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Adobe Releases Flash 11 and AIR 3
iamrmani writes "Software maker Adobe Systems has launched Flash Player 11 and Adobe AIR 3 even as the industry is shifting to HTML 5 on the Web that lessens the reliance of developers on Flash."
The Register has a bit more to say about Adobe's repositioning of Flash for games as a competetive strategy.
Provided they continue making authoring tools that have the ability to export to HTML5.
is surprised that Adobe would keep releasing products as people start relying on them less. How else are they going to compete.
I felt a great disturbance in the Force, as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced. I fear something terrible has happened.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
I have been using the YouTube HTML 5 trial for a while now, and it's great. I can assure you, browsing YouTube with the flash plugin disabled is thoroughly enjoyable. I normally do have the plugin disabled (via the QuickJava firefox extension), only turning it on to watch video, but now with the YouTube trial I rarely need it.
It seems that Adobe doesnt want to go out without a fight. This will not save flash though. Without iOS support, flash will not be able to survive. I guess I should be thankful to apple.
I am happy to see that we can finally get rid of flash on the web. (It'll most likely still stay in gaming (Scaleform))
On a side note, what does this story have to do with apple?
Why is this story tagged under Apple?
Isn't OSX Flash 10 still in Beta?...
Adobe is positioning their Flash-based platforms to be a platform for mature applications instead of widgets and applets.
I wonder if Microsoft will expose the new WinRT API to Flash or AIR?
The launch comes at a time when the industry is shifting from Flash and embracing HTML 5 on the Web that lessens the reliance of developers on Flash. HTML5 is gaining momentum each day as tech giants such as Google, Microsoft, Apple, and Facebook are supporting it.
To what extent is this true and to what extent is it bullying? I mean, "oh damn the competition just wont go away! even though it can't possibly win!". That's what those sentences sound like to me.
a.) In a capitalistic society, believe it or not, competition is great! It's one of the few things that enforces sane prices and wages, and has the benefit of not being decreed by a government regulator.
b.) Even if a technology is inferior and/or 'old' doesn't mean it's going away. Fortran, anyone?
PS: I don't reply to ACs.
I wish they'd update Alchemy. With that and Emscripten, Flash and HTML5/JavaScript could be just another platform. (The old Alchemy still works, but it uses an old version of LLVM, which is inconvenient, and also obviously doesn't support newer Flash features.)
For a while, it was installed without permission every time I updated any Adobe product, so I had to manually uninstall it. They made no effort to explain it before forcing it on me.
What the fuck does it do?
From the article:
"Flash Player 11 and AIR 3 are scheduled for release in early October. Adobe didn't give the date, but you should expect release at Adobe's annual Max conference, between 1 and 5 October."
No comment.
Yes. "64-bit support on Linux, Mac OS and Windows ensures a seamless experience with the latest 64-bit browsers." "H.264 hardware decoding is now available for AIR applications on Apple's iOS, while Flash now works with 64-bit on Windows, Mac and Linux and in the browser."
... on it's security-hole-riddled history, javascript in the browser (XSS) is also a favorite attack vector. But at least it is a little less black-boxish.
For security sake, maybe we should just go back to punch cards!?!?!?
Que Deus te de em dobro o que me desejas
[May God give you double that which you wish for me]
How would you like to make all versions of Internet Explorer for Windows behave just like Chrome? Would that shorten your QA cycle? It's possible with the "Google Chrome Frame" browser helper object that Google makes available.
On the web, sure.
I know a few massive corporations that use Flash and will continue to use flash-related tools and technologies for some corporate and behind-the-scenes applications and processes though, which have relatively little to do with the web.
As long as content creators support Flash, it will still exist. Newgrounds, as an example, still has a large community of flash artists and programmers, which regularly provide animations and games for free.
When these sites make the transition, Flash may die. Until then, it may be used significantly less, but it will still be there.
The good, the evil and the vacuum tubes.
Yes, HTML5 works wonderfully for video made of pixels. But for video made of vectors (e.g. almost everything on Weebl's Stuff or Newgrounds), Flash still way outperforms animated SVG in rendering speed, and it outperforms rasterization and compression with H.264 by a factor of about ten in bitrate.
Flash is still listed on Adobe's site as 10.x....
Michael
http://s1.sfgame.us/index.php?rec=58163
I'd suggest a googlefight, but googlefight uses flash ...
(Actually, it's because googlefight.com is broken. It no longer returns an accurate summary of the total number of hits for each expression).
What do you have to do different to get, say, Strong Bad Emails or Badger Badger Badger to play on a device with no Flash Player?
HTML 5 offers better performance
If SVG animation or canvas animation offers better performance than Flash animation, then why hasn't an alternative to Newgrounds for SVG or canvas cartoons emerged?
still Adobe Flash Player version 10.3.183.10
the Release Candidate from the labs is currently the only thing available in version 11 flavour. come to think of it
its the only thing present in an x64 flavour as almost every OS on the planet has switched to 64 bit while adobe quietly drags its heels
and rapidly advancing technologies like HTML5 step quickly past it.
how much longer before we transition from evaluating adobe flash releases in terms of 'wow thats neat' to 'no one cares.'
Flash is a resource intensive security nightmare with a parent company so detatched from customers and industry it occasionally stops
commenting entirely on the state of patches and bugfixes that in many cases are a detriment to their entire business model.
Good people go to bed earlier.
This looks more like an Announcement than a Release. The bits won't be available for download until October. However, there was a new version of Flash Player 10 released today (10.3.183.10) that resolves a cross-site scripting issue.
Unless googlefight.com can hire enough people and remain profitable in doing so to reduce the US unemployment rate by fifteen percentage points, I fail to see what good that will do.
I know the real reason why they are announcing Flash 11 now-- they are almost out of alphabet letters for Flash 10! If you look at the "Macromed" folder (Yeah, it still refers to Macromedia even 6 years after being acquired) under System32/SysWOW64 folder you'll find the browser plugins. The version today released today (10.3.183.10) is named "FlashUtil10x_Plugin.exe" and the version before that was of course "FlashUtil10w_Plugin.exe". That only gives them two more letters to use before they have to figure out a new naming scheme. Best to go to a new version number so they can start over from the beginning of the alphabet. ::chuckle::
Does this new flash player support using the browser's proxy settings?
Flash 10.x does not, and millions of corporate/enterprise workstations cannot view flash-based streaming videos because the norm in a corporate network is to run all internal PC's browsers thru a web proxy server to reach the outside world.
Without question, Flash has it's issues. However, as good as HTML5 may be I still think Flash is superior. It's relatively easy to build something robust and cross platform consistency is a non-issue. Build something in Flash and you know it's going to look identical in Windows, OSX and Linux. Wasn't there that interactive site for a band recently mentioned on Slashdot that ran only in Chrome? That's HTML5.
And performance, especially with graphics, is unquestionably superior in Flash than it is in HTML5. I've seen countless HTML5 demos, some of which impress, but most pale in comparison to what I've seen done in Flash. I have a friend who's been working on an HTML5-based 3D render and performance is an on-going issue. Of course, Flash has the advantage of inherently supporting hardware acceleration. But either way, this is one of the things that needs to be addressed whether it be with HTML5 itself or how browsers themselves operate.
Also important is how easy it is to build something in Flash. HTML5 doesn't yet have a comparable authoring environment. That said, this is a big part of what's leading to Flash's downfall. Rank amateurs can pick up Flash and create something. This has brought about a saturation of bad Flash. This is best reflected in the design industry where the perception is that Flash is a designer's tool. For years I've encountered programmers who scoff that the suggestion that they should learn Actionscript. Of course, this results in crap code, which gives rise to all the problems experienced on the web.
On the other hand, I have no love for Adobe. So from that perspective I'd like to see Flash die and I'm certainly happy there's a viable competitor out there. But I will lament the loss of Flash.
We have prenotification of Flash security holes being exploited in the wild:
http://blogs.adobe.com/psirt/2011/09/prenotification-security-update-for-flash-player.html
Flash is a mess with dubious value. A new version doesn't fix that.
Even if Flash is completely removed from every browser (which I don't see ever happening), Flash will still not "die".
People seem to not realize that Flash is used by many AAA game studios for the UI on their favorite games... Crysis 2, Dragon Age 2, Starcraft II, Mass Effect 2, Batman Arkham Asylum, Prototype, Star Wars: Force Unleashed 2... These, and many others, all use Flash.
One version works. The next, crashes like Nascar racers. Then there's the browser upgrade which, with flash, swings both directions again for stability. And flashblock, adblock, and noscript don't help the matter.
Yes, I am using linux, and frankly, don't care for flash. Oh, "it must be your dist" you might say. Nope! Running several different dists here, and it just ain't workable. "Try a previous version, or the new beta." Been through that loop more times than I can count! I now live without it natively. And if I'm REQUIRED to use flash for something, (this DOES happen), I hop to the Windows VM and use it there. And yes, this is in both proprietery and open graphics driver environments. It would be one thing if websites stuck to norms with regard to flash video implementation on the web, but that just isn't going to happen.
HTML5 can't implemented soon enough IMO.
The software used to produce it doesn't really require Flash as an export format - though it is very low-bandwidth.
And that's my point: sending the cartoon as vectors uses far less bandwidth than rendering the cartoon to pixels and compressing those. This becomes especially important as home ISPs lower their monthly download caps and as users shift use from wired ISPs, which have large caps, to cellular ISPs, which have much smaller caps. In theory, HTML5 supports vector animation playback by scripting SVG or canvas, but I've read anecdotal reports that browsers are still much less CPU-efficient at rendering vector animation than Flash Player.
Where is that? Adobe is in the USA, which is a corporate oligarchy. The only competition is to see which Corporation can buy the most Congresscriminals.
Of course the OP didn't bother to actually link to the real product announcement, instead just to some site slagging Flash. If any of you are under the impression that Flash is going away just because it wont be used for banner ads or video.. Just take a look at the type of 3D games that are currently being developed in Flash: http://blogs.adobe.com/flashplatform/ Tell me with a straight face that people will be doing games like that in html the near future. I just don't get the hate.. each technology has its place. Once intrusive banner ads are done in html 5 and crappy javascript code is slowing your browser down, will you start hating HTML and Javascript just as much?
*** DRINK MORE COFFEE ***
So it appears your core issue is that a web application comes in multiple files, as opposed to a .swf that has multiple resources packed into it. Let me introduce you to the data URI, which works in any browser passing Acid2.
Uh, I thought there was already a lot of hate for JavaScript on Slashdot. Just not as much for Flash.
Am I really the only person who is not looking forward to HTML5 taking over in that every ad on the internet will be some sort of flashy HTML5 element that can't be easily removed without breaking the rest of the webpage?
Not that I think Flash is going anywhere soon. There will always be a big place for Flash on the internet in the foreseeable future.
... to finally get 64bit support? Although I have to say a few years ago, when I started running Ubuntu amd64, it would have been more useful. Nowadays there are a number of decent workarounds, Google Chrome being one of them, npviewer another.
A Debug version for us, low life, scum of the earth, lousy dirt bag, developers? Please?
Its probably pre-emptive of the release of Windows 8 which isn't going to support plugins such as Flash
> Flash Player 11 and AIR 3 would be publicly available in early October, Adobe said in a statement.
Not that a new version of a resource-sucking redundant peace of crap means anything to me, but what's your definition of "launch"?
Remember them? They gave away a 'free' plugin that let you view streaming video. The server software was the moneymaker and the 'free' plugin was the hook. Hopefully, flash will be the same forgotten status in a year or so, lost in the sea of open-sourced options.
Couldn't agree more. If you looked back five years, you would find that HTML was handling the standard web media like images and text and layouts, and Flash was handing the rich internet media like video and interactives. That really isn't changing, what is changing is where we draw the line between standard and rich content. Now we expect things like Video, Audio, and some simple interactives to be considered standard, and things like in-browser 3D, heavy vector graphics, hardware acceleration and a complete OOP environment to be rich media. The notion that HTML 5 is competing with Flash is true, its just that its competing with Flash Player 8, not 11.
I so very much hate Flash and Reader. They work so unreliable and get corrupted so damn easily and then can't be reinstalled.
The problem is that there are a lot of video sites out there who are are still running outdated versions of the Flash/Shockwave streaming server software that *only* supports pure RTMP protocol. It's the server that tells the client to operate in "legacy" mode, which causes the Flash player to only attempt a direct RTMP connection, which does bypass the proxy, and if that connection attempt fails, then try RTMPT tunneled in HTTP, but still direct, not thru the browser's proxy, and after an unreasonable 2-4 minute timeout.
The fix is to get your video content provider to upgrade to the latest version of the streaming server software and configure it to stream natively vie HTTP and to make sure all the webpages that have embedded video links are coded correctly. If your content provider refuses to do all this, then you are shit out of luck. Switch content providers to someone who has a clue.
>"Software maker Adobe Systems has launched Flash Player 11"
Correction:
"Software maker Adobe Systems has launched Flash Player 11 but only for MS-Windows."
Download Adobe Flash Player
Adobe Flash Player version 10.3.183.10
Your system: Linux, Firefox
Download Adobe Flash Player
Adobe Flash Player version 10.3
Your system: MacOS 10.4-10.7
...the eleventh flasher!
> Just take a look at the type of 3D games that are currently being developed in Flash
If I enable 3d hardware acceleration in flash the plugin crashes. This is happening on all versions released this year and Adobe don't seem to be able to fix it. So what use is it doing 3D if it's going to crash all the time?
I use 3D in flash ALL THE TIME with no trouble. Granted, I am usually using the Papervision3D library, which is technically a 3D mock-up of a 2D implementation. I also have 3d hardware acceleration turned on, and I don't have any issues with that. I do this on both Windows 7 and Ubuntu Linux platforms. Is your problem an OSX thing? I only here from people on OSX that Flash is unstable, everyone else has no trouble with it. Then again, maybe that's not surprising since Mac and Adobe aren't exactly BFF's anymore...
What's up with all these crappy british newspapers lately ? Has /. been acquired by the wankers? Why would one go to read an yellow dot-yew-kay newspaper about things happening right here at home ??
While comities meet to decide what features HTML5, WebGL and should have, and argue about video codecs, implementations etc. flash again provides a technology platform to do all that funky stuff on as wide a plethora of platforms and devices as possible - today. (or actually at the start of October to be precise :) They do it because it's their core business. It will take years for web standards to support the kinds of things Adobe is building into it's products, not just Flash, but After Effects, Photoshop, etc.
If anyone here has tried building more than an elementary WebGL app, you'll no it's like trying to unhitch a bra strap through a keyhole with a bent coat hanger.
The result is titillating and keeps you at it, but the process is just so frustrating and you long to just open the door. Flash is that to me, an open door where you can literally do whatever you want.
It takes enormous resources to create and maintain a platform across the ever expanding infrastructure of the web, and while standards are great, for some apps you just can't wait for them to be finished, implemented and reach wide adoption. Flash player version penetration tends to go from 0 - 90% in a lot less than 12 months.
Most flash bashers will tell you they hate flash because of banner ads. Well, the sites that use those ads wouldn't exist without the ads, so if you need free pr0n, news or whatever you need flash ads.
I've been developing with flash for 12 years, and all I can say is, customers love getting stuff done at low cost, and across the entire web (even iOS if you're really determined) and users, well they love having free, interactive applications without downloads, not to mention games.
Flash 11, GPU accelerated? Bring it on! One thing is for sure, many of the things those comities decide they need in the next HTML version, they'll see first in Flash.
No it's windows xp actually. I see a lot of posts on the forums with the same problem