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

[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

[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

[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

[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.

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.

[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.

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?

[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

[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.

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.

[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).

Safari Power Saver since 2013

[psergiu]

Redmond, start your photocopiers.

Knowing MS...

[Opportunist]

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

"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.

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".

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.

Ads

[MoarSauce123]

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

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.