You know Flash is dead when Homestar Runner says it's dead! <a href="http://www.homestarrunner.com/flashisdead.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.homestarrunner.com/flashisdead.html</a> For those who don't know, this site was a legit phenomenon in the early 2000's, and it has always been 100% flash-based. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homestar_Runner" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homestar_Runner</a>
Amazon is switching to JavaScript animated ads to support all devices. This isn't anything against Flash, this is a business decision to reach more eyeballs.<p>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.<p>The evil dictator has been replaced, with much fanfare, by a new evil dictator!<p>An example from 2010 of Flash running in-browser 3D with millions of polygons and lighting effects: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=szaXvTsoeVs" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=szaXvTsoeVs</a>
If we want to speed up the demise of flash, there are several roots that need to be whacked simultaneously:<p>1. Tons of existing flash content people want to access<p>2. Give current flash devs a reasonable alternative<p>The first one is a thorny problem and is somewhat solved by things like Shumway but still needs more work.<p>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.<p>I think OpenFL (a Haxe-based reimplementation of the Flash API -- <i>not the flash PLAYER</i>) is our best hope for that:<p><a href="http://www.openfl.org" rel="nofollow">http://www.openfl.org</a><p><a href="http://www.haxe.org" rel="nofollow">http://www.haxe.org</a><p>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.<p>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.<p>EDIT: Video of OpenFL integrating with the Flash CC editor:
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BhE07Y9TUJU" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BhE07Y9TUJU</a>
I've been wanting to update my existing Flash games (I've released 7 games) to something more modern, like HTML5+JS or (maybe) Unity, but I don't want to spend a ton of time learning a new stack and getting things working, as I really don't have the free time I used to.<p>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.<p>There's a ton of JS frameworks out there and it's hard to evaluate which would be worth the time and effort.<p>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.<p>Example of the heavy art/animation: <a href="http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/187047" rel="nofollow">http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/187047</a><p>If anyone has any suggestions, I'd appreciate it.
Great! Now I'll no longer see these "Click to Play" placeholders instead of the intrusive animated ads. I'll finally be able to experience the intrusive animated ads the way they were meant to be seen.<p>... Yay?
I'm actually torn on this, because the fact is that Flash can do things that you realistically can't do any other way. In my case, I've written a couple of video conferencing apps that need web-web and web-Android connectivity, and Flash/AIR is still definitely the easiest way to do that sort of thing. WebRTC has promise, but it requires a reasonably recent browser (and not Safari), and until very recently it didn't work in WebViews on the Android side.
I tried to uninstall Flash, but my bank (Citi) uses it for their one-time credit card # applet. And, I miss a lot of videos on the internets, but I can live without those. The bank thing, I cannot. (Yeah, I complained and was told moving away is "in the works.")
The only thing I will miss on flash is the Copy to clippboard feature (e.g <a href="http://zeroclipboard.org/" rel="nofollow">http://zeroclipboard.org/</a>).<p>Is there other way to do the same when flash will be extinct?
I'm actually a bit conflicted about this. The nice thing about Flash-based media is that one can disable JavaScript (thus increasing one's privacy) and then enable Flash <i>only</i> to view a particular video (e.g. on Amazon Play); with JavaScript and HTML5, one generally has to enable JavaScript for the entire domain rather than a single video on a single page.<p>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?
I'm a flash dev in my 30s, never made as much money as I am making now. Flash is not dead, it's changing, it moved to embedded devices and has blazing performance results. As usual, a decade ahead of where the web is at. <a href="http://labs.adobe.com/downloads/air.html" rel="nofollow">http://labs.adobe.com/downloads/air.html</a> Haters gotta hate! (-__-)
I have Flash enabled all the time. No probs here. Smooth and efficient. I have no agenda or need to kill it.<p>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.<p>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.<p>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.<p>Tried the Youtube HTML player once. That was one hell of a rough and buggy experience. Switched back to Flash.<p>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.