Microsoft Envisions a World Without Flash, Plugins

[JamesSneed]

Let me correct for MS. A world without ActiveX and Flash. Keep the plugins as they can add functionally and customization.

 

[jonxor]

With flash gone, laptops used for browsing will suddenly find their battery life much extended. Still image banner ads that take up %100 CPU will become a thing of the past. Flash was CPU intensive from the start, and it's only gotten worse since then. I think ditching flash would be the "greenest" option for the planet, and we can all reduce our CPU time, save massive amounts of energy (Think about people who leave web browsers open with flash ads/flash content playing constantly) and I bet compatibility and ease-of-use improves across the board. We may even see a more widespread adoption of home user Linux installs, as playing fullscreen Flash was typically a problem. Also, Flash is BULLSHIT!

 

[CPU666d1]

I totally agree with nikkidpartypooper. This is just another stepping stone towards a socialist dictatorship.

 

[N.Broekhuijsen]

People its simpler than it seems with the whole MS vs apple debate here:
Apple removes flash support, making their devices less capable, however, they do not have the power to remove flash from the world, since only about 10-15% of website viewing is done from non-flash enabled devices, whether this is laptops or iPads or iPhones etc. The developer community is not going to adjust their ways for such a small percentage of their viewers, and ask of a larger percentage of viewers to update their browsers to HTML5 capable browsers (you know it's true, some people are just too into IE5, especially business end-users).
Microsoft however, ruling a fairly large chunk of browsers, and most people do regularly update to the newest version of IE, reducing it's flash capabilities would be catastrophic for the end user and companies if no replacement is found, so developers would actually have a motive to develop the new technologies, rather than stick with the easier old ways...

I hope I'm making sence here, and please don't downthumb me because you don't understand what i'm saying, read it again!

 

[CPU666d1]

I forgot to add that the cloud is the new socialist dictatorship order of the future and that is why they're trying to bring in all these new ideas.

 

[CPU666d1]

Good one xbeater,real good.

 

[Guest]

Ah... Yes, the cloud... Microsoft wants to host all of your data and apps... For free... On servers 10x faster than your laptop and 100x the price... Not because they want to make it easy for the gub'mint people they're in bed with to snoop through your data either... So don't think that...

 

[PhilFrisbie]

[citation][nom]jacobdrj[/nom]That's funny. I envision a world without the Windows Registry...Doesn't mean it will happen any time soon...[/citation]
Plain text files work fine for non-Windows OSs. . . I want the win.ini file back!

 

[Guest]

Follow the money people. It is about controlling the content and profits from the content. If there are no plugins Apple and MS leave developers with a single option of HTML5/javaScript. A talented Flash developer can duplicate just about any app, and give it away for free if they choose, which costs Apple/MS revenue. However with only HTML/javaScript the Apps developed will be inferior to the ones which can be bought and therefor not a threat. Since when is having fewer choices better? When and if HTML?/javaScript catches up to the Flash platform Flash will die out naturally like shockwave did in the past. Mandating it's demise is foolish and will hurt all development, and cost consumers. Like it or not, Flash/actionScript is far superior for the development of web apps, HTML5 does not even have a sound class or function.

 

[palladin9479]

Where does it say MS is "dumping flash support"? Their obviously encouraging developers to switch to HTML5, but their not removing flash from IE / Windows. If anything MS can't do that, as Flash is just a compiled binary and installs as a plugin, too many other plugins exist, including Java (insanely popular in the business world for productivity apps). And should MS decide to cut off the plugin interface, users will just use Mozilla / Chrome and keep trucking.

And yeah .. I'm laughing at the whole "ARM for x86"... doesn't work.

 

[doive1231]

Thought they might want to stay with flash to keep Apple under their thumb.

 

[back_by_demand]

Apple bashed Flash when there was nothing around yet to replace it, now there is more HTML5 content it is now the right time.

Plus Apple had an agenda in trying to sell crappy games via the App Store instead of letting people play free Flash games on sites like Candystand, Microsoft has no such vested interests so it's hard to draw comparisons or say they are being hypocritical.

 

[hoofhearted]

Good riddance for Flash. Most Flash content out on the internet is annoying ads anyway. And "catastrophic for end users"??? I think not, just less work for your poor overworked CPU to render those wiggly annoying advertisements. Don't get me wrong, the Flash language and animation capability is great, just abused by the world in general. But, alas, we are just buying time until HTML5 gets abused.

 

[sundragon]

[citation][nom]back_by_demand[/nom]Apple bashed Flash when there was nothing around yet to replace it, now there is more HTML5 content it is now the right time.Plus Apple had an agenda in trying to sell crappy games via the App Store instead of letting people play free Flash games on sites like Candystand, Microsoft has no such vested interests so it's hard to draw comparisons or say they are being hypocritical.[/citation]

ROFL!!! Way to rewrite history because you hate (cr)Apple!

Give Apple a bit of credit for being one of the first companies to push Adobe to either update Flash regularly (so it's not a resource hog and a security liability) or do away with it all together.

MS is doing the right thing - Adobe needs to make this a priority if they want to keep their foothold. They were resting on their laurels and Flash became a liability for OS companies because it causes so many problems.

You may hate Apple - but don't be a sore loser and give them credit where they deserve.

 

[back_by_demand]

[citation][nom]sundragon[/nom]ROFL!!! Way to rewrite history because you hate (cr)Apple!Give Apple a bit of credit for being one of the first companies to push Adobe to either update Flash regularly (so it's not a resource hog and a security liability) or do away with it all together.MS is doing the right thing - Adobe needs to make this a priority if they want to keep their foothold. They were resting on their laurels and Flash became a liability for OS companies because it causes so many problems.You may hate Apple - but don't be a sore loser and give them credit where they deserve.[/citation]

Flash is only a resource hog for people with shitty PCs, everyone else in the world hardly even notices. And since when does hating Apple make me wrong, using inreducable complexity is never a good way to try and win an arguement.

Apples beef with Flash was motivated purely by self interest, not the greater good, otherwise it would have allowed Flash as an App and let the customer decide.

 

[CaedenV]

apple couldnt make a product good enough to support flash, so they droped flash support for those devices. Microsoft does not make devices (other than the Xbox, and a few failed products), and so they will not end support for flash any time soon. At the same time I think they are feeling the pressure from the professional environment to get away from flash as it is a potential security risk (and damn annoying to update every month).
Let us not forget that MS wants everything to move towards the cloud. Corporately they have pushed this idea sense the win2K days, but only now are things beginning to get to a point where it is practical. Flash is a great end user run-time, but is not something particularly useful for the cloud environment, where as Java and HTML5 supposedly are better in this aspect.
Personally I don't care much one way or the other. I'm building my own personal little cloud in the basement for all of our data and computers simply because I am not a fan of trusting large institutions with my data implicitly. Putting all eggs in one basket is always a bad idea. Not saying I wont use them (sky drive is pretty cool), but I will always have at least 2 local copies of everything. It is simply due diligence in a world where the internet is not 100% reliable, and where data caps run around like rabid dogs.

 

[sundragon]

[citation][nom]back_by_demand[/nom]Flash is only a resource hog for people with shitty PCs...[/citation]

The basis of your original argument that Apple banned flash and there was nothing to replace it is flawed. Companies need to make a stand when a product or service is not doing what it supposed to be doing.

When Apple fired off it's volley at Adobe - Adobe had fired off a large portion of the staff that managed and supported Flash - The security issues were platform independent - nothing to do with Apple's "support" of Adobe or not. The performance issues again are an Adobe issue - Apple, nor MS write optimized code for Flash - Adobe does - they decided not to optimize their code...

"People with shitty PCs" - Adobe was letting huge security flaws go untouched for months -This put people with "shitty PCs", Amazing PCs, and Macs at risk...

P.S. Not everyone (99% of the population) has a super duper computer like you - they deserve to have a decent plug in that doesn't open doors for malicious attacks and decent web performance...

 

[back_by_demand]

[citation][nom]sundragon[/nom]they deserve to have a decent plug in that doesn't open doors for malicious attacks and decent web performance...[/citation]
So how is the current version of Flash, smaller, faster, more secure.
OK where is the Apple App now?
Won't ever be one, motivated self interest.

 

[eddieroolz]

As of late, I'm not really starting to care about the whole Flash vs. HTML5 anymore.

 

[koga73]

If you don't like flash then turn off your browser plug-ins or uninstall it... but it is not right to force developers to go the way of HTML 5 and JavaScript by "banning" flash.
Microsoft has always supported third-party software.