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26 Comments
- Thezez, on 10/12/2009, -5/+18Ew. Flash.
- inactive, on 10/12/2009, -5/+12Lets stop using flash you lazy *****.
- bringitontimx, on 10/12/2009, -1/+6Dugg for Flash GIS.
- Consequences, on 10/12/2009, -2/+6Commenting because I'll probably like to use this one day...
- guytoronto, on 10/12/2009, -6/+10I hate Flash.
- topcat5, on 10/12/2009, -0/+4Why doesn't google just come up with a replacement for flash.
- mark322, on 10/12/2009, -1/+4You can also try "Bookmarking". Please comment on this comment to remind yourself to try out that fancy new feature one day...
- TheShad0w, on 10/13/2009, -0/+3Please, for the love of something please stop using flash. Its become a horrible resource hog that most websites overuse and provides little to no benefit. I've seen plenty of great looking flash websites that were just horrible in navigation and functionality.
- TaintBrush, on 10/12/2009, -0/+3This is why I don't like women.
- iheartbakon, on 10/12/2009, -1/+3I fart on your grave.
- Consequences, on 10/12/2009, -1/+3Pretty new to Digg, thanks for the tip
- quakebooy, on 10/13/2009, -0/+2yeah... pick an indian from freelance site.. he'll do it for 10$..
- RutgerB, on 10/30/2009, -0/+1I think he's a pretty decent hero
- JohnnySoftware, on 11/09/2009, -0/+1That is because Flash is basically a separate, non-web application that runs inside of the browser as a plugin.
Flash is a proprietary video codec + proprietary programming language + proprietary library.
It and Adobe Acrobat Reader plugin are seriously destabilizing browsers and turning over control of PCs to anonymous hackers nobody seems to know the names of or in what country they reiside.
The redeeming quality of Adobe Acrobat Reader is you can simply run it as an application outside of your web browser. You can set up your browser so it does not automatically launch that application when someone puts a PDF file on a server. Lately, people have suggested going one step further and using an entirely different program to view PDF files due to all the computer hacking Acrobat allows:
http://news.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/04/22/2 ...
Flash is a lot more cloying.
When a dangerous flaw is found in a particular web browser what do people do when they find out about it? They switch to another web browser. If they site (or webapp) they are using is designed with non-proprietary code and has been properly tested, it just works. If it doesn't, well then it just doesn't work.
Today, the normal, accepted, expected practice is to do web sites and web apps this way.
Flash is kind of a throwback to the day when every computer brand had its own operating system and its own programming language. It's ActionScript is not exactly the highest level programming language, nor if Flash the safest plugin. Judging from the increasing frequency and urgency of Flash vulnerability/exploit bulletins it might be the least safe plugin too.
That does not mean not one should ever use it - not at all. However, it should not be a purvaisive gatekeeper through which users access unique services on the public web.
When the bulletin comes out that Flash viruses(s) have been seeded across the web, what are web browser users supposed to do? Not use the web anymore until Adobe notices/fixes/tests/deploys a new Flash version and IT department (or user) notices/fixes/tests/deploys the new Flash in browser?
Or disable the Flash plugin and, gee, since there is no well replacement they can "plugin" to their browser - there all all these sites they cannot access anymore.?
Because a Flash hazard is a Flash hazard in ALL browsers. Exactly the sort of calamity that the web standards and well designed web apps/sites are designed to make a non-issue.
Lots of video content on the web is encoded with the Flash codec. Why should an astute web user have to load all the code and security risks of ActionScript and all the other things in Flash, just to watch a video?
I sort of felt the same way the first time I read that some MPEG-4 implementation supported embedding Javascript in movies. And low and behold, that Javascript became a problem. I think this sort of validates that not only are their coding or design flaws in Flash but the very approaches themselves, even when adopted outside of Flash, are intuitively and in practice.... dangerous.
Users are given very little fine granularity of control over Flash in terms of configuration or permissions. What little there is comes from third parties or is in Flash but can be subverted when it is. For instance, if Flash has code to send streaming video+audio from your PC cam+mic to the another computer on the Internet, and there is a configuration panel in Flash that lets you say, "no, I don't want that ever" - your desires are immaterial when Flash gets hacked by a virus.
While at first you might go, well, any virus can do extra stuff - and that is true - the virus has to find some flawed component willing to let it get that leverage. Flash seems to contain both the tendency to get hacked and high risk services if it should get hacked.
The thing needs a trip back to the shop and some fundamental rethinking. In the space it is in, the way it is configured, with as little control/transparency & replaceability as it offers - it is not so good a fit for the web.
It looks like a lot of focus was given to making it irreplaceable as soon as it was adopted somewhere. At the same time, it looks like very little thought was given to - okay, what do you do when you have to replace it for a while and you need your web site/app to still be usable?
You can look at it another way. Given they way Flash is built and how frequently Flash becomes a sudden threat to users - maybe some web sites went overboard with using it and need to rein that in a little.
There are some serious things that Adobe can do to make Flash risks manageable. There are things that web designers can do on their sites - like provide HTML/CSS alternatives, like you are SUPPOSED to do when a plugin is missing. And sorry, "Flash is missing. 8-D" is not a smooth way of providing alternate functionality. - frozensnake, on 10/12/2009, -4/+5whats wrong with flash?
- Biojoe, on 10/12/2009, -2/+3I think it's safe to say that Google is taking over the world...
- carolinax, on 10/13/2009, -0/+1yeah, it's called scribblemaps.com, duh.
- quaxon, on 10/13/2009, -0/+1does this mean i can differentiate flash into google maps?
- PRlME, on 10/27/2009, -0/+1whats wrong with flash is that it renders correctly in almost every browser. thats some thing js and css cant do.
- myouza, on 11/11/2009, -0/+0yes, i agree with them... stop using Flash, i hate Flash so much
- WatsonCo, on 10/12/2009, -2/+2(Google Maps^2)/2 + C
- inactive, on 10/30/2009, -0/+0maps details were also here i noticed some days ago http://googlesellers.blogspot.com
- mparker21311, on 10/12/2009, -1/+1That was quite possibly the ***** looking web page I've ever seen.
- mparker21311, on 10/12/2009, -3/+1How about I pay someone else a cheap amount of money to do it for me?
- allisonV12, on 10/12/2009, -3/+0If you dont like women then you must li.....
Nevermind
To each his own I always say - allisonV12, on 10/12/2009, -7/+0Shuffles aimlessly into another thread,....looks around.
:I
This topic looks intelligent.
Shuffles back out the door
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