Adobe Announces Plans To Abandon Flash On Linux

[enrico.tagliavini]

I think you've got it the wrong way round. Adobe are dropping Linux. Google have stepped up and said they'll support it using Pepper which any one else is free to use

You know there was NPAPI (the netscape one) already? But i'm sure google have a good reason to do a new API instead of extending/fixing the netscape one. Surely something like "we don't like it, it's old, it's obsolete".

I'm with mozilla not supporting PPAPI for now, the only use for this API (instead of the netscape one) is the future version of adobe flash.

Bye bye adobe flash.

[allquixotic]

...Okay; so all we have to do is convince the Mozilla developers to support the Pepper API, and they SHOULD be able to get the Flash-plugin-for-Chrome code to work with Firefox -- right? Then someone can write a script that downloads Chrome and extracts Flash and sticks it in the Firefox plugins dir. Done.

Then, any other webkit browsers that also want to support Flash will have to tag along and support Pepper, and then in the long term, everything will continue to work with Flash as before. It's more like "Adobe Abandons NPAPI Support On Linux".

Pepper API may in fact be a superior solution anyway. NPAPI was designed a VERY long time ago (90s) and I don't think it meets the needs of modern browser architectures and plugins. In fact, supporting NPAPI with such advanced browsers as Chrome requires a LOT of ugly hacks because of the design of NPAPI.

I'm still pissed at Adobe for basically being in Microsoft's pocket book and for dropping Android and Chrome on Android, but I don't mind them shooting themselves in the foot. Hopefully the market share of Android and Linux will continue to grow, resulting in fewer and fewer people having Flash, and eventually website owners will get enough complaints that "your site doesn't work because I don't have and can't get Flash" that they will re-write with HTML5.

In the end, Adobe seems to be voluntarily killing their own platform, where it would appear that their actual goal is to try and kill Linux and Linux-derived operating systems. They swing their sword arm at their enemy and the sword comes back around and slices their nose off. What a bunch of dumbfucks they are.

[d2kx]

So:

Flash 11.2 will still come out for Linux and get security updates for five years. Flash 11.2 will support all flash content for the next years anyway.

Google will utilize PPAPI which has several benefits for Chrome's stability and continue work on Flash.

First of all, that's not exactly what I would call dead. Flash is dying anyway, but from this it looks like all the Flash content will be supported until it's completely gone. Since YouTube is now serving 95%+ of the videos without Flash I couldn't care less anyway.

[FireBurn]

You know there was NPAPI (the netscape one) already? But i'm sure google have a good reason to do a new API instead of extending/fixing the netscape one. Surely something like "we don't like it, it's old, it's obsolete".

I'm with mozilla not supporting PPAPI for now, the only use for this API (instead of the netscape one) is the future version of adobe flash.

Bye bye adobe flash.

The opensource Java pluggins use the new API too I beleive, there's quite a few blogs about why this new API is better. From memory I think it has a better security model from the start. If you've ever had your browser crash before starting due to dodgy plugins you'll know why this is a good thing

[ninez]

Hopefully, this is just a sign that flash is on it's way out.

Regardless, it sounds like flash 11.2 will be maintained for quite a while - so at least i can stick with flash in Firefox, for now. Hopefully, by the time it becomes a problem, either A) flash will be less popular or B) mozilla or alternate flash implementation will be in place.

[Kivada]

And nothing of value was lost

And nothing of value was lost... Seriously, I haven't had flash installed for 2 years now and never intend to use it again because of HTML5. Youtube vids in WebM are only getting more and more abundant and can be searched for easily with marinos35's search plugin http://mycroft.mozdev.org/search-eng...e=Youtube+WebM

[enrico.tagliavini]

The opensource Java pluggins use the new API too I beleive, there's quite a few blogs about why this new API is better. From memory I think it has a better security model from the start. If you've ever had your browser crash before starting due to dodgy plugins you'll know why this is a good thing

Ehm no. icedtea is an nsplugin.... otherwise how can it work in firefox? I don't know if they are working on a PPAPI version. Anyway why not fix/enhance NPAPI? Why don't develop something other browser vendor are interested in?

[Tiger_Coder]

Mozilla was not interest in PPAPI as its based on Google Native Client which was from Mozilla's point,

"These native apps are just little black boxes in a webpage. [...] We really believe in HTML, and this is where we want to focus."

Although a extension for old FF supporting Native client was exist. There might not be any big problem to bring PPAPI to FF by using extensions(or natively if Mozilla change mind). Opera could experience problems.

Although I must say, its time for the deathbed of flash.

[Tgui]

Adobe is slowly backing out its resources when it comes to flash. From removing support on mobile platforms to now backing out of Linux. On top of it they declared the end of Adobe Flex, which was a pleasant environment in which to make applications. Their reasoning for dropping Flex was that they were intending to translate all their web app tools to produce HTML 5 code. I would imagine this is to support Win 8? Correct me please, but wasn't Win 8 going for HTML 5 applications on the desktop?

That said, I've moved all development in my company off of Flex and ported things over to EXTJS/JQuery. JS isn't as nice as acionscript, but it works I guess.

Good riddance Adobe! The best thing you contributed to this world is a set of case studies on how not to manage software projects.

[mendieta]

HTML5 in youtube

It's really about time:

http://www.youtube.com/html5