Microsoft Edge Will Start Automatically Pausing Less Important Flash Content (venturebeat.com)

An anonymous reader cites an article on VentureBeat: Microsoft Edge will "intelligently auto-pause" Flash content that is "not central to the webpage." If you want to try this out now, you can take the feature for a spin with Windows 10 build 14316, which was recently made available to Windows Insiders. Peripheral content like animations or advertisements built with Flash will be displayed in a paused state unless the user explicitly clicks to play that content. This significantly reduces power consumption and improves performance while preserving the full fidelity of the page. Flash content that is central to the page, like video and games, will not be paused. Microsoft wrote in a blog post, "We encourage the web community to continue the transition away from Flash and towards open web standards. We are planning for and look forward to a future where Flash is no longer necessary as a default experience in Microsoft Edge."

Comments

How about a real browser

[Billly Gates]

IE (yes you did not misread that) doesn't have the problem that edge has. Edge reminds of IE 6 or IE 7 when you go to a site like youtube. Constant refreezing.

I unpinned edge and pinned IE 11 on my windows 10 system for legacy sites still and Chrome for everything else. IE 11 is ok (not great), but MS in the past 4 years finally made a browser that didn't crash .... until Edge came out.

Re:How about a real browser

[Gr8Apes]

Why do you care? Use Firefox, Chrome, Opera....

Re:How about a real browser

[Anonymous Coward]

What sites? They probably don't function properly because they're porn sites infected with malware. The only reason to use Edge or IE is to go to the Chrome download page.

Re:How about a real browser

[Flavianoep]

Microsoft working with Linux, Firefox sucking, "IE is a real browser", the president of the US in Cuba... I get these days the SCO suit against Linux is the only thing holding the world together and preventing the hell from freezing over.

Re:How about a real browser

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow... Every comment from this troll is -1 and contains profanity or insults. How this waste of flesh hasn't been banned from the site yet is beyond me.

Re:How about a real browser

[Anonymous Coward]

The only reason to use Edge or IE is to go to the Chrome download page.

Out of the frying pan and into your mom...

Re:How about a real browser

[Anonymous Coward]

we can't even keep APK away, and he's much more annoying

Re:How about a real browser

[c]

I get these days the SCO suit against Linux is the only thing holding the world together and preventing the hell from freezing over.

I wouldn't worry... even if the SCO suit dies, we'll still have Microsoft's mobile *giggle* strategy *snort*.

Re:How about a real browser

[Billly Gates]

Also what if you are a webmaster?

Ask anyone who writes an awesome cutting edge beautiful site ... only the boss to call the next day saying his aunt who has IE 6 complained you can't code and it sucks! Now you need to spend a whole week for free downgrading your site with demonic hacks and taking away features so his grandma doesn't view as incompetent.

Remember IE 6 doesn't suck. You suck because all other sites look fine etc.

Now we have to debug Edge bugs and put bug specific code so grandma of the customer won't say you are a hack who can't code etc.

Re:How about a real browser

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

even if the SCO suit dies, we'll still have Microsoft's mobile *giggle* strategy *snort*.

Lol, you mean the "Wait for us- we're the leader!" strategy, or the "That looks good, let's make a shitty copy of it" strategy?

Re:How about a real browser

[Anonymous Coward]

He's probably referring to corporate or baking sites. Some of them still demand some archaic version of IE for some reason. He's still an asshole, but he's right.

Re:How about a real browser

[c]

even if the SCO suit dies, we'll still have Microsoft's mobile *giggle* strategy *snort*.

Lol, you mean the "Wait for us- we're the leader!" strategy, or the "That looks good, let's make a shitty copy of it" strategy?

To be honest, I think it's well into the "fuck it, we've got money, let's do both of them!" stage.

Re:How about a real browser

[Anonymous Coward]

Apk's annoying to mental midgets like KoznoStevnNaut who can't validly technically prove him wrong https://slashdot.org/comments.... who told him shut up with KozmoStenNaut fitting the mental midgets described perfectly in the upmodded parent post. Apk's highly efficient more capable single part native method for protection and speed up hosts program puts a big dent into their money making agendas (which most of his detractors here are webmasters or advertisers he's caught in that fact no less many times on slashdot). The fact my last post noting all this was downmoderated twice now proves he's right again as you can't silence facts he uses (or him) since truth is inviolate.

Re:How about a real browser

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh hey APK, it's been a while. Gone off your meds again?

Re:How about a real browser

[Anonymous Coward]

KozmoStevnNaut does fit the description of mentalmidgets by telling apk to shut up when he couldn't prove apk wrong.

Re:How about a real browser

[Anonymous Coward]

It's a troll when it's added purely in an attempt to get a response. Success, you've been trolled.

Re:How about a real browser

[Gr8Apes]

I forget where I wrote it, but I only support HTML standards and get agreement for the requirements on IE versions. I've been fortunate enough that I have not supported IE 6 on any project since 2006, so I'd say that perhaps you should respond with: "Supporting IE 6 will double the cost of the website. I'd be happy to do so if you approve the funding and tripling of project time due to increased debugging required for IE 6." and see where that gets you.

Translation

[Anonymous Coward]

Pay us and we'll prioritize your Flash content as more important and central to the page. If you don't pay us and get your flash apps signed by us, they'll automatically be paused.

It's a clever way for Microsoft to get a cut of advertising and website revenue, under the guise of being good for end users.

How nice of them ...

[johnlcallaway]

... to finally catch up to what I've done in Chrome for years now ...

At least Flash is easy to block.

[Anonymous Coward]

Wait until Flash dies and people use JavaScript to animate HTML5 tags and such. How are you going to selectively block that?

Re:At least Flash is easy to block.

[gmack]

Wait until Flash dies and people use JavaScript to animate HTML5 tags and such. How are you going to selectively block that?

Not that hard, at least in Chrome I use Disable HTML5 Autoplay plugin.
 

Re:At least Flash is easy to block.

[TheRaven64]

That only pauses video and audio tags, it doesn't pause things like canvases (or misc DOM elements) being animated by JavaScript. JavaScript has one big flat namespace for every script in a page, so it's difficult to identify the bits of the script relating to an ad if they're not in an iframe (and advertisers don't want to put them in iframes, because then they're trivial to filter out).

Re:At least Flash is easy to block.

[gstoddart]

Which is why Javascript also needs to be much more tightly controlled than simply running any damned thing on the page.

Your average web page has 10-20 3rd parties, all of which want to run javascript, flash, set cookies, and do a host of other crap. Advertising has pretty much fucked up the permission model of the internet by saying "you need to let every asshole run anything they want because you have no idea if it's part of the functionality of the site or an ad, but we just assume you'll let it all run".

Yeah, sorry, no. Flash is straight up disabled or uninstalled. I'll selectively whitelist sites who I trust, or at least temporarily do so. But almost no 3rd party scripts or content are EVER allowed ... because I don't want ads, and because I don't trust random web pages to run scripts. Because they're not trustworthy.

If Javascript has only one big namespace, then maybe that needs to be fixed? Security holes like cross-site scripting and other stuff are enabled by web sites insisting they be able to write the most presumptively insecure code and then let it be the user's problem.

This stuff needs to be sandboxed, treated like it's potentially hostile, and locked down from being able to do anything to the host computer. Instead what we have is stuff running which we have no idea what it is, which may or may not be malicious, and which can actively impact the host machine.

It's time we stopped treating web pages like they're trusted by default, because so much of the web these days simply can't be trusted.

Stop letting the advertisers tell us how the internet should work, and stop letting them be the ones who cause the damned thing to be insecure in the first place.

Re:At least Flash is easy to block.

[Anonymous Coward]

When third party scripts get blocked by browsers, the only thing that will happen is that sites will start serving the same scripts from their primary domain, because the advertisers will start to insist on it and sites will bow because they need the moola, which is why they showed ads in the first place. Which will then give them access to account info because the way the browser's origin policy works is brain-dead.

Re:At least Flash is easy to block.

[Opportunist]

By disabling JavaScript.

Re:At least Flash is easy to block.

[Wrath0fb0b]

This stuff needs to be sandboxed, treated like it's potentially hostile, and locked down from being able to do anything to the host computer. Instead what we have is stuff running which we have no idea what it is, which may or may not be malicious, and which can actively impact the host machine.

That is the intent, and that is how it's meant to be implemented. As properly construed, javascript running in the context of a webpage should never have access to do anything besides modify the current page (and by extension have the page render HTML, including canvas/audio/video now that they are part of HTML5), grab user input (if topmost) and set cookies per the user's cookie policy. To the extent that javascript can do more, or even pwn your computer, that's contrary to the design intent and is a bug in the sandbox.

So other than complaining that the browser sandbox implementations are not perfect (which is conceded), what is your point here?

[ And, as an aside: FlashBlock (or other click-to-start-flash) is a great idea, so is the Java permissions popup. In both cases, that's a workaround for the fact that the Flash and Java VMs are hopelessly insecure and simply not going to be fixed. ]

Re:At least Flash is easy to block.

[amRadioHed]

So your pages go from annoying to completely non-functional. Sounds like a big win!

Re:At least Flash is easy to block.

[Opportunist]

Try it. You'd be surprised just how many pages work great without JS.

Re:At least Flash is easy to block.

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

By disabling JavaScript.

I'd love that, but sadly a lot of sites won't work worth a crap (or at all) without javascript. That's not the way it should be, but it's the way it is.

Most of my sites run fine with javascript turned off, but a few do rely heavily on jQuery, and there's no good way around that. If you want some useful AJAX response or some nice, clean effects coupled with functionality, sometimes javascript is the way to go.

Re:At least Flash is easy to block.

[Khashishi]

Once upon a time, plugins were used to add functionality to a program, not remove it.

Re:At least Flash is easy to block.

[i.kazmi]

Anything with ajax is going to break and since most web-apps use ajax (for everything from updating content to loading new content), you would not be able to use almost any web apps. You should technically be able to view most websites (albeit with slightly reduced functionality) with JS disabled but even that is not guaranteed and with the way things are going, I doubt there will be any maintained websites functioning without JS in a couple years time. You can hate it all you want but the writing is on the wall.

There are multiple reasons for this but the most important one (afaict) is that most people who want a website want something similar to google/ms/yahoo services with lots of ajax and subtle animations (fade ins, fade outs etc) for as little money as they can get away with. If you quote them $2000.00 for a properly done website (where the website functions properly in the absence of javascript), they'll go to the competition without a second's hesitation and since developers need to pay their bills (who doesn't?), they pretty quickly realise they have to cut every corner they can to keep their costs down in order to make some money when they get paid after they have paid their bills. People can get on their high horses all they want but at the end of the day, when these people go to get a website created, they opt for the cheapest option available.

Re:At least Flash is easy to block.

[Anonymous Coward]

Umatrix. Just get it.

Where is this "important" flash content?

[Anonymous Coward]

I haven't installed flash for years, and I don't believe I have missed out on anything.

Re:Where is this "important" flash content?

[Flavianoep]

I'm going back to Konqueror. Flash didn't work there and that was the problem that had me leave it. It comes with builtin ad block, gestures so I don't need any plugin. It even gives you an option to stop animated GIFs.

Re:Where is this "important" flash content?

[Anonymous Coward]

Depending on what browser you installed, then yes, you did install flash. Chrome and Edge both install it by default. Firefox does not. I'm unsure if Opera does as I don't use it.

Re:Where is this "important" flash content?

[Opportunist]

You missed a whole lots of 0day exploits. Your life must be incredibly boring.

Option to Disable Autoplay

[ohnocitizen]

All browsers should have the ability to pause autoplay content (videos with sound especially) by default. This would be a game changer. Chrome has this: An article with an ironic autoplay advertisement.

Re:Option to Disable Autoplay

[_Sharp'r_]

Sometimes I forget how much levels of technology literacy makes our experiences of the web differ.

I get that there are still people out there who don't run an adblock-like plugin for their browser. Some people even don't do it on purpose.

I do really wonder at how many people haven't already learned to just set their flash plugin to "Ask to activate" status, so they only see flash content on a page if they actively want to. Without that, I don't see how you can browse the web on a default version of Windows without at best being constantly annoyed, or at worst routinely infected with malware.

How many flash vulnerabilities does it take before someone learns to leave it turned off unless they actually want to see the flash content on a page?

Re:Option to Disable Autoplay

[houghi]

I rather have an option to ENABLE autoplay. Have it disabled as default.

Re:Option to Disable Autoplay

[sycodon]

If they really want to be useful, have all the page content load before the ads.

Re:Option to Disable Autoplay

[ohnocitizen]

This is bad too, since when the ads load they can push content on the page. You get accidental clicks this way (though perhaps on some sites this is strategic).

Re:Option to Disable Autoplay

[ohnocitizen]

I run uBlock and Ghostery (which don't catch everything), and just didn't even think to check for it as an option. It should be in the browser by default. Even technically literate users won't remember to check every setting.

Re:Option to Disable Autoplay

[Anonymous Coward]

99% of this would be resolvable with hint placeholders. Honestly, one of my largest gripes with modern web browsers is precisely that content gets moved around as the page loads or otherwise shifts the scrollbar position in a fashion that doesn't adequately auto-update. There's clearly something fundamentally broken that your UI should change so fast a user would "accidentally" click the wrong thing--I put that in quotes because the statement normally implies PEBKAC when this is clearly a developer error.

PS - Another gripe is the horrible keyboard navigation on most sites, but I think that's basically unavoidable in a GUI browser based upon how things render now days. It does make me wish the text based browsers were further developed, although I can see how the above with rendering has made that increasingly impossible.

Re:Option to Disable Autoplay

[sycodon]

Liveleak actually does it on purpose...they move the page down to the ads deliberately and you have to scroll up to see the content.

Haven't you realize it yet?

[Anonymous Coward]

... Pay us and we'll prioritize your Flash content ...

Dude, haven't you realize it that tfa is a combination of clickbait and slashvertisement ?

Read tfa again if you don't believe ...

... to try this out now, you can take the feature for a spin with Windows 10 build 14316 ...

Hey, timothy

[edittard]

If you were a bit more a-with-a-circumflexoeintelligent you'd know how to use the preview button.

The End of Thin Computing?

[Grindalf]

Those thin new computers are too slow?

Re:The End of Thin Computing?

[Overzeetop]

The tablet I currently use has more power than the ~100 watt, 4 (physical) core i7 processor in my 5 year old tower. It's not the hardware, it's the proliferation of ads with video content and web site developers who think that a 5-8MB download on a single web page is "fast".

Re:The End of Thin Computing?

[Grindalf]

Hi! To quickly explain my position, I've heard this before, but notice that flash movie content plays on these new thin machines with âoeclicky soundâ and unreliably as if they are underpowered in a way that is hidden. I have tried a few different makes and software platforms. New gaming platforms blow them off the face of the planet earth and are perfectly smooth. The screens are nice big ones and they are ergonomic and comfortable to use. I can afford both. So naturally I ask the question as there is a visible mismatch to me and I have been struck with disbelief.

Re:The End of Thin Computing?

[Anonymous Coward]

That hardware analysis is unlikely.

Re:The End of Thin Computing?

[Grindalf]

Fascinating! That scandal would destroy Intel and NVIDIA overnight! :-)

Sounds like you need Servo.

[Anonymous Coward]

You need to try Servo. It's the next-generation browser engine from Mozilla and it's fantastic. It's written in Rust so it's beyond secure, because Rust is the most secure programming language ever created. Rust is also native compiled like C so it's fast. Some people have even found Rust to be faster than C! Rust is the next-generation programming language from Mozilla in case you aren't aware. Rust and Servo are the future. They're taking the current state of the art and bumping it up not just one notch, and not just two notches, but at least five or six notches. They've elevated the game and now it's time for the other browser vendors to start playing catch-up with Rust and Servo.

Re:Sounds like you need Servo.

[Anonymous Coward]

Holy crap, six notches! That's roughly four notches more then an average up-bumping.
Wow, im so excited over the amount of next-generationness it contains.

Re:Sounds like you need Servo.

[WarJolt]

Rust is also native compiled like C so it's fast. Some people have even found Rust to be faster than C!

Faster because of better code. Programmers are willing to adopt a new language like Rust are probably great coders.

I know so many c++ programmers who don't effectively use the stl to speed up their code.

Also runtime languages can be faster than native code if you have the right optimizer. They can keep track of hot code blocks and optimize the hottest sections at runtime. Unfortunately statically compiled languages can't adapt dynamically to execution.

Most people's subjective analysis of runtime languages is based on java which has a terrible amount of overhead when doing the symbol lookups when the program first starts up. Plus the Java guys hate AoT compilation. I'm not saying Java is faster, but it's definitely slower when it first comes up.

Re:Sounds like you need Servo.

[Anonymous Coward]

Let me guess, you have some stake in the Rust language and or Mozilla? Your post looks more like an advertisement than a response to the article.

Re:Sounds like you need Servo.

[Anonymous Coward]

"Unfortunately statically compiled languages can't adapt dynamically to execution."

They don't need to.

The compiler takes its time and does the optimisation right at compile time. After that, the code runs as fast as it can.

Re:Sounds like you need Servo.

[parkinglot777]

If you are talking about old traditional way of compiling language, then you are correct -- well coded gives better speed. However, nowadays, you don't know what your code will look like after it is compiled due to compiler optimization. As long as algorithm is correct, different coding style may not have much impact on the outcome speed (but does not mean it will be equal to or faster than a well coded ones).

Re:Sounds like you need Servo.

[Anonymous Coward]

Holy crap, six notches! That's roughly four notches more then an average up-bumping.
Wow, im so excited over the amount of next-generationness it contains.

I'll bet it's fucking webscale, too. Super-duper uber webscale an' shit.

Re:Sounds like you need Servo.

[Anonymous Coward]

what? If they are so concerned about security why do their instructions tell you to use python 2.7 to install it? bah, python 2 will is no longer being developed in will reach end of life pretty soon...

Been pausing Flash since 2013.

[Anonymous Coward]

I think I'm going to keep it on pause.

Safari Power Saver since 2013

[psergiu]

Redmond, start your photocopiers.

Condiments for your shit sandwich

[Iamthecheese]

I wouldn't care if it worked precisely as described in the summary. Windows 10 could come with 10 free blowjobs and I still wouldn't use it. When it comes to my privacy there's a line in the sand. Maybe, MAYBE I'll pay for the corporate edition when it's clear there's a way to stop ALL the privacy-rape.

Re:Condiments for your shit sandwich

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

Windows 10 could come with 10 free blowjobs and I still wouldn't use it.

Hmmmm, I dunno...that would be a pretty compelling feature if you ask me. But first you'd have to explain to the Microsoft Dev Teams what a "blowjob" is cuz I'm fairly sure they're not familiar with them.

Knowing MS...

[Opportunist]

I have that hunch that Edge will rather pause the YouTube videos than the noisy ads.

there are exceptions...

[Anonymous Coward]

I just reviewed the sources for this change, and if the flash video featuring Bill
discussing shoes with Jerry Seinfeld is playing, all other processes will be locked
until a receipt for the purchase of said product is scanned and Bill's birthday is
entered as the pass-phrase.

Just thought it was interesting...

CAP === 'wormed'

"Transition away"?

[93 Escort Wagon]

I stopped even installing the Flash plugin a while back - it's following in the footsteps of the Java browser plugin.

I keep Chrome around just in case there's some Flash content I actually need to access, but that rarely happens. Google probably thinks I hardly ever browse the web, and that I like Flash-heavy sites when I do.

Pausing? Opera 'classic' = better... apk

[Anonymous Coward]

NO stupid 'addon/extension' required as it has "play ONLY on demand" option!

* The more I try these "new" browsers, the more I realize they are SOLD THE HELL OUT to advertisers since they're trying to force scripting &/or crap like FLASH down your throat & BOTH are known delivery mechanisms for malware + exploits...

(See subject above - Currently, I'm using a recent new release of Opera 'classic' in 12.18 & like versions before it, it too does all of what I noted and more - optional cookies, plugins, scripting, frames/iframes, referrer information, etc. - it is the LAST browser that was honest & I honestly CANNOT understand why the developer of it went 'chrome' unless it was for the "holy-dollar"...)

APK

P.S.=> It's truly insane - wtf are these people thinking? After all the exploits in flash (or scripting etc. that opera has options to control above & even more like PAC files combined with hosts (both natively utilizable by browsers or IP stack itself no less, no stupid defective sold out extension/addon to browsers or OS etc.), by using what you already have (or can have) to make it moreso vs. one of the WORST threats there is, OpenBID ad networks that infect us abused by malvertising etc.) you'd THINK they'd take a page from original Opera's example of HOW to do it right... At this point? I don't feel they WANT it done correctly & WANT to "f you up"... apk

Finally!

[Anonymous Coward]

OS X's Safari has been doing this for quite a while.

Why add implement features for a dead product

[Anonymous Coward]

Flash is dead. That's right Flash is done. The world has moved on. (My company see about 50% install base and falling across the websites we maintain) Why even support Flash at all on Edge. If you are going to try to make a modern web browser why not just take the easy first step and banish Flash? It should be much easier than adding extra features so Flash can live on like the walking undead that it is.

Re:Why add implement features for a dead product

[MoarSauce123]

And replace Flash with what? There is no capable replacement. You may point to HTML5, CSS, and JS, but with each browser executing and rendering the same code differently or not at all the user experience is never the same. As soon as browsers render content not only exactly the same on all OS, but also fully compliant with W3C standards, then we may be able to ditch Flash, although Flash can do more than the hodgepodge of three markup/script languages.

Will this be as intelligent as Cortana?

[Anonymous Coward]

For, if it is as clever as that retard, Windows lusers are in for lots of fun.

How about default ALL autoplay to off?

[JoeDuncan]

I can't stand autoplay *anything* in my browsers.

Thankfully, due to judicious use of adblockers and various plugins, every flash player, HTML5 Video, GIF etc... needs me to actually click on it to make it start.

It's my browser, and my machine, you don't start playing without my approval!

Any web page I find where I can't turn off the autoplay anything, I simply never visit again.

Windows 10

[Archfeld]

I am using windows 10 on a laptop, and after 3 or 4 days I decided I absolutely HATED EDGE, it is cumbersome, stupidly organized, performs poorly and freezes up often. Calling it Edge is very stupid, as the only edge it seems to give is to any other browser and Apple or Linux.

Uh-huh.....

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

And by " less important" they mean "content for which the owners haven't paid us not to interfere with".

Ads

[MoarSauce123]

So Edge will stop playing all these annoying Flash ads? I have to see it to believe it.