Amazon To Stop Accepting Flash Ads

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?

Comments

Cites for crying out loud

[Anonymous Coward]

The online retailer sites changes to browser support

CITES

Re: Cites for crying out loud

[Anonymous Coward]

Sights, you mean.

Only if you are as illiterate as the original poster.

I could choose to not install Flash. But HTML5 ...

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Never saw them anyway

[krelvin]

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

Good riddance to bad rubbish.

[drdread66]

Flash? You mean the Fucking Large-Ass Security Hole? I have had it disabled on my machines for years now, all the way back to the "FlashToggler" software of from the early 2000s. It's about time the rest of the world ditches it too.

The only good thing about Flash is it made blocking animated ads trivial simply by disabling the plugin. I have not had similar success with HTML5, and fear that the rise of HTML5 will signal the return of pages with so much animated ad content that I can't concentrate on the text. :(

Re:Good riddance to bad rubbish.

[Anonymous Coward]

The only good thing about Flash is it made blocking animated ads trivial simply by disabling the plugin. I have not had similar success with HTML5, and fear that the rise of HTML5 will signal the return of pages with so much animated ad content that I can't concentrate on the text. :(

Why do you think they're doing it? I already routinely encounter pages where HTML5 ads run full-window animations that completely block all the actual content and can't be closed because the "X" to close them is purposely placed off the edge of the window so trying to click on it clicks on the ad instead. The only way to block these ads is with something like NoScript so that they never get to run.

Of course, Firefox is killing NoScript dead in a year, so we're not even going to have that option soon. This is all about forcing ads to be seen.

Re:Good riddance to bad rubbish.

[steveg]

Hmm? Got a source for that about Firefox?

Haven't seen anything about Firefox blocking NoScript, nor any plans to do so, and maybe my Google-fu is lacking, but can't find anything about it either.

Re:Good riddance to bad rubbish.

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, Slashdot: Firefox Will Run Chrome Extensions

That headline sucks, the actual story is Firefox is dropping their current extension API (the one NoScript uses) entirely and replacing it with Chrome's. That would be the Chrome API that doesn't offer the hooks NoScript requires to work.

You know how AdBlock works better on Firefox than Chrome? Same thing.

They're also killing all extensions that change the Firefox UI, so you'll be forced into their new Chrome-knockoff look. Basically, they're killing the only reason to use Firefox instead of Chrome by making Firefox into a more bloated, slower version of Chrome.

Sadly the new Slashdot regime has decided that people trying to hold conversations in comments sections are overrated so I'm not allowed to post this immediately. Who knows when I'll be allowed to answer your question. I guess that's why Slashdot can't do AMA-style interviews, the person being interviewed would get one answer and then be locked out.

Re:Good riddance to bad rubbish.

[fisted]

How hard can it be for browser addon to translate <video> tags into <img src="file:///var/tmp/kitten.jpg">, possibly depending on site and value of the video's src attribute?

Re:Good riddance to bad rubbish.

[Solandri]

Flash originally was an artist's tool for creating animations with a minimum of fuss, and more importantly for the web a minimum of bandwidth. It was born when someone asked, if I'm making an animation of a character walking in front of a static background, why does it need to be encoded as a single video? Why can't I just code (transmit) the background once, then overlay the moving character on top of it?

Its flexible nature allowed it to be hijacked by sites wishing to display video, because the folks in charge of the HTML sat on their collective asses when there was clearly a demand for more flexible scripting features to be added to the HTML standard. Once a critical mass of people had installed it to view movies, advertisers began to use it to create those annoying animated ads.

Flash never asked to be the de facto executable scripting language for the web (though I'm sure Macromedia/Adobe weren't displeased with that development). That's why it has so many security holes. For its original intended purpose as an artist's tool, it is not rubbish, and is arguably the best tool out there. And even if it's excised from web browsers it will continue to be used to create movies and TV shows.

Re:Good riddance to bad rubbish.

[narcc]

How is this informative? Further, this was thoroughly debunked in the earlier thread.

Mozilla is basing their new plugin architecture on Chrome's, but are extending it to ensure plugins like NoScript (which is specifically mentioned, btw) will still be possible.

Relax. Both NoScript users will be able to enjoy their favorite plugin for years to come.

On Its Way Out

[whisper_jeff]

Flash was on its way out when Steve Jobs decided that Apple wouldn't permit Flash to operate on iPod Touches and iPhones and iPads. Lots of people disagreed with him back then, most vocally anyone connected to Adobe, but he knew what the future held and boldly took that first step.

While it's nice that other companies have finally clued in and are following suit, let's not attribute the insight to them - they wanted almost a decade before finally following Jobs' insightful decision.

Re:On Its Way Out

[Solandri]

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).

This is not all about bad flash its about blocking

[Zeio]

Blocking flash is trivial. And of course adblock and the like make short work of ads in HTML5 but its harder to block categorically. I suspect the whole flash removal is dual purpose with increased advertising content to the browser being a major goal.

Cites, not sites

[wonkey_monkey]

The online retailer sites changes

No, they cite changes.

Not that I expect anyone do anything about it; Slashdot stories seem to get posted and abandoned. Correcting spelling mistakes that make you look stupid doesn't attract any more advertisers!

Re:I could choose to not install Flash. But HTML5

[byornski]

In firefox you can disable the media stuff in about:config - media.mediasource.enabled. That will at least stop the videos....

Good news and bad news

[Applehu Akbar]

I'm glad to see Flash go, but it did offer us an element of control over autoplaying videos, by setting your Flash add-on to "Play if clicked." Now we have been stripped of even that meager choice.

The last straw...

[Twinbee]

For years and years, I've put up with ads. Yes, I heard you guys talk about AdBlock here and elsewhere, but I've always learnt to ignore them, even fairly distracting ones.

Then came the really "in your face" ads with automatic audio, giant sizes, and irremovable ones which obscured content. Irritating, but not a deal breaker. I've got a thick skin, or so I thought. I can deal with all that crap, especially if it helps pay for the site's bandwidth (though I never bother with ads personally, at least not consciously).

End of story right? Oh no,.... they just had to go further didn't they. Then came the ones that suck up all my CPU, losing me money in electricity, heating up the CPU (so I can't have the fan quieter), and generally causing the PC to slow down. I like to open up many tabs in my browser, and this easily eats up the CPU in all four of my CPU cores. Same with the two cores on my laptop.

Since I realized what was happening more clearly, I now hate the ad networks of course, and also hate the CPU management in Chrome and other browsers (Shift+ESC is oaky, but no maximum CPU limit for each process?), and you know what? I even hate Windows for not allowing better/easier CPU management/priority of the processes. Yes, no ability to throttle the percentage of CPU used for a process, let alone be able to define the limits independently for each process. And yes I know there are various apps, but not having this feature by default is insane, and so typical of the mindset at Microsoft.

I installed AdRemover for Chrome (higher rated than Adblock by the looks of it), and have never looked back.

Goodbye ads forever.

Re:The last straw...

[phantomfive]

End of story right? Oh no,.... they just had to go further didn't they. Then came the ones that suck up all my CPU, losing me money in electricity, heating up the CPU (so I can't have the fan quieter), and generally causing the PC to slow down. I like to open up many tabs in my browser, and this easily eats up the CPU in all four of my CPU cores. Same with the two cores on my laptop.

Yeap, when I installed adblock, it tripled my battery life.

Google Play Music

[xenog]

The Google Play Music service still requires Flash. Google is not completely free of the Flash dependency yet.

Re:I could choose to not install Flash. But HTML5

[U2xhc2hkb3QgU3Vja3M]

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.