I Hate Flash
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I hate Flash. Not the Flash player, because it is what it is. I hate people who put Flash on web sites despite the fact that Flash is:
- Not supported for Chrome
- Not supported for Android
- Not supported for iOS
- Not supported for Linux
Adobe abandoned Android early; there was a 'droid player, but they stopped making new versions.
It never was really available on iOS; Apple walled it out in favor of QuickTime, their preferred solution (which, BTW, I also hate when I run into it on a site, but that doesn't happen much anymore, RIP).
Chrome decided to push everyone to the newer PPAPI browser interface; will Adobe support that? Nope. So no Chrome, either, since Chrome has discontinued the older NPAPI...which plugins like Flash formerly used. Maybe Adobe's refusal to support PPAPI is not a surprise since Mozilla has said they won't support PPAPI in FireFox either.
YouTube switched to HTML 5 because so many devices didn't support Flash.
So. Suppose you're a web news site and you put Flash video on your site, just who do you think is watching? Not me, because my preferred browsers and devices don't support your #!(%$ Flash. The ones that really get me are the ones where the advertisement plays just fine and then they switch to Flash and ... "You need to install Flash Player to see this content."
Bottom line: I hate sites that insist on using Flash. Shoot it, bury it, forget it, let it rot in peace.
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Doesn't Chrome have Flash Player built in though? If they can do that, surely they can make an exception and keep the (internal) NPAPI interface?
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Chrome decided to push everyone to the newer PPAPI browser interface;
Which will also probably hit Java, too. In short:
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I hate Flash.
Which one, Jay Garrick, Barry Allen, or Wally West?
Or maybe you just caught only part of the name:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aKfbSHW9uGA
I'm sure Edmund would agree in that case.
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Doesn't Chrome have Flash Player built in though? If they can do that, surely they can make an exception and keep the (internal) NPAPI interface?
No. And they don't want to keep NPAPI running because it has security issues, as I understand it. Basically, the NPAPI lacks a good sandboxing mechanism, so that the native program you're running can actually corrupt the browser or access its structures in clever ways. It's probably this weakness that was exploited by some of the advertising companies for tracking purposes.
Which will also probably hit Java, too. In short:
Yes, it has hit Java, too.
I'm on Chrome, it works fine.
You're probably on an old version. It's supposed to have been discontinued completely.
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You're probably on an old version. It's supposed to have been discontinued completely.
ORLY?
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Okay, what's the trick? Same version I have. Hmmm...
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I believe the embedded flash still works, just not the Adobe version. On Debian at least it requires installing the package called
pepperflashplugin-nonfree
(nonfree
repos need to be enabled). Not sure what distro you use and what the procedure is, though.
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Opera shows this.
But nothing for Flash.
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Okay, what's the trick?
Install Flash. It works with PPAPI.
I believe the embedded flash still works, just not the Adobe version
It's the Adobe version.
Oh, is this a Linux thing maybe? There's no PPAPI Flash for Linux?
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Flash for Linux has been discontinued for years (except for security upgrades I think, or maybe not even that anymore).
Edit: sort of. See this table:
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There's no PPAPI Flash for Linux?
There's no new Flash versions for Linux for like 2 years now. Adobe said fuck you.
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Edit: sort of. See this table:
So it should work on Linux with Chrome, then?
That's exactly the version I have on Windows.
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When did that happen then?
Well... ok, I guess?
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To be fair, it is done by cheating (that screenshot is a clickable link to the cheat in question).
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Exactly. While there are other (FOSS) Flash players for Linux, Flash is proprietary, so they have to play the same catch-me-if-you-can game that LibreOffice does with the Microsoft formats. At least nothing in Flash is patented (I think, but CBA to check), unlike the Office formats that are the default since 2007 (which turned out to be a bit of a miscalculation on MS's part, as no one who needs to view files in older versions of MS Office uses the new formats, while [Open|Libre]Office was never a significant threat to them in the first place).
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Not supported for Chrome
I'm not sure what you mean by "not supported", but it still works fine.
BTW, I saw an article saying that Firefox was gonna turn off the plug-in format that allows Flash, so you might have to soon add Firefox to that list.
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Oh, is this a Linux thing maybe? There's no PPAPI Flash for Linux?
Was Flash ever supported, since day 1, on Linux? I thought they had to use some reverse-engineered thing called "gnash" or something.
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So it should work on Linux with Chrome, then?
It should, and it does.
Was Flash ever supported, since day 1, on Linux? I thought they had to use some reverse-engineered thing called "gnash" or something.
The Flash plugin for Linux was officially supported by Adobe for quite some time. The FOSS "alternative" gnash, OTOH, was never even remotely close to being a useful replacement.
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Well, Gnash is a thing, yes, but Adobe did have an 'official' release of Flash Player for Linux up until version 11, at which point they basically said, "CBA, FOAD". You can still get it from Adobe's website, but since it hasn't been updated or even security-patched in two years, and they've been pushing hard to get people to use the newer features added since then, it isn't very helpful.
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Chrome has its own PPAPI version of Flash. Presumably they worked with Adobe on it.
Which also means that the version shipped with Chrome is the only recent one available for Linux.
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Mozilla's plan, as for just about everything else, appears to be to CADT the thing in Javascript.
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Okay, what's the trick? Same version I have. Hmmm...
What OS are you using? Chrome's built-in Flash is actually developed by Adobe - they make a PPAPI version that Google bundles.
I would assume that Chrome only bundles it on those platforms that have Adobe Flash support - Windows and Mac OS X. (I use Firefox on my Linux installations. It uses Gnash for supporting Flash applets, since Adobe's code is hopelessly out of date.)
[B]Update[/B]: I went back and read more closely. Apparently Adobe is supporting the latest Flash on Linux, but only for Chrome. Weird. You'd think that if they're spending the man-hours developing Flash itself, they'd pay the extra bit to support plugin API used by Mozilla products. Or maybe not, if Google is paying for that port.
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I would assume that Chrome only bundles it on those platforms that have Adobe Flash support - Windows and Mac OS X.
The Debian package "pepperflashplugin-nonfree" actually downloads Chrome for Windows, extracts the Pepper Flash plugin from it and throws the rest away, then installs the plugin into Chromium. Pepper is a cross-platform API so it works.
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I like Firefox, I hope Mozilla does not fuck it up getting into the delusion of grandeur, obsoleting Flash, Java, even their own fucking XUL-based addons and even as the last straw the non-secure HTTP, and putting too much effort to enter smart phone market!
As of last couple of versions FF has been clunkier with every version. I hate both Flash and Java plugin, but Mozilla cannot blame all of the suckiness on them. Otherwise by the time there is a working FF OS, there wont be any FF left. Their browser is a little worse than Chrome, last thing they should do is throw away their core distinguishing value, which is the plethora of perfectly-functional addons!
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Their browser is a little worse than Chrome, last thing they should do is throw away their core distinguishing value, which is the plethora of perfectly-functional addons!
Which perfectly functional addons distinguish Firefox from Chrome?
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so they have to play the same catch-me-if-you-can game that LibreOffice does with the Microsoft formats
Except now it's not getting any more changes so they will eventually catch up.
But Gnash and whatever other projects there are have always been ridiculously behind. So I'm guessing we'll have to wait until 2020-2025 for them to catch up fully. Unless google decides to spare a billion or two for them.
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- TreeStyleTabs, not available for Chrome because Chrome add-ons can't touch the interface.
- YouTube downloaders, not available for Chrome because Google banned them.
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I'd not find either of those useful, but I can see why others would, so fair enough but that doesn't seem like a plethora.
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I do not know how long Google will tolerate Ad blocking when FF is out of the game, it took some time to have a working ad-blocking in Chrome. Plus I am sure there are some poor developers relying on it for some internal research-y/enterprise-y crap that never got public. There will be screams when they pull the plug, then we will know which addons.
Deprecating a platform marketed to developers, to build upon will be a sure way to drive away future developers.
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That... didn't answer the question at all.
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There were some examples given above (youtube-downloader); but about any addon that is not aligned with Google's business model, is only tolerated in Chrome for now. The extensions in FF are more powerful, e.g. ABP blocks video ads too.
But agreed, the gap is marginal, I do not download from YouTube either.
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Blocks ads in YouTube? somehow I still see ads in YouTube often enough that think it does not work. In FF I do not see any ads.
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The extensions in FF are more powerful, e.g. ABP blocks video ads too.
It does that in Chrome.
Blocks ads in YouTube? somehow I still see ads in YouTube often enough that think it does not work. In FF I do not see any ads.
Yes. The only time I ever see YouTube ads is on my work laptop which doesn't have Adblock installed.
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Ok so it is perhaps a ChromeBook thing, because that is the one I have Chrome on it. I have to check now.
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What is with people's (company's) aversions to PNaCl? Are you telling me they don't want to target the most widely used browser in the world?
Also, I have a Chromebook and a Windows 10 and Flash works on both of them (e.g. the Twitch player)
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But agreed, the gap is marginal, I do not download from YouTube either.
Many people do. Or rather, try to, only to inevitably hurt themselves because 99% of the results you get for "download youtube videos" are malware or scams.
If I were making a browser or OS it would come with a youtube downloader built in. And IMO a good 3rd party interface to YouTube (with or without Google's permission) is one of the things that would save computer users the most frustration, just by the sheer number of people who use it.
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Yes.
Google Chrome Now Comes With Flash Built In
Well, I don't know about the built-in...that doesn't seem to work for some reason if it's a true built-in. But I went and looked at my plugins page and, wonder of wonders, there's a PPAPI Flash. I didn't do anything special to install it; maybe that's what installs with Chrome?
Anyway, it was D I S A B L E D (snarl; me all embarrassed now). Teach me to re-check what I read on the web, even though I did go through several sources looking for a solution; also teach me to look at plugins before writing hate mail.
No good solution for Android, though. ( "You can install the last supported version by turning off your security and pulling it directly from Adobe. Tough luck, though if the content you are watching requires the newer version.")
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YouTube downloaders, not available for Chrome because Google banned them
I used to rely on these, but they don't work anywhere near as well as they used to. So far I've had 100% success with keepvid.com which doesn't need anything installed in my browser (but does supply a convenience userscript that works well).
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YouTube downloaders, not available for Chrome because Google banned them.
I used to use YouTubeCenter (a UI enhancement for YouTube that allows video downloading) as a Chrome extension, but I moved to using it as a userscript through Tampermonkey once they removed it from the store.
There's also youtube-dl, an external tool that allows video downloads from many sites including YouTube.
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You guys know that VLC can open, play, and download YouTube videos? Don't a lot of people have VLC for one reason or another?
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I quite like Flash. I enjoyed writing Actionscript 3, it is a fun ECMA-script language with a decent way to render complex graphics.
That said, now the language is all but dead (there's still a decent market for it in the kiosk app world) I've not installed or allowed flash to run on any machine for about 2 years.
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I wouldn't call it dead, don't a lot of cartoons and animations use it? Or is that a different Flash and I just never knew?
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I see the Share and Hello toolbar buttons in your screenshot.
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Same Flash. But the animation part is reasonably distinct from the coding part these days.
It started as an animation tool, then it got very simple code (goto frame, stop, play etc), then that became a simple "proper language" (AS1)
Then it got a decent ECMA script language (AS2) and finally a very nice language (AS3)
All the time you could still use the IDE to create simple animations