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I have mixed feelings about this. On one hand, there's leaving an option for the archivally curious. On the other hand, Flash needs to die thoroughly and I wouldn't want to facilitate zombie versions of Flash lurking about. That would be like Adobe giving us a parting f.u. as they jettison their trash.
Zombie-Flash-Art-Print.jpeg

Zombie Flash. Definitely gives me the creeps.
 
People hating on Flash are not aware of what's behind Flash to begin with. Flash got bought by Adobe and like anything that Adobe touches it begins to stink cause they never addressed the core issues with Flash Player not Flash itself.

First of all HTML5 didn't win over Flash yet, not by a long shot. AcitonScript 3.0 kills JavaScript in pretty much anything. Some stuff you were able to do in AS3 with an ease require a lot of workarounds in JacaScript. Vecotr graphics manipulation is still years ahead of HTML5 abilities. 3D content inside Flash can't be touched by WebGL and will not get to that point within 5 years at least.

And Steve didn't call to kill the Flash because it was proprietary or performance issues (on Apple devices only, much like how Safari kills your CPU when it comes to complex HTML5 content today). He called for it because it was a competition to his content in the app store. He didn't want Flash content out there in the wild, he wanted Flash content inside his App Store and that's what happened exactly. Most of your favorite iOS games are made in Flash and then compiled to be published in App Store.

Similar battle going on now is CUDA vs OpenCL, it's another jab at proprietary technology by Apple. They don't want NVidia dictating how they gonna use the GPU so they joined in OpenCL camp which then has transitioned into Apple proprietary Metal GPU technology. It is exactly like HTML5 vs Flash. CUDA is a lot more stable environment, it takes less troubleshooting, takes less code to unleash the potential while OpenCL is as convoluted as it could be, it works but just not as efficient as CUDA and it still can't deliver some features CUDA can. It's a carbon copy of a internet battle of ten years ago except NVidia is not neglecting their child like Adobe did and they still prevail.

Never trust an Apple employee talking to you about their fight for open standards. If they do just mentioned them Lighting connector and when do they think to transition to open standard.
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I had the same thought. I think the biggest risk would be if some very well organized party came along and started maintaining the source, providing timely security updates and reliable distribution enough that big players felt confident to continue using it and developing content on it.

But I'm sure Adobe's lawyers can craft up a sufficiently restrictive open source or "source available" license that discourages or outright prevents a third party from properly taking up stewardship of it. Without a trusted party and reliable operation behind it, Flash would almost certainly go extinct in the wild – it'd probably just lurk about indefinitely on life support on websites that aren't worth visiting, much like Java Applets.

Only Flash player is being killed, not Flash itself. Flash still lives it just exports itself in other formats such as HTML5, apk, ipa and so on
 
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Only Flash player is being killed, not Flash itself. Flash still lives it just exports itself in other formats such as HTML5, apk, ipa and so on
Isn't that an irrelevant distinction? I think it is pretty obvious that people are worried about the Player on their machines and could care less about the specific tools a developer used; so long as the end result is a proper runtime or standards compliant web site.
 
People hating on Flash are not aware of what's behind Flash to begin with. Flash got bought by Adobe and like anything that Adobe touches it begins to stink cause they never addressed the core issues with Flash Player not Flash itself.

Only Flash player is being killed, not Flash itself. Flash still lives it just exports itself in other formats such as HTML5, apk, ipa and so on

Sorry to SNIP, but you're right. :D

However, Flash PLAYER has always sucked on the macOS. So I won't be sad to see it gone.
 
Only Flash player is being killed, not Flash itself. Flash still lives it just exports itself in other formats such as HTML5, apk, ipa and so on

What are you basing this on? Adobe themselves say they are killing flash:
Adobe is planning to end-of-life Flash. Specifically, we will stop updating and distributing the Flash Player at the end of 2020

In other words, stopping distribution of Flash Player in 2020 will mark the first milestone in Adobe's effort to end-of-life Flash. Once that is done, the rest can be killed with ease.
 
This really is good news for users of modern releases of macOS. I removed Flash when the BBC switched to HTML5 on the BBC iPlayer. Safari 10 and Safari 11 both support HTML5 well and thus far I have encountered no problems without Flash including on sites such as CNN which were Flash content heavy.

There is an issue however. Older OS X releases such as Snow Leopard HTML5 is not supported and to view most streaming content Flash is essential. Although Firefox 45 ESR currently does support HTML5 in time the browser will become increasingly outdated as Mozilla is releasing no further updates to Firefox 45 ESR and later Firefox ESR releases are incompatible with the likes of Snow Leopard.

A considerable number of Mac users are still on Snow Leopard and the curtains are being further drawn on this classic release of the platform.
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It's about time Flash has been garbage for years
For Linux there is open source alternatives such as Gnash and Lightspark but have never cut the mustard. I experimented with Gnash back in 2008 with Ubuntu 8.04 Hardy Heron and compatibility with sites with Flash content was at the best patchy. Richard Stallman paints the glorious picture of open source but with some of the projects such as Gnash and Lightspark fail to deliver.
https://www.gnu.org/software/gnash/
http://lightspark.github.io
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You aren't thinking about Windows XP are you :D
And those that continue to work with older releases such as Snow Leopard will become increasingly vulnerable. The most up to date browser that supports HTML5 compatible with Snow Leopard is Firefox 45 ESR.
 
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Remember when Apple was evil because they rejected flash on the iPad?

Remember when Android was the best OS ever because it had a slow and buggy version of flash that was essentially useless?

Funny how we can remember it so differently.

I dont remember to have a buggy and useless version of flash on my android years ago... but i do remember scratching my head when using ipad and finding myself turning always back to my laptop while my ioad was on the table... nowadays im using the worst of all, "flash-supporting" browser, on my iphone/ipad and it never ever can become any worse than that...


While people saying "hey the guy was right, flash died!" they do not realize what the internet content would have been without flash and able to run things even locally.

Apples only interest was getting developers to develope native apple-controlled apps to fill appstore and not allowing multiplatform developing distributed on websites leaving apple without earning..
 
I dont remember to have a buggy and useless version of flash on my android years ago

No, you’re seeing it with rose tinted glasses...

It was so bad that Adobe canceled it in 2011.
 
Remember when Flash was considered so necessary, that when the iPhone debuted without it, Walt Mossberg himself wrote articles claiming inside info that Apple was going to soon include it with an iPhone update?

Remember early iPhone demos where Jobs showed stored versions of popular websites, which had been intentionally modified by Apple developers to hide the fact that the iPhone could not show the Flash content? This was because he wanted to claim that it showed the "real internet", which was a baldfaced lie at the time.

My favorite was when they stuck in a fake photo not only to hide a missing Flash menu in the middle of the National Geographic website... but also to "prove" how much faster the iPhone loaded "real" webpages.

View attachment 710163

Upper left is the faked site he demoed. Right and bottom were the actual site. I think he did the same with the NYTimes site.



By the time tablets became popular, Flash on Android was stable and fast.

My youngest daughter only used Android tablets for years because the best pre-teen kid's interactive games of the time were written in Flash and were not available on the iPad.

Now she uses a Mac and iPhone, but back then she refused to touch them.
If I recall correctly didn't they also hot-code the cell & wifi signal to always show 5 bars and full wifi?
 
I had Macromedia Flash program way back in the day, I would download .FLA files from the classic FlashKit .com, learn how stuff worked. A LOT of websites I did 15-20 years ago had it (sorry people who hated it LOL - I kind of grew tired of it as my computer became older and slower).

But after iPhone came out in '07...seeing MANY using the phone, w/ Apple having no intention of using it I removed all .swf files from the sites I created.

I rarely do web design anymore, used to love it..but that love - enjoyment died years ago.

Screen Shot 2021-01-13 at 4.17.56 PM.png
 
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