Mozilla: Our browser will not run native code Mozilla vice president of products Jay Sullivan says that unlike Google, the open source outfit has no intention of bundling Firefox with Adobe Flash —– or with a plug-in that runs native code inside the browser. Mozilla, Sullivan says, believes that the future of online applications lies with web standards, including HTML5. …
Yes, because everyone knows that when the managers and publicity people talk, the coders stop working.
Oh, hold on, what's that? They can both explain what they're doing and still do it? Simultaneously?
It's almost like it's a large organisation with different departments and stuff.
Look up False Dilemma on wikipedia. In fact, here's the link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_dilemma
So the latest Firefox wisely advises me on startup to update Flash. But if I do, I must first remember to untick some 'MacAfee' thing they try to slide in, and when the update is done, uninstall some 'Adobe downloader' thing. Easy - but do I have to tell my non-geek cousins all this?
Doesn't it already do this? FF currently downloads updates in the background and then tells me when it's ready to install. Or is this about add on updates? In which case after the TACO debacle I'd rather not have updates silently updated on my system...
Yes Javascript can have its own problems but it will be subject to something Flash is currently not: market competition. If it doesn't work properly people will go elsewhere and use something else. This is a major reason Flash is so poor, there's no alternative and so there's no motivation for Adobe to make it better.
I'm no IE fan but look how much better IE8 is than IE6. Why is that? Because the market offered something much better so Microsoft had to improve. Competition is good. That's why I'm very keen on HTML5 because it will bring competition to web video, especially if VP8 and WebM take off.
Flash is brilliant. It makes my browsing experience so much better, as now I can get distracted from what I'm reading by some silly ads or nonsense that some coder thought was a good idea.
What's that? I can get a Firefox add-on called Flashblock? Really? It stops any flash page from loading, reduces the amount of CPU my machine needs, thereby reducing my energy usage (and means I can save money on my electricity bills)?
And I can get Adblock too? Are you kidding me? I can really get rid of >90% of the crap that gets put onto web pages -- and I never have to see them EVER AGAIN?
Wow!
Well, to a point. I'm stuck without Flash at the moment, thanks to Adobe's x86-64 plugin bait-and-withdraw. (Gnash? Heh. Doesn't work, basically. Nice effort, but doesn't work.)
Sure, Flash in itself is horrible. I'd be much happier if sites didn't use it. But, in practice, they do. I already find myself keeping a 32-bit machine handy so I can actually see a video I want to watch, or view a store site (hello, Sportchek golf section) which is entirely implemented in Flash, or whatever. Yes, Flash sucks, but sadly, lots of stuff that lots of us actually want to see is written in it, and we can't change that.
As a Linux user I used to hate flash, but once it started to be used for video it brought welcome relief from the hassle of trying to run video content on Linux in the browser. Anyone old enough probable remember the hassle it was the find a video player on Linux that actually worked with whatever codec was being used, and that could play in the browser.
So to that, I say my hats of to flash, and when 3 years from now, html 5 video never seemed to quite get of the ground, I will be embracing flash even more.
Here is to being able to watch world cup on my Linux box no problem.
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