News Scribd moves to HTML 5, ditches Flash

http://www.bit-tech.net/news/bits/2010/05/06/scribd-moves-to-html-5/1

 

Oh no.

 

The more people that move away from IE the better.

 

I'm all for it. Even though I can and do use flash on all my devices, I would love to be rid of it and just have HTML5.

 

HTML5 is overrated. It does almost as much as flash, and if you use a flash version with GPU acceleration then HTML5 is usually slower/uses more CPU to playback videos.
Sure flash should die because its bloated, inefficient and has seen more holes in its time than Tiger Woods, but the recent love for HTML5 and hate for flash seems somewhat irrational at times.

 

Are you sure about this, he has seen many and not only while playing golf

 

I'm all for moving to HTML5; because Flash does NOT follow the open-ness that is the web. Its a proprietary solution that is controlled by a particular single party. The web is supposed to be universal. It should NOT be relying on any one specific technology to function.

Flash is also an excellent vector for security issues; regardless of platform.

(a) There is no integrity mechanism that prevents running executables in the Adobe Flash cache folder; Unless you specifically enabled the prevention of executables on the OS you're running. (All you need to do is to trick a user into running an animation with malware embedded into the object.)

(b) It allows malware writers to target anyone using Flash. It means end-users suffer from a single point of failure from a security perspective. (No AV app will protect you from flaws in the programs you use.)

...And to be quite frank about the matter; Adobe's response to security issues in their solutions is downright shocking. (Both their Flash and Reader are vulnerable to issues that they still haven't patched for.)

The only issue with HTML5 is the video tag.

You've got Apple and Microsoft (with their MPEG-LA friends) on one side; wanting to push H.263 because they can get royalty payments out of it...They are also intentionally using FUD of software patents to scare others into not adopting royalty free alternatives. ie: By saying things in a deliberately vague manner, and not admitting to what specific patents Theora is infringing. (The point is to use the potential threat of patent infringements as FUD!)

Then you have Firefox and Opera refusing to accept this. They see that the web is supposed to be completely unencumbered and royalty free. So ANYONE is allowed to adopt it for $0, for any purpose. As a result, they both adopt Theora codec.


Google is in an interesting situation:

* They have the power to influence what video web codec is to be run via the popularity of Youtube.

* They have adopted both H.263 and Theora in their Chrome browser and Chrome Frame.
(So technically: Windows, OSX, and Linux are all supported.)

and...

* They can throw a complete monkey-wrench in MS/Apple/MPEG-LA's plans by introducing their VP8 codec in a completely open and royalty free manner.


The less dependent on Adobe products; the more secure we all are.

 

Guidelines and standards keep everything ticking over nicely (HTML). Flash is more harmful to mobile devices in terms of performance and stability than people seem to realise.

 

You know my pain

 

Really? My N900 has yet to crash/lag due to Flash.

Flash (when properly implemented into the browser, like MicroB) is the only thing that will lag if it requires too much CPU, not my device!

 

I always experience problems with flash on most my pcs. Either they start giving errors or they work for a while and then I get something saying flash is causing my pc to be unresponsive! That's why I am happy the HTML 5 is at least starting to be taken up and hopefully in the future it'll become the mainstream!
Doesn't look like Adobe are going to be too happy though!

 

Correct me if I'm wrong, but it's not about system load, it's about the fact that with Flash Adobe owns the internet, with HTML5, assuming VP8 gets adopted and open-sourced, nobody does - nobody has too much influence and nobody gets left out.

If HTML5 goes down the H264 route, it's going to require a $5m buy in from the likes of Mozilla and if Ogg Theora is adopted then there is likely to be much litigation from parasitic patent lawyers to come.

 

rickysio ... in over 10 years of using Flash I can't count how many times I've witnessed lag and Flash crashing and this is from badly written flash programs - in fact I've even written some that lagged and crashed out. I can't say however that I've ever used a badly implemented install of flash to a browser as you suggest. Maybe you could give some examples of that?

And for the rest, Opera is now in on the debate: http://www.electronista.com/articles/10/05/06/opera.says.flash.relevancy.soon.to.change/

 

IE9 supports HTML5 and CSS3 it seems... are they finally deciding to catch up to times?

 

This will come down to how the browser developers intend to handle those H.264 streams. Just about every GPU can do H.264 accelleration these days and most of the codecs can hand off this task. In Win7, for example, even the Microsoft default codec does H.264 accelleration so pushing that video to a DirectShow graph will get GPU accelleration.

But I guess we'll see how it all pans out and how each browser will cope with it.

 

How Silly

Flash is used as a wrapper for encoded content. By and large most of that video content is currently encoded using the H.264 CODEC.

It is this H.264 CODEC that has embedded support in computing hardware
not the Flash wrapper, which itself is just added bloat ware.

What this means is that HTML5 browsers are just as able to exploit those
hardware based decoders as Flash , but without the additional bloat of Flash.

Further more , those using Flash are exposing themselves to ever increasing security risks says Symantec.

As reported by Symantec (The security people)

In 2007 Adobe Flash Featured 11 security issues
In 2008 Adobe Flash Featured 16 security issues
In 2009 Adobe Flash Featured 24 security issues

Symantec further reported

[Among the vulnerabilities discovered in 2009, a vulnerability affecting both Adobe Reader and Flash Player was the second most attacked vulnerability. This was also one of four zero-day vulnerabilities affecting Adobe plug-ins during 2009. Two of the vulnerabilities were in the top five attacked vulnerabilities for 2009. Additionally, Adobe vulnerabilities have been associated with malicious code attacks such as the Pidief.E Trojan.]


Adobe is trying it's hardest to run a dis-information campaign to retain the flow from it's cash cow Flash, in the form of the $1300.00 / copy admission price to cover the cost of the tools required to author Flash content and nothing more.

As a BTW, just to head off a particular brand of stupid comments. I'm not an Apple Fan boy, nor do I own any of their products. I'm a web developer of 13 years and have been working with computers since before Microsoft or Apple even existed.