Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Amazon To Stop Accepting Flash Ads

Posted by timothy on from the I-already-don't-accept-them dept.

An anonymous reader writes: Starting on September 1, Amazon will no longer support Flash across its advertising platform. The online retailer sites changes to browser support and a desire for customers to have a better experience as their reasons for blocking it. Google has been quite active recently in efforts to kill Flash; the Chrome beta channel has begun automatically pausing Flash, Google has converted ads from Flash to HTML5, and YouTube uses HTML5 by default now as well. Safari and Firefox also place limits on Flash content. Is Flash finally on its way out?

5 of 221 comments (clear)

  1. I could choose to not install Flash. But HTML5 ... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    When Flash was used, at least I had the choice to not to install the plugin at all, which meant I wasn't subjected to any Flash content at all.

    But now that HTML5 is being used, I have no choice at all. You can't just "disable" HTML5. It's much too inherent. We are subjected to it without mercy, and we have no way out.

    As some great poets once noted,

    Such a shame,
    to believe in escape.
    A life on every face,
    and that's a change.
    'til I'm finally left with the eight.
    Tell me to relax,
    I just stare.
    Maybe I don't know,
    if I should change.
    A feeling that we share.
    It's a shame.
    Such a shame.

  2. Never saw them anyway by krelvin · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I block ads. never see them, don't care if they are flash or not.

  3. Re: Cites for crying out loud by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Sights, you mean.

    Only if you are as illiterate as the original poster.

  4. Re:On Its Way Out by Solandri · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Jobs didn't want Flash on iOS because it tore down the wall of their garden. In the iOS ecosystem, the only way to install an app is via the App Store, where Apple gets a 30% cut. If they had allowed flash, anyone could write a flash app, put it on any web site, and you could browse to that site and run that flash app on your iDevice without paying Apple their 30%. Apple also disallows compilers and tightly controls emulators for the same reason.

    All that talk about flash draining battery life was just spin to put lipstick on this pig-headed decision. Flash on Android didn't run by default - any flash scripts on a web page were replaced by a stylized F. If you tapped on the F, only then would that flash script run. If you've used Flashblock on Firefox, exact same thing. So no excess battery drain from ads or whatnot unless you specifically allowed the flash app to run.

    Flash was originally created as an artist's animation tool. It was never intended to be the web's de facto executable scripting language. That's why it has so many security holes - because it was being used in ways it was never originally intended. Now that HTML5 adds many features which previously could only be accomplished via flash, and more importantly are designed from the get-go for web use, it is natural that flash is being phased out. Jobs had nothing to do with it, and certainly his decision a decade ago when HTML5 wasn't around still makes no sense (until you recognize the financial reason).

  5. Re:I could choose to not install Flash. But HTML5 by U2xhc2hkb3QgU3Vja3M · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I'm still using a Core 2 Duo @ 2.4GHz with 8GiB of RAM. So my computer today is half the speed of your older computer.

    Those fucking people in marketing think they can rape my internet connection, my monthly quota and my CPU cycles to display their fucking shit. Well, screw them. I gave them a chance, they pushed it too far with Flash. I removed Flash from my system. They've done the same with HTML5 so now for the first time in my life, I'm running Adblock because these fucking marketing imbeciles don't know when to stop.