Flash!......aaah...aaaaah!

[craigix]

I think I've lived a sheltered life, always used flashblock but when I do unblock it it seems to work great. Some fantastic games in flash.

 

[Asiyura]

Flash player really need some work from Adobe to use hardware acceleration, access to the sources to be able to compile on any platforms and a better stability.
HTML5 don't need any plugin to run, but the community is still young and there are not as many "high level tutorials" compared to Flash.
For most of the websites HTML5 is enough (small animations, embedded video, …).
But I don't think it's ready for more complex works : the devs are used to Flash, it's hard to restart from 0 when you're already used to something.

(And I hate all those "cloud gaming" thingies; I want to OWN the games and the systems on which they're running. If they were selling server softwares that you could install on your own machine, I would reconsider my point of view.)

 

[Jourdy288]

(And I hate all those "cloud gaming" thingies; I want to OWN the games and the systems on which they're running. If they where selling server softwares that you could install on your own machine, I would reconsider my point of view.)

1+
I wouldn't pay for one of those services unless I actually received physical copies of the game that I bought. Thus, if they go out of business...

 

[Prometheus]

I think I've lived a sheltered life, always used flashblock but when I do unblock it it seems to work great. Some fantastic games in flash.

You're not the only one.

I think that a lot of the "Flash bashers" forget how things were just five or six short years ago, when there were frequent problems with videos/music/etcetera on the web because these things were often in Windows-only formats that required Windows-only players, and so on - not very convenient for those of us who didn't use Windows, until YouTube and the like came along, and got a lot of traction very quickly. I don't deny that Flash had/has its problems (everything does, after all), but I like to make sure that I acknowledge that it's helped to make the modern web far less exclusionary than it was a relatively short time ago.

 

[kuru]

Damn those sites that only display their product info and links in Flash!!!!! >_<

Heh, it's their loss.

 

[greendots]

Can someone try this lib on pandora? http://labs.adobe.com/downloads/flashplayer10.html#android

You need a nexus one with android 2.2 in order to download the file.

 

[second exodous]

I think I've lived a sheltered life, always used flashblock but when I do unblock it it seems to work great. Some fantastic games in flash.

You're not the only one.

I think that a lot of the "Flash bashers" forget how things were just five or six short years ago, when there were frequent problems with videos/music/etcetera on the web because these things were often in Windows-only formats that required Windows-only players, and so on - not very convenient for those of us who didn't use Windows, until YouTube and the like came along, and got a lot of traction very quickly. I don't deny that Flash had/has its problems (everything does, after all), but I like to make sure that I acknowledge that it's helped to make the modern web far less exclusionary than it was a relatively short time ago.

I suppose that since I started using flashbock I have seen a lot less crashes and a ton less ads. That doesn't mean that flash is stable or secure, that is just a medical adhesive strip for the problem that is flash. I also remember that Macromedia had Linux and Apple(pre-OSX) installers which is the main reason flash does now, nothing to do with Adobe.

Eh, I liked Flash until an open standard came out because the world had to live with Flash, now we don't need to. Open standards get peer-reviewed so it will most likely work a heck of a lot better than a closed standard that is controlled by one company. I don't like Apple much but their stance on Flash makes sense, why depend on a third party when there is an open standard that everyone can work on? If it wasn't for HTML5 then there would be flash on the iPhone. That or Apple would have bought Adobe out right, very bad, HTML5 is better.

 

[TitanUranus]

Maybe I'm being a prick, but didn't my GP2X Wiz have a flash player, and wasn't it open source? Why is everyone having such a hard time getting this to work?

EDIT: Every pandora fan seems to dislike the GP2X Wiz, so surely IF it can do something the pandora can do it better!

 

[VRAndy]

I think I've lived a sheltered life, always used flashblock but when I do unblock it it seems to work great. Some fantastic games in flash.

You're sheltered ... from the cult of Steve Jobs. You're supposed to hate flash. Not because it's a closed, proprietary format of course, but because ... something something. All the cool kids are doing it.

 

[TitanUranus]

You're sheltered ... from the cult of Steve Jobs.

Steve jobbies is a cult? You said cult right? You did spell that correctly?

EDIT: Changed jobs to jobbies for comic effect!

 

[hedwards]

Jesus, an other flash mindless bashing thread, apparently since apple said its hip to bash it, then everyone is doing it. Keep in mind I don't deny that flash has its problems, be it being slower and perhaps buggier, but aside from the fact flash has crashed my browser far less times than what it crashed on its own without flash, it isn't the piece of shit apple and all the apologists says it is.

I take offense to that, I've been bashing Flash for years for sucking. You must be having better luck, because my browser is far less stable when I've got flash installed than when I don't. Presumably Firefox 3.6.4 will largely solve that.

Probably the biggest sin of Flash is being unavailable to people without it. As in so called developers that make there sites completely useless without it because they didn't feel like coding an alternative for people without Flash.

 

[Eniko]

I wonder about people who's browser crashes due to Flash, considering I can't remember that happening to me in years if it ever did at all.

 

[Prometheus]

I have to admit that I wonder about that, too, Eniko. I've heard it said that it's more stable on Windows (not that I can check that for myself, though), but I've never had it cause problems on Mac OS X or Linux, myself. It acted up a bit with YouTube (specifically, when closing tabs) during my first six to eight months of Linux usage, but that was quite a while ago now, and it wasn't massively common to begin with. (That said, I've always had Adblock and Flashblock enabled, so I've never encountered those advertisements that seem to cause so many issues...)

 

[second exodous]

Do you guys use flashblock? I've used it and it cut down on crashes, that might be why you think it's more stable now. When I click the 'play' button over flash is when my browser crashes, it is always after I do something with flash that I have a crash. Sometimes it's delayed but I don't use it much anymore, just youtube now and then and hulu, the rest is advertisements and some games.

I don't know, I just see a lot of people saying flash is great and not acknowledging HTML5 or very little. If there is a chance for flash to go away then everyone should take it. If everyone abandons flash it might also become open source and that might fix quite a bit of it's issues. If people continue to use flash as is there is no incentive for Adobe to open source it or even fix it. It is kinda like Microsoft, everyone was using it back in the day and it sucked, no incentive for Microsoft to fix it and then came along the iMac and Linux got more popular and now we have Windows 7.

Competition is good and open standards are even better.

 

[Prometheus]

I had no problems even before using Flashblock, myself. It was all exactly the same.

I haven't even encountered HTML5, so I simply can't comment on it.

 

[Blue Ion]

I take offense to that, I've been bashing Flash for years for sucking. You must be having better luck, because my browser is far less stable when I've got flash installed than when I don't. Presumably Firefox 3.6.4 will largely solve that.

I too hate how flash is made, how it freezes the input of the browser when it is too loaded and as you well said its lack of availability on minor platforms, but it annoys me to no end how people think html5 is the savior of the internet when in reality, no one can know that, it just happens apple said it, and suddenly a hope or prediction becomes a fact.

Probably the biggest sin of Flash is being unavailable to people without it. As in so called developers that make there sites completely useless without it because they didn't feel like coding an alternative for people without Flash.

Congratulations, that is my whole point about flash. When a windows, linux, mac application slows or crashes, you don't blame windows, linux or mac or even c++, you blame the people that make the apps. You might had some kind of excuse back with windows 95 or dos, but now? Operating systems are extremely matured, and they are barely responsible for any crash nowadays. In fact, I'm amazed how they could keep the os running with the vast array of drivers and software mostly bad written as people was to new to the new os at the time of windows 95.
Same thing with flash, if your flash application, page, ad, slows down my computer, the fault is of the app developer. That very same developer could have used less transparencies, less animations, less smoothnes, less bling so my computer could take a break. Flash just does what it is ordered.
Case in point: with my aging Athlon XP 1400 laptop I can watch 480p youtube videos just fine (just one video at the time but it is smooth), but daily motion or veoh videos sutter like hell, and I can assure you daily motion low quality videos are worse than youtube's.

An other thing that I don't understand is that if it sucks so much this situation, why no one does anything to solve it? it's been two years now when the flash spec got published, and so far only one guy has made something new with lightspark supporting a lot in a couple of months or so. Google, apple or microsoft could have implemented their own complete flash player tailored to their os in just as much time.

Finally, I have the feeling that HTML5 will actually solve few of the problems with flash. Just as well a developer missuses flash making it a resource hog, so will the same developer do the same with HTML5, or actually worse, because now part of his little time or patience will have to be invested in being compatible with chrome, firefox, ie and perhaps safari (ie6 clusterfuck anyone?).
Or not, such app will not be compatible with safari or opera, or chrome. And don't even think about mobile platforms because they might be too slow, or they may lack the appropriate extensions or the extensions work slightly different than the spec.

PS: I'd like to see the new HTML5 advertisements, are you going to block JavaScript altogether when they start to slow down your computer?

 

[second exodous]

@ Blue Ion: Well, yes you blame the people that make the software because it is closed and no one but them can look at it. If HTML5 screws up then it will be peer reviewed and fixed. If it only crashes on one site then you blame them. You have no way of telling if it is flashes fault or not. Me personally narrow it down to a few things and try to find out what is wrong. I also know it is flash because I can go for days without using flash, never push the flashblock play button, and I'm fine, for days. I use flash one day and my browser crashes. Huh, it happens on multiple sites with flash, so either all these sites are implementing flash incorrectly or it is just them. Ok, either way I blame Adobe, why do they make it so difficult to implement?

HTML5 is not ready, it is being developed as we speak, but if the industry ignores it because 'heck, flash is just dandy, no reason to switch' then we'll never know if HTML5 is better, will we? As a consumer I'll try to use HTML5 when its available if it works and try to avoid flash. If enough people do this the only consequences are flash will be open sourced or Adobe will work harder to fix it than they are now. How are those bad things? If you want to hang on tight to a broken standard owned by one company just to be stubborn you can do that also, but how will it help you, the consumer? I just hope if you're a developer you'll develop for what the consumers want, not hang on to a broken standard that is owned by someone else just because your stubborn.

Also, you seem to be the fan boy, before Apple dumped apple the HTML5 standard was already being developed because there needs to be an open standard and not have the net depend on one company. How is this not a good thing? When I see someone argue like you I just think you are so ingrained by what large companies tell you consumerism is that you don't know what consumerism is.

Sorry, it might sound a little harsh but I've seen too many things improved by competition and too many things stay the same because competition is stamped out sometimes before it gets off the ground.

 

[Tom`]

I have to admit that I wonder about that, too, Eniko. I've heard it said that it's more stable on Windows (not that I can check that for myself, though), but I've never had it cause problems on Mac OS X or Linux, myself. It acted up a bit with YouTube (specifically, when closing tabs) during my first six to eight months of Linux usage, but that was quite a while ago now, and it wasn't massively common to begin with. (That said, I've always had Adblock and Flashblock enabled, so I've never encountered those advertisements that seem to cause so many issues...)

Are you using a 64-bit OS? The standard way of using Flash with the amd64 build of Firefox was and is to use nspluginwrapper, and this used to be very unstable. I haven't had issues with it in a while, but it used to crash almost constantly, taking the browser with it.

 

[Prometheus]

Nope. I've never had and still have no reason to use a 64-bit OS, myself.

 

[-Tj-]

Jesus, an other flash mindless bashing thread, apparently since apple said its hip to bash it, then everyone is doing it.

I only snipped this part because I actually agree with everything else you've said in that post. I've been bashing Flash since long before Apple decided "we won't support anything that doesn't run our native code and blah-blah," as have many, many others. The main reason I don't like it is because support for it is absolutely atrocious. And I'm not talking about support as in bug fixes and getting it to run, etc. I'm talking about getting the damned thing to work well.

During an animation project, with broadcast HD television as the target, the animation supervisor asked us to compile a list of bugs, improvement requests, and wishes. He apparently had some ties to CS4's development, and was going to pass the list to the development team. Of the 10 or so pages I came up with, only 2 or 3 items on the list were addressed by the time CS4 was released. Unfortunately, this kind of thing is historically typical of Flash's development, as I've been told the previous Macromedia team had always been slow or reluctant to add or fix things suggested to them.

After several contracts using Flash (web, illustration, game animation, and a television cartoon series), I've since made it a point to refuse all future jobs that require it. I'm so fed up with the random crashes, the sometimes-works-sometimes-doesn't snaping, irritatingly annoying undo (50 undo steps wasted on nudging a point? srsly, Adobe???), horrible export format support... The list goes on. My stress level boils when I use it, and I get all irritable just watching someone work in it. At least with my experience in CS3 and 8, Flash is the buggiest piece of software I have ever used professionally.

Flash has caused many a crash on my computer, as well. Not to mention the plethora of Flash-based ads that constantly animate while I'm trying to read an article or forum. I don't blame Flash for inventing the animated ad, I blame it for making it more annoying... some of them have sound AND VIDEO. I have Flashblock installed, thankfully, but sometimes a page will embed content and Firefox will freeze up when I try to play it. And blocking HTML5 ads, if AdBlock isn't able to block the URL for it, someone will find a way.

So there you have it, a not-so-mindless Flash bashing. Flash is relatively cheap, and it's taught and used everywhere. By those facts alone, Flash will be around for a long time.

I had no problems even before using Flashblock, myself. It was all exactly the same.

I haven't even encountered HTML5, so I simply can't comment on it.

It's possible you might have and not even noticed. Of the HTML5 examples I've seen, I've either thought they were Flash-based or didn't notice the difference between the regular page and not.

Engadget recently did an article about it here. They say it runs faster in Chrome and Safari. Couldn't test Safari, but it's true for Chrome. There's a whole bunch more, too (check the comments, there's some great links).