The great no adobe flash experiment. Do you still have Flash?

[FAST6191]

Owing to a winning combination of lazy, Adobe abandoning Linux and an affinity for complex misuse of technology that makes this guy look like a rank amateur I broke my flash install on my main computer in a "format or spend 4 hours fixing it" way.
Much like Java a few years before I sat back and looked at what I did and thought I would give not having flash a go. Without it a quick scan of the video sites says most work, or I otherwise have download options for them, and I tend not to go in for flash games and no website I care for really really wants it (mobile devices, html5/css, some common sense and the return of the gif seem to be to blame for that one, cheers for that one lads). I will possibly miss things like http://htwins.net/scale2/ but I can live with that.

Others I spoke to earlier have chimed in and said they have been without for a while now. What are the opinions of those reading this though? Can you get rid of it entirely, are you going to have a virtual machine with it on, will you disable it in your main browser and have a secondary one for flash running purposes (Chrome does a decent line in having its own embedded version) or are people that consider rolling without flash missing a screw or two?

 

[Originality]

I have flash, but there are only a couple websites I frequent that still use it, and they're in the process of switching to HTML5 or webm. HTML5 for compatibility with mobile devices, and webm because... Saves space? I don't know.

It won't be long until flash disappears entirely and I won't really miss it. Well, aside from certain flash games from my childhood that I shall forever keep fond memories of.

 

[FAST6191]

Well, aside from certain flash games from my childhood that I shall forever keep fond memories of.

Is there a way to still play stickdeath?

 

[Flame]

i only use flash in chrome thanks to ppapi flash plugin.


but i so wish adobe flash was dead or open source.


the thing I dont understand is why in earth adobe doesnt open source it.


it will not only be improved, but it will last longer in the long term where adobe can still software which you can make flash files video etc.

 

[DjoeN]

Flash? whats Flash? the TV show?


Anyway, no i don't, i de-installed it a few months ago and so far it works out

 

[FAST6191]

the thing I dont understand is why in earth adobe doesnt open source it.

I imagine the two big reasons are those places where software patents exist (so mainly the US and Japan) mean that technically they have to pay for each flash install (they got it down to fractions of a penny but that is not zero), and that it is kind of hard to do DRM in open source so all those paid content providers (even if several have since moved to silverlight) will not want to pay the real money for web encoders. Part of the software patent thing might have seen them license tech/code as well -- we see similar things from time to time when people use the RAD/bink video thing in games and then struggle years later to open source it.

 

[DarkFlare69]

Whats the point of uninstalling if it doesn't take up much HDD space and takes up none unless you're on a website using flash?

 

[FAST6191]

It is vulnerable to attack -- look through the years of contests like pwn2own and such like and most times flash plays a role, flash updates do not come so often and they have basically abandoned Linux, though I have any number of ad blocking techniques in effect and I blacklisted flash by default it is still a means by which the lesser ads might creep in one day, it is a horrible way of designing websites (though with lack of mobile flash that sort of thing is thankfully mostly a legacy thing), there are other video standards out now (mainly HTML5).

It is not a completely clear cut thing, hence this thread and the experiment part of the title, but it is not without positives either.

 

[FireEmblemGuy]

Honestly I'm just entirely apathetic. There're still a handful of games I like to play on occasion that I guess necessitate keeping flash around, but otherwise I wouldn't miss it in the least. The odds of it being an attack vector due to anything I do are pretty much nil. If I cared I could keep a version of Chrome with flash enabled in a sandbox or something, along with the half-dozen or so SWFs that'd use it, then just uninstall Flash player from my PC altogether and disable it in my main Chrome install (although with all the plugins they keep trying to block and phase out I have no idea if modern Chrome versions even include Flash).

This did remind me that I ought to free up a good 10GB of hdd space and get a new Arch setup going now that the school's migrated away from WiMAX for free off-campus internet and over to LTE, which as far as I can tell actually has Linux tools built this decade that'll work with my hardware.

 

[Meteor7]

I have flash deliberately deactivated 99% of the time in an effort to subvert all those obnoxious video ads.
It's no perfect solution, but it makes a significant difference and I almost never miss it.

 

[RandomUser]

On Firefox, you can set it to "ask to activate" for flash player. This way flash player is off when not needed and is on when needed. The old saying: "It's better to have it and not need it, then it is to need it and not have it."

 

[FAST6191]

On "It's better to have it and not need it, then it is to need it and not have it." that person clearly never had to haul their own gear around.

 

[Pleng]

On "It's better to have it and not need it, then it is to need it and not have it." that person clearly never had to haul their own gear around.

how heavy is flash?

 

[FAST6191]

I am not sure how to measure the increased render times, and also add those of the things I have to make flash something I am willing to have, but it will be north of 0 and probably well into human measurable/noticeable increases.

 

[Arras]

how heavy is flash?

In terms of security risk alone, more than it's worth.

That said, I still use flash. Twitch doesn't support HTML5 streaming, and livestreamer is too much of a hassle. Also, replaying Tower of Heaven every once in a while is nice.

 

[gudenau]

I have flash on my tablet and my pcs. You should be able to go without though.

 

[Pacheko17]

I still have it, but it's disabled 99% of the time, and I only enable it on Twitch and NicoNico

 

[FAST6191]

Now the better part of 6 months on. Not missed having flash once that I can recall, I certainly have not had to dive onto another computer or fire up a VM or anything like that.

 

[migles]

i only use flash in chrome thanks to ppapi flash plugin.


but i so wish adobe flash was dead or open source.


the thing I dont understand is why in earth adobe doesnt open source it.


it will not only be improved, but it will last longer in the long term where adobe can still software which you can make flash files video etc.

i can think of a reason why its not open source...
it has so many flaws that make adobe so embarassed, they know the moment they posted the source we could measure how flawed and bad it is it would create an havoc...
they just don't want us to know how large their ass hole is, because we could see how much infected it is.

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flash updates do not come so often and they have basically abandoned Linux

what? maybe on linux, but my browser every fucking week blocks flash because i have an outdated version..
i would consent with silent automatically updates, because right now it warns me every week to update it... even if i choose to automatically download updates, it still ask me and bothers me to install them.

 

[Joom]

Firefox users (and forks of) should install Shumway. It's an HTML5 Flash renderer written by Mozilla that works fairly well.