OT: Flash (Was: Re: Taunting)

Daniel Keep daniel.keep.lists at gmail.com
Fri May 22 09:16:36 PDT 2009



grauzone wrote:
> Daniel Keep wrote:
>> Obviously the large number of people using such sites are trying to
>> prove you wrong.  :P
> 
> They just don't know it better. They probably think their PC isn't fast
> enough for fullscreen video playback and so on.
> 
> Maybe they don't even know what's making their web browsers / websites
> so slow. And what component is responsible for playing ads with SOUND.

Perhaps, but they DO have Flash installed in a JavaScript-enabled
browser.  And anyway, there are always going to be lemmings who think
the internet is called "Explorer" and that removing Windows is illegal.

>> To be fair, the alternatives aren't much better.  Embedding a WMV or MOV
>> is even more annoying, and Java's just a tremendous pain in the arse.
>>
>> It'd be nice if the current efforts to standardise <video> in HTML5
>> could do away with Flash video et al, but I'm not holding my breath on
>> that.
> 
> There's no technical reason why YouTube couldn't provide a download link
> for the hidden flv/mp4 file the flash player loads. Actually, there
> _was_ one video, where YouTube provided a direct link, but that was an
> exception.
> 
> In fact, hiding the link to the actual video file seems to be some kind
> of "soft DRM". Like all almost kinds of DRM, it's breakable, but it
> requires an effort > 0. I don't want to support this.

Maybe for ad revenue?  At least, I *think* YouTube has ads.  I have
AdBlock installed, so it's hard to tell...

> (And for video sites like YouTube, I'm not actually missing anything.)

Suit yourself, but it's not all garbage.

>>>> download youtube video 
>>> Can't see a download button anywhere on YouTube. Obviously, Google
>>> forces users to install Flash.
>>
>> Possessing a burning hatred of Flash isn't going to get everyone else to
>> stop using it.  If that worked, we'd have killed off IE6 years ago.
> 
> Firefox had tremendous success as IE replacement.
> 
> If you want to go that far, Flash had success as Java replacement.

Firefox didn't get to where it is because of hate.  It got there because
a lot of people worked VERY hard to push it into the public
consciousness.  Lots of advertising and word-of-mouth.

Flash got to where it is because it let people watch shiny animations.
Doing animations in Java is non-trivial because it's a programming
language, not a content authoring system.  Flash had a really easy to
use editor and a small runtime download.

You can't get rid of Flash by loudly shouting "you should all stop using
it because it sucks, and you can't replace it with anything so you have
to stop watching all those funny LOLCAT videos you love so much."

People will hate you for telling them they're not allowed to watch
humorous videos of cats because "I don't like Flash."

> Anyway, I'm not really fond of the idea of foreign, unknown programs
> running in my web browser. If you think about it, it's ridiculous. At
> least from the security point of view.

I don't think you can avoid it.  Let's say we could excise the plugin
APIs from every browser tomorrow.  I guarantee you that someone will
release a new browser with a badly thought-out plugin API the day after.
 Not long after that, someone will write the new "must have" plugin, and
then it'll start all over again.

What's the old saying?  All programs expand until they can read mail?
s/read mail/be arbitrarily extended/.

>> Either build a better system and get it installed on >90% of the world's
>> PCs or learn to live with it.  :P
> 
> There are dozens of open source video players. Projects like ffmpeg
> provide good backends for audio/video decoding. And I think even the
> builtin Windows Media Player can play mp4.
> 
>>   -- Daniel

Those aren't a replacement and you know it.  If using standalone players
worked, Flash wouldn't exist today.

People will always prefer being able to see a video in their browser
over having to launch an external application.  I've seen people use
truly horrific embedded players even when a "use an external
application" option WAS provided.

And people will continue to use Flash as long as producers keep using
it.  And they'll keep using it so long as it's the only system with near
complete ubiquity.  You post video in any other format, and you CANNOT
be reasonably certain your viewer can see it.

Incidentally, you say ffmpeg is good, but I suspect that most of the
actually *useful* parts of it are illegal.  And hell, there's still the
odd video file that I just can't get to play because it's using the
latest version of Quicktime or WMV or something.

I still remember having to install Windows Media Player, Apple Quicktime
*and* RealPlayer just to have a reasonable chance of watching anything
on the net.  And even then, you had an out-of-date version 90% of the time.

As an actual user, I *prefer* there being a single, ubiquitous format
that I can view almost anywhere.  The last thing I want to do is return
to the hell of a million different, incompatible formats each requiring
their own player software.

The only way Flash will die if if at least the following happen:

1. HTML5 is standardised with at least one free video codec that's
competitive with VP3 and MP4.  This will probably require Theora and
Dirac to get up to speed FAST.

2. HTML5's video and audio elements have to be supported by IE.

3. Someone needs to come up with a way of building SVG animations with
sound, video and interactivity that is competitive with Flash and
doesn't suck.  I don't hold much hope of the OSS community being capable
of this one.

4. There will have to be a massive, coordinated and *sustained*
marketing effort to make HTML5 cooler than Flash.  The success of
Firefox gives me some hope this could be done.

Simply complaining about Flash will not get any of the above done.


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