Here is an example I can think of off the top of my head: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Z2Z23SAFVA http://uploads.ungrounded.net/558000/558516_dotdotdot.swf?12...
I remember learning a lot of Flash and ActionScript using decompliers; you could see the code, assets, all sorts of fun stuff almost like view source in the web browser. Can't do that in video, thankfully we can in HTML5 but inspection of code isn't straight forward for more intense games yet.
EDIT: Looks like they've been uploaded to Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/user/homestarrunnerdotcom
All their content was produced in Flash as at the time, it really was the only suitable delivery mechanism.
Flash is fast. JavaScript/HTML5/WebGL/etc are just recently getting close to the performance we had in Flash 10+ years ago. Flash is perceived to be slow because it was used to make obtrusive advertising, like JavaScript is used now.
The evil dictator has been replaced, with much fanfare, by a new evil dictator!
An example from 2010 of Flash running in-browser 3D with millions of polygons and lighting effects: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=szaXvTsoeVs
The fact that Flash would store user information separately from the browser in such a way as to circumvent security and privacy models, and did so for years after Macromedia (i.e. pre-Adobe-merger) knew about it, and that Flash had and has as many vulnerabilities as any two operating systems is simply icing on the cake.
Here's a discussion -- also from 2010 -- of Flash's abysmal 2d performance (which entailed fixing an example created explicitly to show how awesome Flash was):
http://loewald.com/blog/?p=3362
Bear in mind, this is Flash's nearly 20-year-old/mature rendering engine optimized to only do minimal screen updates against a five minute hack using a canvas.
And, finally, you need Javascript anyway. Flash actually needs Javascript to even load properly (thanks to the stupid Eolas lawsuit), so it's a case of giving up one evil dictator while keeping a not-nearly-so-evil-and-much-more-useful dictator.
That, plus flashes uncanny ability to peg a process at 100% for seemingly just moving images about made me not a huge fan. This doesn't mean javascript isn't getting as bad or worse now that things are moving to there, but at least the javascript engines aren't as horrible as the flash runtime was. But if these javascript ads start burning cpu and draining energy from my laptop battery there will be a whole lot more sites getting added to my local firewall rules.
Flash's speed on windows wasn't the main strike against it. As a Mac user it was always quite slow, even worse in the PPC days.
Haha! The dictator reference is specifically in regards to intrusive CPU/battery-wasting Javascript ads. Which, I expect to see many more of if I ever disable adblock.
Edit: I just checked out your article and the referenced one. Chris Black responded to your issue with his code in the follow up article:
> 98% of the code optimizations from the last demo completely missed the point of purposefully redrawing the whole screen to compare performance. They were still good submissions, just not for the context of this comparison.
1. Tons of existing flash content people want to access
2. Give current flash devs a reasonable alternative
The first one is a thorny problem and is somewhat solved by things like Shumway but still needs more work.
As for the second, things like Unity and HTML5 have not covered all of flash dev's use cases, so only some of them have switched over.
I think OpenFL (a Haxe-based reimplementation of the Flash API -- not the flash PLAYER) is our best hope for that:
Devs can keep their current flash workflows but export to non-flash targets, specifically native C++ (supports mac/win/linux, iOS/Android) and HTML5 (with canvas, DOM, or WebGL rendering). They can also use SWF-based vector animation assets, and even integrate with the Flash CC player. And it's all open source.
Flash has been "dying" for years, but if we really want it to bite the dust, we need to give people a better way to make their content that doesn't depend on a plugin.
EDIT: Video of OpenFL integrating with the Flash CC editor: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BhE07Y9TUJU
I prefer to keep flash because it is easily blocked.
I find most flash to obnoxious/intrusive/distracting. I disable flash be default, and only enable the items I'm interested in. Also page loads are reduced, one less attack vector.
I'm not sure about that. For most of the time, there was not even a flash player for my operating system of choice and I did not miss much. Now I still have to click to enable flash content and that only happens about once a week.
> 2. Give current flash devs a reasonable alternative
HTML5 + JS are actually pretty powerful if one ignores the cruft that has been built up over the years (i.e.: stick to standards only, ignore the 90% outdated advice given in places like stackoverflow).
Earlier this year I was redoing a flash-only site for friends in HTML5 and JS: I am not a frontend guy at all, I did develop on firefox only, I stuck to html/js/css standards without any 3rd party library and when, after about 30h of development time, we tested across platforms it just worked.
> Flash has been "dying" for years, but if we really want it to bite the dust, we need to give people a better way to make their content that doesn't depend on a plugin.
Do we? Maybe people should reconsider whether their content really requires flash. The technology is there, flash devs will just have to move on and learn something new.
Plus some existing flash content people need to access, such as Flex apps developed for internal use by businesses that have no intention of shelling out the cash to replace them.
Developers need to follow the market. The market doesn't follow us. Otherwise, you're stuck working on legacy projects.
The market is the people who hire those devs (ie, bank websites, video streaming sites, etc, etc, etc) and they are currently saying: "we still need flash for some things, so we're not ready to kill flash just yet."
Give THEM a reasonable alternative, and flash will go away.
TiVo is already using Haxe/OpenFL in their set top boxes and I'm sure they've worked out some video streaming solution:
They do this because flash ads are now no longer seen by a large enough group of users which makes them bad advertising vehicles.
Maybe at some point the Prime Music people will decide that a large enough group of users are no longer able to use their service, but that is a totally different decision with different motivations.
the video reviews are flash still too.
A few of the games have heavy use of graphics and animation also, that I don't really want to have to recreate manually. I've worked on games made with Unity and Cocos2d(ios) since then, but I'm really hoping there's some shortcut I'm not aware of.
There's a ton of JS frameworks out there and it's hard to evaluate which would be worth the time and effort.
Plus I really don't want to have to do this again in the future, so hopefully this can be something I do once and I'm good for the forseeable future (which is why I'm leaning towards HTML5 + JS). Some cross-platform capabilities would be nice too.
Example of the heavy art/animation: http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/187047
If anyone has any suggestions, I'd appreciate it.
http://www.openfl.org/learn/tutorials/using-swf-assets/
http://community.openfl.org/t/using-swf-assets-tutorial-feed...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BhE07Y9TUJU
That's as close as you get to keeping your existing workflow and maintaining your assets. It's really close IMHO and works well. Also there's some scripts that can translate As3->Haxe and take care of 95% of the work of porting the code, and then OpenFL has the same API as flash does so your API calls are all the same.
Alternatively FLUMP can be used if you just want to export assets and use a totally different framework: http://threerings.github.io/flump/
... Yay?
Is there other way to do the same when flash will be extinct?
Why would one want to disable JavaScript in the first place? Privacy & security: why enable a site to execute random code on one's own machine when all one wants to do is read some content?
At least with javascript, there's only one attack vector (the browser itself). Flash requires a plugin to work properly.
It sure has! But it's nice to expose oneself to vulnerabilities only when absolutely necessary (e.g. to view a single video), rather than for every page currently loaded for a site.
There are many reasons. Another is this: on most webpages (i.e. places you go to read text and maybe images and some videos; as opposed to web applications), JavaScript is an unnecessary waste of processing power, that only makes it harder for you to read in peace. It doesn't add value for user, so there's no reason to have it running in your browser.
I wanna say this is untrue, I vaguely recalling an exploit within the past month or so.
So much viral hate. Plugins have a right to exist. You gonna declare war on all plugins or just Flash? HTML doesn't necessarily run its full suite of tricks on all browsers and platforms. And my iPad3 often slows to a crawl because of bloated well-known websites. Browser memory maxes out and I can't even switch tabs without full page reloading. Inefficiency follows poor technical design no matter what technology is used.
Is javascript next because of those trendy promo pops where they think you're leaving? Kill everything that sux, or whatever technology it comes from. Kill it all and dance on its grave like there's no tomorrow.
Tomorrow we'll retreat to our native apps with virtual coins and account validation. We'll share our contact lists without knowing that we did, and we won't be blocking ads because we can't.
Tried the Youtube HTML player once. That was one hell of a rough and buggy experience. Switched back to Flash.
Clicked a link to youtube in iOS Safari more than once, and got auto-switched to the youtube app rather than the video play in Safari. I don't know what or who to hate about that, I'm just tired.
It's been more than a year since there's been a month without multiple CVE severity 10 bugs.
Google Chrome is at the top with most vulnerabilities, IE a bit below it, Avant browser, Firefox. Same with the 2015 edition.
Flash didn't even make it in the top 20. And yes, they also evaluated it.
