213]

I'm running a print server on a P90. Slackware 3.0, unpatched, since 1997. Works like a champ.
I'm running a mail server on a Sparc Classic. Solaris 5.5 (5.5.1?), patched regularly until 1999. Also; works like a champ.
I'm running my file server/disk array on another P90. Redhat 6... never patched, never upgraded. It needs an update, but, also; works like a champ.
My backup system runs on SCO Openserver, unpatched since 2002. No data loss to date.
For legacy games, I have a Win98 partition available on a PIII laptop... Also, doing just fine.
For more 'modern'' consumer based crap... the OS is disposable. Functionality is relevant; version is not.

If you think I'm irrelevant, that's cool... The few grand which I haven't spent in upgrades hasn't slowed me down one bit! The few grand which you've spent on upgrades has... cost you a few grand.

I'm still asking for a relevant point here... unless the point is to spend money on things which you don't need, I am failing to see one.

Re:Microsoft

[Microlith]

It's still locked to Microsoft platforms. Flash is bad, Silverlight is worse.

Re:Microsoft

[jthill]

I don't think so. What Microsoft did to get OOXML passed is utterly corrupt, and to me at least it carries the same stench of thuggery. Microsoft's management hires good people the way some combatants surround themselves with schoolchildren.

GP's probably got Facebook's campaigns misattributed to Microsoft, but I think he misused the term patent trolling only somewhat: Microsoft has been claiming patent infringement (~we have here a list of 235 patent infringements in Linux~) without ever specifying what patents and (most tellingly) without demanding any changes. If there is any infringement going on, they plainly don't want it to stop. So they're using patents the way trolls use inflammatory statements, to derail and disrupt, damaging others with the idea that it somehow promotes themselves. A lot of people are gullible enough that the tactic works, in the short term anyway.

Same kind of behavior before, during and after: at least until their management has undergone a complete transfusion, they haven't changed.

Re:Microsoft

[Creepy]

Open source h.264 encoders probably aren't legal to use in the US or Germany due to software patents (and I don't know about other countries). Since software patents need to be filed by country (except for the European Union where they can be filed for the entire EU, but software patents are harder to get in the EU than in Germany, so in some cases they are filed in both), such an encoder may be perfectly legal to use in most countries outside the United States. Just because you can legally download something doesn't mean you can legally use it. I can legally download DVD Shrink in the US, too, but using it to copy a DVD violates patents, the DMCA, and the way the US throws around copyright law, probably an assload of other copyright legislation. OTOH, DVD Shrink and probably h.264 encoders are illegal to even download in Germany because they circumvent copyright protection and such products are forbidden to exist by German law (yes, the Germans think their laws apply to everyone, too, just like the US... sigh).

Re:Microsoft

[spire3661]

Its not the payment that bothers me, its the outright sneakiness of it. The particular method they use of submarining license fees on equipment based on usage type is flat out wrong. Its a tool, and once you design a tool and sell it you should not be be able to tell the purchaser how and where the tool can be used. Please spare me the X v. Y links of precedents. Its a particularly nasty abuse in a sea of abuse.

Re:Microsoft

[bonch]

MP3 is just as patented as H.264. Do you listen to MP3s?

Re:Microsoft

[JasterBobaMereel]

The answer is - iPhone/Mac/Safari uses the h.264 interface on YouTube ... regardless of HTML5

Apple do not seem to like Flash - for good reasons - and so have persuaded Google to allow it's software to use the native codecs regardless of HTML 5 support

the iPhone has a specific chip to decode h.264

Re:Microsoft

[Bert64]

Patents expire long after the technology in question has been superseded by something else...
Look at the patents on MPEG-1 or MPEG-2, those were considered good video formats just a few years ago but are now considered obsolete, and yet still many patents on them have not expired. By the time the patents on h.264 expire, it will be a legacy codec that noone has used for years.

That's what happens when you say no to Microsoft.

[tomhudson]

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.

NewGrounds

[Lord Lode]

So it won't be possible to play NewGrounds games with that browser?

Boring...

The more important point here

[elrous0]

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.

Re:The more important point here

[Amouth]

there is a big difference between add-ons & gadgets & plugins.

if you look at FF & Chrome their extensions/add-ons work in a predefined and hopefully secure environment. IE"s "plug-ins" work at raw executable code level at the users permission level and there for can not easily be contained by the browser, hence how easy it is to use a hole in flash to infect the system.

MS would be stupid not to allow extensions/add-ons in the same manner that FF and Chrome and i believe Opera does. But killing "plug-ins" is by far a great decision for security and overall long-term usage.

Re:That's what happens when you say no to Microsof

[MightyMartian]

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.

Incoming money-quote:

[Elbart]

"the Metro style browser in Windows 8" METRO! Not the desktop-IE. Reading, guys, reading...

Nope

[russlar]

FTFA:

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.

Who cares if it's dead? Kill it -- with fire.

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Crippled Toy!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

sent from my iPod

Stupid Title

[neokushan]

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.

Only the "Metro IE" is Plug-In Free

[MikeyC01]

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!

Makes sense

[llZENll]

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.

How I see this...

[killmenow]

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.

SVG animation

[tepples]

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?

Re:SVG animation

[Bill, Shooter of Bul]

It pains me to say this, but Homestarrunner is dead. There were a total of three videos put out in 2010, and none so far in 2011.

Re:SVG animation

[Guspaz]

How well do iPhones and iPads display SVG animation?

Not likely well enough. I tried Google's Swiffy to convert a Homestar Runner cartoon to HTML5 (which uses SVG for the animation). It worked surprisingly well, except for the lack of audio support, the text in the cartoon appearing line-by-line rather than appearing behind the sbemail cursor, and the edges of shapes not quite lining up the same way as the original flash (creating borders where shapes overlap or don't quite perfectly). Performance on the desktop was, while I didn't look at CPU usage, the same as flash; playing them side by side they stayed in sync and the framerate was the same. However, on an iPhone 3GS, the framerate was rather poor. I don't believe the 3GS got the latest Safari javascript engine, though, so it may have worked fine on an iPhone 4 or iPad 2 (which has a much faster processor to boot).

Re:SVG animation

[Creepy]

WebKit supports some of SVG, but not all of it, so iPhones and iPads should support it to some extent.

The problem with SVG is nobody ever finished an implementation of it, even to this day. For a long time everyone used Adobe's SVG plugin because it supported about 70% of the spec.I had to support code for years that only worked in Microsoft Internet Explorer 6 with Adobe's SVG viewer (which Adobe itself hasn't supported since 2009) because support for features we needed was never implemented by anyone else. I got pulled off that project nearly 2 years ago, but I imagine the IE 6 dependency is still there and that just makes me cringe. I do know the attempt to get it working on Safari failed just after I left the team (and native IE was MUCH, MUCH worse).

Re:That's what happens when you say no to Microsof

[MightyMartian]

I don't care what the rationale is, the death of Flash would be a good thing.

Silverlight?

[Kamiza Ikioi]

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).

The only lawful response is Cancel

[tepples]

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.