Apple launched its iPad without Flash support. I started to realize maybe it is time for us to let go of Flash. Knowing that there are some inevitable sacrifices, with current and/or future HTML5 and canvas support, what else are there holding us back relying on non-standard proprietaries?

The only thing holding back HTML5 as a replacement, at least for multimedia support, is that they never demanded in the standard the use of open codecs like vorbis and theora, meaning that each browser can choose what they want to support. The biggest worry here is that the patent-encumbered h264 video codec is already in heavy use, and if that becomes the de-facto standard, then it's going to leave FOSS browsers out in the cold.

As for flash itself, I've always thought that it's a decent medium for interactive content, like games, but the recent trend of embedded flash media players is making it particularly annoying. Just this afternoon I was trying to watch some video on a site that uses one of these players, and all it did was alternate between choppy half-playing and locking my browser up completely, while all the time spiking my cpu to the maximum. I never had problems like this when audio/video was offered through simple links to the file itself. I could either play it with a multimedia plugin like mplayer, stream it to an external player, or simply download it. Now I can't touch the actual content at all.

flash is s**t, so yeah it would be better if it disappeared, but it won't. Adobe is huge and powerful and evil, it will live on.

I HATE FLASH!!!

The only reason I have it is for YouTube, but YouTube has an HTML5 beta and Chromium is beginning to support HTML5, so soon there may finally be no reason to have it, so long as you watch YouTube just in Chromium.

Also there are so many annoying, stupid animations and tricky, useless interactive stuff (especially on company websites) that I just can't stand. It's as if they are just thinking of every possible way to make their site bloated. All thanks to Flash. I hope that even when HTML5 will be able to do those things, they won't.

And what happened to <video> tags?

Flash is almost the only thing standing between the Internet and Open Source!

Unless silverlight replaces it.

I really hope that browser devs get to work on HTML5, FAST!

But then again, IE probably will lag behind the great new web standards a few years, as always, forcing web developers to use things like Flash and Silverlight because they have no choice.

Yeah, wouldn't that be even better.

I still hope that if not HTML5, web developers will choose Flash over Silverlight. There's no way that Microsoft will make Silverlight for Linux, and it will also basically let MS control a large part of the Internet!

Definitely should. There's nothing wrong in Flash as such, just like there's nothing wrong in Java applets for example, but I just don't think they should be used that widely for web content..not everybody has the most recent Flash version just like not everybody has Java turned on in their browsers. I dislike more or less everything that cannot be made "by the book", by using HTML and CSS. Sure there are differences in the results between browsers, but that's how it should be done: describe content and how it is supposed to look like. Images I can live with, JavaScript in some cases, even Java applets if it is really really needed, but Flash I would bury six feet under if only it was possible. Anything that is supposed to be dynamic should be done on server end, so that the end-user didn't need to have ugly closed plugins that never work everywhere.

I don't think video content is an excuse, because those videos can be downloaded (as Flash files anyway) and therefore the only "con" in Flash is that you get nice buttons and it *might* play in your browser. They could just as well cripple down the video quality (if that's wanted) and serve the file in some regular format, allowing the user to either download and watch it using her/his favourite app, or have the browser (if it is capable and user is willing to) play it right there.

HTML 5 or whatever "new" standards are coming isn't much of help, looking at how CSS alone is supported today in the major browsers and what versions people use. Not only the "modern" browsers still misbehave (or not behave at all) with certain CSS stuff, but a (relatively big) part of users are always using (and that's how it will stay it seems) quite outdated versions of browsers, which just adds to the pain. I'm hoping to see CSS 3 working sometime in the 50's, but by then they might have ditched the whole concept of HTML/CSS and moved on to Flash

On the other hand, Flash is tolerable in the sense that it doesn't (as of now) cost a cent to use, it is supported on the biggest few operating systems and works in the biggest few browsers. Should it go away, we would surely have something to fill its place, perhaps worse..

Christ, yes. Please can we get rid of flash. It's a cpu hog, and doesn't do anything useful.

The death of flash isn't going to be because Apple doesn't include it on their iPad. Flash is going to outlive the iPad and flash going away will be because flash sucks not anything to do with an itouch that is too big to put in your pocket.

Wait until *BSD gets good flash support, -then- get rid of it! It would be so funny.

Yes

We should get rid of it...

I voted for yes...

Although I admit, net being able to see Youtube will be bad

BRGDS

Alex

I would LOVE it if YouTube would start using <video></video> tags! Flash uses like 90% CPU for me. I'm sure even if I had a dual-core machine, though (right now I've got a measly P4), it would still make the CPU usage skyrocket! It's as if Flash goes out of its way to slow your machine down.

EDIT:

WHERE?? I'd love to see this!

(Although I dunno if it's gonna work, seeing as how FF has only partial support for <video></video> )

Well, supposedly it's here:
http://neosmart.net/YouTube5/

But it has never worked for me.