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A Farewell To Flash

Posted by Soulskill on from the not-a-decade-too-soon dept.

An anonymous reader writes: The decline of Flash is well and truly underway. Media publishers now have no choice but to start changing the way they bring content to the web. Many of them are not thrilled about the proposition (change is scary), but it will almost certainly be better for all of us in the long run. "By switching their platform to HTML5, companies can improve supportability, development time will decrease and the duplicative efforts of supporting two code bases will be eliminated. It will also result in lower operating costs and a consistent user experience between desktop and mobile web." This is on top of the speed, efficiency, and security benefits for consumers. "A major concern for publishers today is the amount of media consumption that's occurring in mobile environments. They need to prioritize providing the best possible experience on mobile, and the decline of Flash and movement to HTML5 will do just that, as Flash has never worked well on mobile."

10 of 202 comments (clear)

  1. Again? by Lumpio- · · Score: 5, Insightful

    How many times have we already said farewell to Flash and it still refuses to die...

    1. Re:Again? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      it ain't going anywhere anytime soon. there is way too much content in flash already that exists on the internet. much of it cant be converted or would be too costly to convert to another technology.

      flash ain't the evil monster it's made out to be either. it's only real problem is adobe being only slightly better than oracle/sun at producing clean bug-free code for their browser plugins. adobe is the monster here, not flash. face it. if there wasn't a new 'flash exploit of the week' every week, flash wouldn't get the bad rap it gets. i would rather see adobe get their collective corporate asses in gear and clean up/fix/secure the code than flash disappear completely.

    2. Re:Again? by grimmjeeper · · Score: 5, Insightful

      YouTube moving away was indeed a big step. The bigger step that is needed will be when porn moves away from Flash. Until they do, the installed base of flash will not significantly diminish and there will be little incentive for anyone else to move away.

    3. Re:Again? by MickyTheIdiot · · Score: 5, Insightful

      If you can watch it on a screen you can rip it... even if it means you point a videocamera at the screen you can rip it.

      Your comment is flawed for the same reason DRM is flawed. The only way to NEVER be able to copy digital content is to not allow anyone to see it.

  2. Any HTML5 blockers? by sinij · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Any HTML5 blockers out there, because we know the scum from marketing department will have us Punching Monkeys in HTML5 in no time.

  3. Re:Now we need a NoHTML5Media plugin by ArchieBunker · · Score: 4, Insightful

    You realize its only a matter of time until companies splice ads into the content itself so filtering will be impossible.

    --
    Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
  4. Change is Scary by phantomfive · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Many of them are not thrilled about the proposition (change is scary),

    More like change is expensive. It has nothing to do with scary.

    --
    "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
  5. Re:Looking at you, BBC... by dcavanaugh · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Yes, there are better ways to use browser agent id. But keeping Flash on the desktop means their HTML5 code does not need to be validated on lots of browsers. If the BBC implementation of HTML5 turned out to be buggy, the damage would be limited to platforms that couldn't run Flash anyway.

    If I were in charge at BBC, I would use mobile/portable devices as a beta test for implementing HTML5. Sooner or later, they have to bring HTML5 to the desktop, but it can wait until more of the obsolescent browsers are gone. Maybe the next project is to implement adaptive style sheets to get one code base that suits all browsers on all devices. At that point, Flash can finally take its rightful place in the Recycle Bin.

    When you have a huge user base and many of them are technologically illiterate, you end up doing things that are far from elegant. In a large organization, it takes longer than you would expect to get anything done.

  6. Re:Slashdot ads by WillAffleckUW · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Here's why I disable ads on Slashdot: VIDEO!

    If all their ads were static, I would be happy to uncheck Disable Ads...

    Agreed. Same here. Back in the days of flat banner ads - which could be "click to follow link that will play video" - I let the ads display. But sound and giant honking autoplay downloads mean I disable advertising on Slashdot.

    If advertising behaved, I'd turn it on again.

    --
    -- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
  7. Re:Now we need a NoHTML5Media plugin by jason.sweet · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Failing that I will wget it and do it myself.

    If you are manually editing content just to eliminate something you could have easily spent 30 seconds ignoring, then you are in serious need fo some therapy.