Chrome brings Flash Player into the fold, trains it to kill iPads?
By Sean Hollister 
posted March 30th 2010 8:19PM
posted March 30th 2010 8:19PM
If Apple had its way, we expect that the iPad would go down in history as the device that nearly single-handedly destroyed Adobe's empire of Flash. While HTML5 has been in development for years, content providers like the Wall Street Journal, NPR, CBS and more have only begun transitioning video services to the new standard (and subsequently, away from Flash) now that it's time for Cupertino's big release. But this week, Adobe has found an ally in Google, which has just announced that the Chrome browser -- and more importantly, Chrome OS -- will not merely support but natively integrate the technology. In the short run, what this means is that the Chrome browser won't require you to download Adobe Flash Player or spend time updating it before back-to-back YouTube viewings and marathon Newgrounds sessions. In the long run, Google explains that it intends Flash to become an integral, seamless part of web design up there with HTML and Javascript -- and if we extrapolate, an integral part of its new Chrome OS as well. Pardon us for thinking out loud, but it sounds like Google's found an exclusive feature to highly tout, when it inevitably brings a Chrome OS tablet to market. [Thanks, Adam]
Boooo!!!!!
This does not sound like Google to me. I thought that they believed in using open technology and Flash most certainly is not that. The sooner that Flash dies the sooner we can just use the open technologies and wrestle some degree of control of content on the World Wide Web back from Adobe.
@Kelmon
I fully agree with you there! But I read an article a couple of days ago (that will put a spanner in the works of ending the Flash reign), highlighting the time it's going to take until HTML5 is officially recognised as a "standard". Apparently things such as the "" tag are being hindered by the codecs used in decoding the embedded media. It mentioned as an example Youtube using the H.264 video codec in the HTML5 version of it's site, and although this particular codec is not proprietary, it is still protected by patents. They mention the same problem even with the Ogg Theora audio codecs! So even these "open" standards, with their paperwork are hindering the effort to open up the web. Shame.
Here's that article anyways: http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9174323/Opinion_HTML_5_Less_than_it_s_cracked_up_to_be
Youtube HTML5: http://www.youtube.com/html5
*edit*
that should say video tag...
@sturd
Ah, yes, but guess which codec is already being used to encode the video that Flash is currently playing? A lot of the time it is going to be h.264 already and this is where things go downhill for Ogg. The basic idea is that h.264 will become the standard for those browsers that choose to support the video tag and play h.264 content (e.g. Safari and IE9). For those browsers that choose to support Ogg Theodera (e.g. Firefox) then the content provider will simply wrap the h.264 video in Flash. The chances of real world support for Ogg is somewhat close to zero since doing so will require content providers to encode video twice.
Yes, there is a patent issue but it seems to be a factor that has already been accepted and, as far as I am concerned, seems like a moot point.
@ddddd
"Flash with Android will kill the Apple soon with new amazing Android phones and tablets"
One realises that I should not feed the troll, but given the sales of the iPhone, do you really think that people are that bothered about Flash? Flash is not a "killer app". As I noted already in another article, something like Google Navigation is much more important to customers. Crickey, ask most of the general public buying these devices how important Flash is to them, I expect most to answer "what's Flash?".
not had a problem with Flash crashing my system for about 5 years
then again i'm on windows or linux systems most the time....seems like apple needs to get its shit together rather than adobe
@dsignet
Frankly, there is little incentive now for Apple to try to take Flash any further on its platform. They've made their position and, thankfully, it seems like this is enough to prompt content providers to switch away from Flash.
The only way that I see Apple going any further with Flash is if Adobe open sources the whole thing so that Apple can tweak the code to run better on OS X.
@Kelmon : Apple don't need to "try to take flash any further" , they just need to let Adobe do what they need in order to make it work properly - just like they're able to do on every other platform.
The mindset here is amazing. its like taking a car to a mechanic and not letting him have the keys - then blaming him when he cant fix it properly and saying "WHAT? you want MORE access to my car? you couldn't even fix it when I only let you look at it - you suck, no way"
You're right that there's no need for them to do so, because apple users seem to have said "yes, steve is correct, we dont want flash support" for some reason - meanwhile the rest of us are happily using it while trying not to make eye contact with you lot in case you decide to do something ELSE mental.
@Kelmon - sorry, one more thing on the "content provides switching from flash" angle
IIRC the iPad development/flash timeline went something like
- apple announce iPad - promo vids and photos show it running flash content (by "mistake")
- apple announce content provider contracts from newspapers etc
- apple confirm "no flash on ipad"
- steve jobs "asks" previously announced content providers (who are now already under contract to provide content) not to use flash any more
no other organisations (that i'm aware of) than those who's hands were forced have stopped using it or announced any plans to do so
@dsignet It crashes the browser, not the system.
And if you want proof that flash crashes on Windows, go read the change logs that come with every flash update. Lines like "fixes crash caused by..." etc should give you some insight to what people have dealt with.
@clickmyface i'm not saying "it's never crashed anything ever" , of course there MUST be the odd few cases where it HAS caused a crash. As you say it's only the browser or even just the player itself that crashes - not the whole system - which is why the whole "we're not willing to risk our platform" argument doesn't really work for me.
Any programming language can cause these problems if they're not tested properly before being deployed.
a lot of the 'crash' fixes that i can find in the update release notes actually say "this has been reported to *browser vendor* as a browser bug and is fixed in browser version x.x.x", and some of the others are SO obscure (having 2 tabs open in ie7 on xp and performing a certain action) they are hardly evidence of a bug-ridden platform
i can only speak from my own experiences of course, but i've not had a single crash from Flash content for a LONG time (years)....javascript on the other hand is a total pain in the ass :)
my point was simply that - for a platform with such high usage - the failure rate is remarkably low except (apparently -and again contradictory to my own experiences) on apple systems where the adobe developers aren't allowed to code in the way they need in order to make it as stable as other platforms.
It just seems like nobody REALLY had a problem with it - frustrations maybe but not demanding it's immediate death - until steve decided to wage war on it - and then it seems like people trying to justify to themselves their decision to invest so heavily in a platform that backs such silly decisions.
I've got nothing against one plucky drop of water trying to influence the whole ocean - i just wish it didn't exude such an air of smugness while it did it and i feel sorry for the few other drops that go with the flow before they get lost in the current:)
@Kelmon Don't back yourself into a corner, you are obviously going to end up denying your own right of choice to pick a platform that suits you.
PMSL
The arrogance of apple users never fails to amaze me
Adobe should open-source one of their biggest products so that a minority can stop bitching about it lol
sure, that makes sense
and apple should open source itunes so people can make it stop sucking balls on other platforms too but that isnt going to happen is it
content providers arent doing ANYTHING about apples suggestions except for those who already had contracts with them for the iPad. I haven't had one single client asking me to remove flash content from any of our sites.
@dsignet so one "apple user" says something you disagree with (maybe something stupid) and now all "apple users" are arrogant? WTF?
@vqro , no, not all apple users, i have nothing against ALL apple users, some of my best friends are apple users ;) - i generalised and apologise.
however you only need to read the first few pages of comments here to see what i mean. Kelmon just summed up what the rest of them were saying in a particularly arrogant way.
my personal experience (from working in an office dominated by apple systems) is that MOST of them are perfectly happy with the way things are right now....guess its just ( the majority of ) engadget-posting apple users then.
@dsignet No. Adobe should open source one of their biggest products so that the web isn’t in the control of one company.
Can we really call it the open web when we’re so dependent on a single proprietary plug-in from one company?
@TheSeanWilson are you seriously suggesting that the web is under Adobe's control? That Flash is THAT prominent ?
The Flex SDK , which is used to make many flash movies, IS open source (IIRC) and can be used with open tools like Eclipse and FlashDevelop.
Its only the player and the Flash IDE which arent.
Really don't see the problem there at all.
Gotta love google, the only company in the industry interested in working together towards a better future, rather than finding ways to eliminate the competition and force people into their narrow band of products at the expense of true innovation. I say bring on the open source Google Pad!!!
@PiR You don't understand Google at all then. Why do they make Chrome at the expense of IE and FireFox on Windows for example? Google is in competition with Apple, Microsoft, and plenty of other companies and would like nothing more than to take business from any of them- that's why they're in business.
@darksharpie - i aggree with what you're saying, but he has a point.
Chrome has (in the UK anyway) got approximately twice the browser market share of safari already, and that's because they've listened to what people actually WANT from a browser and delivering it - totally the opposite of the apple way of doing things (saying this is what you're gonna get and we'll try to contractually force content providers to fall in line with that)
If flash is something like steve jobs said then why youtube works fine on my iphone?
@e1361t - because "theres an app for that"
Great move, let's get gpu acceleration too with chrome OS please?
Screw apple, Android devices from this year onwards will pretty much _all_ have integrated flash. Must suck to be stuck with iPad.
@cocopuffz I have XP and Win7 on two different machines and Flash hasn't caused a single crash. Kunta Kinte is an Apple fanboy (and an obvious liar at this point).
Flash is extremely fast and stable on my machines.
Flash sucks balls on Macs, and it's largely Apple's fault because they limit Adobe's access to the hardware layer.
People who complain about flash use Macs. It's that simple. Flash sucks on macs because of Apple.
Nobody else complains about flash because it's a non-issue, and flash on PC's with 10.1 use LESS CPU overhead than HTML5 in many use-cases.
Okay now.This is all well and good, or well and bad depending on how you see it.
But who really gives a crap about Chrome OS?
We have stood behind Flash as the most viable web technology for nearly 7 years. The partnership between Adobe and Google will make Flash Player the best option for deployment on the web.
http://blog.nothinggrinder.com/flash-is-the-holy-grail
If you would like information about the ongoing debates betwen Apple, Adobe, and the HTML5 will Kill Flash rumors, please read this in depth article:
http://blog.nothinggrinder.com/id-rather-be-a-woz
As for the HTML5 video tag and the revolution of Flash Video on the internet, this post goes into greater depth:
http://blog.nothinggrinder.com/future-of-web-video
@Jean Marc
On windows, there's no problem as Flash is optimised and HW accelerated in some places. On OSX and Linux, It's different story. No HW acceleration, and the CPU usage spikes, when Flash loads up.
An ace in the hole? Or just a hole?
♫ My plug in baby, crucifies my enemies… ♫
I don't like the idea of a closed platform that requires compiling (and thus has inherently hidden source) becoming a web standard... The opportunity for browsers to implement a native (and hopefully more efficient) Flash engine would be great, on the other hand.
I've had problems with Flash Player on Windows 7. It has crashed my graphics driver. Widgets in webpages have at times rendered poorly (especially during page scrolling) and have required the page to be reloaded. Watching videos in Flash-based players has been annoying with improper buffering or seeking.
However, I have similar problems (minus crashes) with HTML5, Windows Media, and QuickTime. None of these problems with Flash or otherwise have been very frequent. Troubleshooting Flash and QuickTime are the most annoying (uninstalling & reinstalling).
I'm hopeful that Chrome's integration of Flash will mitigate a lot of the problems Flash currently has, but I just don't think there's a great video player for webpages yet. Well, maybe Silverlight, but I don't encounter it often.
Why Apple iPad did not integrate flash into their browser is beyond me!
It is suppose to be the IDEAL device to browse the web and half the websites do not come up properly...
to me the is simple stupidity
Steve
http://www.awebd.com.au
There will be no ChromeOS tablet until Google confirms it will support all the apps in the Android marketplace. Such a platform won't appeal to anyone. May as well by a Crunch/Joojoopad. If all we get is a glorified web browser, no one will bite. That's why so many companies are focusing on Android powered tablets, and with some awesome hardware to boot (think Tegra 2). Google needs to end the fragmentation now and work on a better implementation of Android for tablets, just as Apple tweaked the iPhoneOS for their iPad. Leverage what you've got!