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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?

2 of 221 comments (clear)

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

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

  2. 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).