Adobe Resurrects Flash Player On Linux (neowin.net) 153
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Neowin: Four years ago, Adobe made a decision to stop updating the Flash Player package (NPAPI) on Linux, aside from delivering security patches. It has made an about turn on this decision in the last week and has said that it will keep it in sync with the modern release branch going forward. In its announcement, Adobe wrote: "In the past, we communicated that NPAPI Linux releases would stop in 2017. This is no longer the case and once we have performed sufficient testing and received community feedback, we will release both NPAPI and PPAPi Linux builds with their major version numbers in sync and on a regular basis." Although this is great news for Linux users who don't want to struggle to watch Flash content online, there also a few drawbacks. Adobe writes: "Because this change is primarily a security initiative, some features (like GPU 3D acceleration and premium video DRM) will not be fully implemented. If you require this functionality we recommend that you use the PPAPI version of Flash Player." You can download the new NPAPI binaries from the Adobe Labs download page.
Brains! (Score:5, Funny)
Must feed...
Who wants this? (Score:5, Insightful)
Adobe Flash is pretty much just an ongoing security vulnerability that lets people watch videos on obsolete web sites, occasionally used by companies that have such complete and utter contempt for the security of their customers that they use it as a shoddy shortcut in web development (looking at you, VMWare, ADP, and others).
Re:Who wants this? (Score:5, Informative)
>occasionally used by companies that have such complete and utter contempt for the security of their customers
Google is among them. Flash is required for Play Music.
It's one of those things that made my jaw drop when I noticed. You'd think Google would know better!
Re:Who wants this? (Score:5, Insightful)
knowing != caring.
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Google is so large and running so many "beta" projects they don't know what's going on outside of search, email, and youtube.
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So, overruled.
Re:Who wants this? (Score:5, Informative)
>occasionally used by companies that have such complete and utter contempt for the security of their customers
Google is among them. Flash is required for Play Music.
It's one of those things that made my jaw drop when I noticed. You'd think Google would know better!
Google doesn't have a choice. The music labels require the flash DRM to stream music. Google had an HTML5 option in the settings but its been greyed out for about a year because the labels had a hissy fit.
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The music labels require the flash DRM to stream music. Google had an HTML5 option in the settings but its been greyed out for about a year because the labels had a hissy fit.
Was this hissy fit prior to the availability of the Widevine CDM for HTML5 EME? (Google owns Widevine.)
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I though it was because they had moved everything to HTML5?
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There must be more to it than that, because HTML5 CDMs are now able to do that job without Flash (and have been for years). Flash is simply not required anymore for anything except legacy content that cannot be easily converted to modern technologies (and that's counting Adobe's own conversion tools, etc).
This is honestly sounding more like Google and Adobe wanting to make one last push to keep Flash relevant, because Flash is a useful way to upsell Chrome. After all, the NPAPI version of Flash is intention
Re: Who wants this? (Score:2)
Spotify as well in their web player.
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>occasionally used by companies that have such complete and utter contempt for the security of their customers
Google is among them. Flash is required for Play Music.
It's one of those things that made my jaw drop when I noticed. You'd think Google would know better!
Bull shit. That is one of the major reasons, I use Google Play Music, because it does NOT require flash. *Checks browser* Yup. Flash disabled.
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No it isn't. I use Play Music on my phone and tablet all of the time and neither of them have ever had Flash installed.
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Google Finance is also using Flash-based charts.
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Probably Adobe's marketing. They realized that while the Linux userbase is small comparatively, it's a bad idea to have any significant number of users to go long periods with no interactions with any of their products. (If you have a class of users that never touch your products, they're unlikely to do so in the future. Sort of like the struggles some American automakers have had getting people to even consider their cars after buying Japanese cars for so long.) Since the only brand-facing product they've
Re:Who wants this? (Score:4, Insightful)
Almost no one wants or cares about this. I've been Flash-free for several years now and it's very rare to run into any kind of issue. If you do run into a website that needs flash, treat it the same way you'd treat a website that requires you to turn off your ad blocker: Go somewhere else.
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What's the alternative to Dagobah, Albino Blacksheep, Newgrounds, and Weebl's Stuff? To which "somewhere else" do you refer?
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Your "but how will I watch my favorite turn-of-the-century Flash cartoons?" spiel is getting old. I don't see you complaining that you can't run NES software natively on current platforms, you emulate/virtualize or you keep the old hardware in service, that's how things are. Same for Flash cartoons, if you like them you'll always find a way to keep enjoying them, but the vast majority of the world out there doesn't care at all no matter how much you whine about it.
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I am aware of the possibility to run Flash Player in a VM. I was referring to somenickname's suggestion to "Go somewhere else" rather than doing so.
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I am aware of the possibility to run Flash Player in a VM. I was referring to somenickname's suggestion to "Go somewhere else" rather than doing so.
And, what I mean was, vote with your e-mails/visits. If a site that you really want to visit requires flash, send them an e-mail and tell them that you've taken your business to a competitor because Flash is too risky to use. Probably won't take too many e-mails before they start trying to get their shit together.
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Several cleanroom implementations of flash exist. None of them work - they don't even get detected.
And I've written to website maintainers asking them to support Shumway to be put on the TODO list.
And for 'legacy' content, consider the educational sector which has course materials that don't receive funding to migrate to newer tech.
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Games. Flash games.
While the performance of Flash is not on par with native compiled code, it still outperforms AJAX/HTML5 solutions by orders of magnitude.
Of course, one still needs to change the rendering quality to Medium from the default High, since the over-zealous anti-aliasing always makes the result slower than it should be.
But yes, there's no need to use it for video any more, and there is DEFINITELY no need for it in site navigation (nor has there ever been).
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Games. Flash games. While the performance of Flash is not on par with native compiled code, it still outperforms AJAX/HTML5 solutions by orders of magnitude.
I don't know where you got that idea from. HTML5 and WebGL are plenty fast enough [unity3d.com]. HTML5 games like HexGL [bkcore.com] and Ga.me [ga.me] have been around for a long time and work well. Even Disney uses WebGL a lot for their online games, like the Star Wars Aracde games.
WebGL needs GL 2; GMA 3150 stuck on GL 1.4 (Score:2)
WebGL
From get.webgl.org [webgl.org]:
It turns out that WebGL requires at least OpenGL 2.0, and the Intel GMA 3150 in my laptop is stuck on OpenGL 1.4. WebGL should be fine if you know PC users will come in with at least Intel HD Graphics (the successor to GMA), if not NVIDIA or AMD graphics.
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Is it impossible to put non-anemic hardware into a 10 inch laptop chassis?
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Using Opera 39.something, and no Google login avatar here.
Version: 39.0.2256.48 - Opera is up to date
Update stream: Stable
System: openSUSE Leap 42.1 (x86_64) (x86_64; KDE)
It supports Flash just fine, BTW.
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I thought Mozilla was going to remove NPAPI plugin functionality [mozilla.org]. As is Chrome if they did not do it already. Adobe regularly does interesting things like this. Releasing "new" software just when an API is going to get deprecated. (Carbon anyone?).
Re: Blame IE 6 (Score:2)
VMWare and ADP are corporate oriented.
Of course some asshole needs IE 6 support because he doesn't want to offend the director of IT who purchased that ERP app that only works with IE 6 because that developer has another client which has to use IE 6 because of an app another customer uses etc.
IE 6 and 8 are like herpes. The gift that keeps on giving as one when customer has it their suppliers, users, and developers demand IE 6 which in turns others and so on.
So what do you do if your clients want the latest
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it is not resurrected. (Score:3, Funny)
it is undead.
King Henry II asked the right question. (Score:1)
Will no one rid me of this turbulent program?
Too little, too late (Score:1)
Flash is dying and i cannot wait to witness its rotten, fly-ridden corpse.
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Flash is dying and i cannot wait to witness its rotten, fly-ridden corpse.
I would rather not see that, the miasma puts me in a bad mood. Would be better if it just vanished as if it had never existed. Then again EME and its CDM plugins that has replaced Flash for encrypted media are not much of an improvement.
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Unless you're of the opinion "digital restrictions management should not exist, and therefore rentals and subscriptions should not exist", how is CDM "not much of an improvement" over Flash Player? The CDM is a much smaller piece of code with a much smaller scope than the entirety of Flash Player. It also runs in a sandbox [mozilla.org] that can only do a few things, such as receive encrypted data from the browser and send decrypted and decoded video to the operating system.
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How to enforce return without DRM? (Score:2)
Without digital restrictions management, how can the publisher enforce the contractual requirement that the subscriber not keep a usable copy after the subscription has expired?
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Realistically it can't be enforced with or without DRM. If there's a will to breach contract and keep a copy, it will be done, restrictions be damned. This doesn't mean such services couldn't or shouldn't exist because of these arbitrary constructs.
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DRM deters breach by making breach so difficult in practice that most will not try. I said most.
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Telesyncing the display in this manner is "difficult". It requires a suitable camcorder, which most don't already have and aren't willing to buy just to keep a rented movie past the due date.
Re:How to enforce return without DRM? (Score:4, Insightful)
You don't even need to do that. Just get a Hauppauge HD-PVR and record from component out. I do this all the time to record cable TV with MythTV, and it gives an excellent quality result, with no DRM circumvention or camcorder required. I have zero interest in piracy: the recordings are for my own personal use only. But if I'm paying for cable with HBO, I'm at least going to have an uncrippled DVR.
If the FCC ever lets the cable companies turn off component out, then it's time for MythTV users to break out the HDMI-to-component converters. These are like $30 on Amazon and reportedly work just fine with HDCP.
And if they ever stamp those out somehow (they're made by random companies in China, so good luck to them), then, well ... HDCP is totally broken and the master key has been leaked. I'm sure some Verilog or VHDL sources for various FPGAs that include HDMI ports would soon pop up.
My view is they should give up on the DRM and just do watermarking. I don't give a shit if my recordings are watermarked, because I'm not going to upload them. Almost no homebrew DVR users want to upload pirated TV. So, if they do DRM, their opponents are "every geek with a homebrew DVR or other legitimate need for uncrippled media access, plus the few people who want to upload pirated TV". If they do watermarking, their opponents are "only the few people who want to upload pirated TV".
Seriously. Just invisibly watermark the damn movies and TV shows, then take legal action against the uploaders. It's a perfect win-win solution. Dumbass control freaks are dumbass control freaks, though.
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How good is the video captured by a smartphone's rear camera? Is it pristine even up to 1920x1080, with correct color balance? And how easy is it to keep aligned with the display?
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Almost no homebrew DVR users want to upload pirated TV. So, if they do DRM, their opponents are "every geek with a homebrew DVR or other legitimate need for uncrippled media access, plus the few people who want to upload pirated TV".
It's not necessarily even about uploading. It's about keeping a rental longer than the agreed-upon rental period.
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Except it isn't a fucking boat, or a power tool. Nothing about this emphemeral "rental" has anything to do with time, since it does not impact their ability to "rent it" out to other people. Ever.
The problem, they want to rent it out to same person, over and over. Extracting money each time, like a fucking mosquito.
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Before DRM, making a copy required substantial investment, and following the money to find whom to sue was more practical.
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Again and again and again and again and again and...
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Flash doesn't work on phone or Android which is where the market is heading. HTML 5 and now AMD and intel accelerated VP 9 and h.265 support means better battery life and performance.
You are a fellow IT geek who supports desktop users like myself and we both seen what a nightmare plugins like Java and Flash can be when never updated with drive thru installs.
The problem I do not like about flash is it is an executable. Flashscript was used so people could make IE 6 look cutting edge as a workaround for corpo
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It is trivial to obtain and install Flash for Android devices. Use the Bing, Bill!
EME flash (Score:3)
Mozilla took a lot of fire for the decision to support EME, but in reality the alternative is that DRM'ed content will only be available on Windows/OS X/IOS/Android/ChromeOS using IE/saferi/chrome.
Yes, EME is still a sad practical choice, but at least the linux desktop will continue to be a viable
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In 5 years we'll likely do the same we do now: use HTML5.
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Flash is dying and i cannot wait to witness its rotten, fly-ridden corpse.
You realise that we will have to get a twelve gauge shotgun for when it rises again and the smell will be terrible.
Incineration is the only way to be sure.
For fuck's sake (Score:3, Funny)
Why won't you JUST DIE?
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MOD UP! Please!
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Ha! 'Tis only a flesh wound ...
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Nay sire, 'tis only a flash wound !
Adobe who? (Score:4, Interesting)
Given their attitude, horrific user 'support', painful and extortionist pricing, repeatedly screwing over of entire platforms, and other customer indignities, I am Beyond caring about them. The world has moved on, no one cares about this dying platform any more.
While I was slightly interested in new updates, the fact that they removed the two features that would be useful to me on the builds I need shattered that faint hope. I should have known better than to expect functionality much less quality from Adobe. All this seems to be is that someone figured out it was less work, and therefore cheaper, to keep up with Linux builds than to update a years old code base that no one remembers how to patch. It isn't largesse, it is CYA on security
I would say I told you so, but when they announced a pullback on platforms ~4-5 years ago I did tell them so. All my friends there laughed and said I didn't have a clue. Within six months they had all quit. Within 2 years, Flash was walking dead, everyone with a stake in the market had solidified the alternatives and it was just a matter of time. Now they are trying to spin cost savings as a step in the right direction. The corpse is rotting but still managing to do PR, let it die the lonely death it deservers. Nothing to see here, move along.
Doesn't Linux Chrome have an integrated player? (Score:2)
Doesn't Linux Chrome have an integrated Flash player?
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Its not integrated, its just only Pepper Flash Compatible.
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The stable version of Chrome for Fedora includes the PPAPI Flash plugin. The same is probably true for the builds for other Linux distros.
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20/month priced out of the market for professional photo editing? I'm skeptical.
Acrobat is pretty solid too, and I hate the new interface, but they continue to augment the editing capabilities.
I know the tools aren't for everyone, but acrobat + illustrator for editing PDFs is worth well over 50/month, as a bonus I get indesign and Photoshop too.
I'm not convinced there's anything that really replaces indesign in the market at all, aside from content aware delete, there's nothing photoshop offers me as a novi
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Clearly Adobe needed to squeeze more blood from all of their turnips or otherwise they would not have instigated this.
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It worked for where I work.
It was going to take 2 years for the subscription to cost more than purchasing upgrades, and kept us current.
$600/year vs $800/every 18 months to stay current, enough where I worked we didn't stay current and paid closer to $1200 every three years. It was constant frustration trying to get the budget for the upgrades.
The creative cloud made things current, and was able to be sold as not costing more for quite while.
I think the real reason they switched is that small businesses pur
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Non professional people like me do not like subscription software - paying for things that I am not using is s
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For us the expense spike sucked too.
Also, it's only around now that it's starting to cut is more than even our delayed upgrade cycle.
And I'm not saying it reduces piracy, but hypothetically the ability to virtually no cost add someone for a season may or may not have reduced piracy too.
We partially had to keep relatively current because we were a print shop taking files from other people, as a producer I'd see it very differently, but even so, 20/month vs 800 for photoshop seems a pretty good deal to me.
Eve
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I still haven't forgiven Adobe for this [xml.com].
Excellent SVG authoring program (from the same folks who produced PaintShop Pro), purchased by Corel (motherfuckers), re-sold to Adobe (motherfuckers squared), and shut down.
If Trajectory had been permitted to mature, Flash would have been all but dead and forgotten at least 5 years ago.
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Clearly Adobe needed to squeeze more blood from all of their turnips or otherwise they would not have instigated this.
Or, much more rationally, they decided that maintaining rolling releases on subscription over supporting multiple releases on perpetual is more cost effective for them and their customers.
If it were more rational, you'd expect it to be more parse-able, which it ain't.
DRM Encumbered Flash disabled (Score:3)
Note they mention that it won't support DRM Flash. In order to use DRM Flash on Linux you still have to get the PPAPI Plugin that comes with ChromeBooks.
PPAPI already works fine in Linux Firefox (Score:2, Interesting)
I use this [debian.org] to use PPAPI flash in Firefox in Debian, for what is NPAPI needed?
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I use freshplayerplugin to run pepperflash in PaleMoon. It gives me a better interface to VMware vCenter than Chrome, because I can set the an external application to open VM consoles in VMplayer. Chrome insists on opening them as additional flash windows. The flash console windows don't pass CTRL-C and other such characters.
I abandoned Flash a year ago (Score:1)
Reuters Finally Complained.... (Score:2)
I guess all those complaints about "Your Video Doesn't Work!!!" finally got to Reuters.
Or they finally just noticed the years of complaints and sent an email off to ADB.
Acrobat Reader (Score:2)
I wish they would have revived Acrobat Reader for Linux. I need it for sites that use XFA Form submission.
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I'm told Evince and Okular can fill in PDF forms. Or can they fill them in but just not submit them?
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The thing that made Adobe Acrobat so great for me was the instant OCR function after scanning or opening
just what we needed! (Score:1)
I wish they would just completely KILL flash (Score:1)
All modern browsers should actively block it.
ISP gateways/proxies should block it.
Flash is an evil horrid nightmare that needs to just DIE already.
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I am mostly migrated to Chromium.
There are just a few things that I have to use Chrome for.
One of them is a function of my bank's online banking service which they have STILL not migrated from flash. Unfortunately, the only other comparable bank to offer the relevant service, ALSO uses flash for that same function, so there's no where else to go. I've explained to them why they need to get off flash and I am waiting.
Flash needs to die and everything that uses it needs to migrate or DIE as well.
Why? (Score:1)
Always a day late (Score:2)
I just got the PPAPI version working in Firefox last night. That said, I'm still glad they're updating the NPAPI version so I have the option of not installing Chrome to get a current Flash plugin.
Just die already (Score:1)
Dear God (Score:2)
please smite with furious vengeance any websites still using/requiring this piece of bug-ridden crap.
Photoshop! (Score:1)
Screw your flash player. Let's have some real apps.
Pandora and VMware vCenter (Score:2)
The only things I ever use Flash for anymore are Pandora radio and VMware vCenter. I've almost gotten rid of Pandora's Flash by switching to pianobar https://6xq.net/pianobar/. It handles normal playing. It won't do the more advanced things like editing a station, adding variety, etc.
I don't have a solution for vCenter. I did, at least, get freshplayerplugin to run pepperflash under Palemoon. That lets me specify an external app (vmplayer) to open console windows. Chrome insists on opening the conso