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Comment by btipling | Hacker News Reader

They'd please me most if they abandoned flash. Flash is a closed black box sitting in a web page. I'm working on a Google Chrome extension that finds MP3s on web pages and I hate it when I find a site with cool music but they use flash. Also it eats my CPU.

I hope flash goes away. I have half the mind to uninstall it from my computer. Most flash content is just ads and sites that don't really need flash for whatever it is they're doing.

Adobe's Kuler is a great example of something that doesn't need flash. What does it do that can't be done with HTML and JavaScript? Why would someone choose flash for a project like that? Google analytics and other online chart software are another good example.

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Flash exists because there is a gap in technological advancement between "standards" / open source and commercial software. This gap will exist forever. Because of this, Flash will also live forever.

HTML5+JS can render many Flash examples, yes. A streamlined IDE and a JS engine within the browser that runs AS FAST as a compiled SWF is yet to be seen.

Flash will continue to add features to keep it above the bare-minimum "standards" that so many web developers are used to developing on. Let's face it. We all clap for HTML5+JS, but who's actually using it with their clients; who fear nothing more than a visitor not being able to view a product or service?

Let's get real about Flash and agree it isn't A Good Thing for advancement and innovation if an idea farm (which receives millions and millions of dollars in R&D) like Flash is abandoned. Come on guys. Really?

I don't agree. Flash does too much harm, and innovation wouldn't die if it went away tomorrow.

This is lateral thinking. You're in the "All or Nothing" camp. The binary reasoning. The very thing that makes innovation impossible.

In your world, YouTube, Vimeo and experimental web development wouldn't exist.

HTML5 video and audio is being implemented TODAY because Flash created that demand at it's current rate of absorbency.

So it should die? Flash is a breeding ground for ideas. What if Flash introduced a new approach to video conferencing / VOIP and allowed developers to play with the experience among multiple audiences?

We wait for the "standards" bodies to "aggressively" implement these advancements?

Or watch all browsers attempt to implement features inconsistently and cause more pain circa 1998?

Flash death = death of experimentation and innovation in RIA.

I think you make a lot of good points. The video and voip examples are pretty convincing.

Has anyone here ever successfully uninstalled flash? Flash once decided to use my bluetooth headset instead of my speakers for audio, and I couldn't get it to reset. Figuring it would be an easy fix, I uninstalled it. Then I visited youtube and was slightly surprised to see the the video play just fine. I found and deleted several dozen other files and registry keys but never did manage to get rid of flash entirely. Eventually I reinstalled windows, that did the trick...

Run the flash uninstaller on windows, it will remove everything. If you want to install an older version of flash make sure to restart first.

http://kb2.adobe.com/cps/141/tn_14157.html

I'll be stuck serving up video in flash for a long time. It's unfortunately still the best option for UA's other than webkit.

I totally agree that Kuler and Google Analytics don't and have never needed flash. In fact most web application needs don't need the HTML 5 or Flash like capabilities. AJAX and DOM tech turns out to be good enough technology to cover most web application use cases.

"AJAX and DOM tech turns out to be good enough"

But not as good

Often, even "good enough" but open is desirable.

http://kuler.adobe.com/#create/fromanimage that's something thats trivial to implement in Flash, but much harder with JavaScript I imagine.

Something like this, maybe? http://harthur.wordpress.com/2009/12/18/getting-the-color-sc...

I and others have written something like this with backend support using gd or imagemagick.

Indeed, Flash has outlived it's usefulness and created a lot of lazy web development. The faster we move away, the faster there will be something better.

And when all the annoying advertising has moved to this new thing, how will you then block it, the way you can easily block flash ads today?

Are you familiar with Adblock, which has been doing exactly this for at least 5 years, since the days of annoying GIF animations?

http://adblockplus.org/

Block the element.

The div element?

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