It’s no secret that the relationship between Apple and Adobe isn’t particularly healthy at this point, and despite the nicely staged coffee moment, nor is the relationship between Apple and Google. It seems like this is bringing together Google and Adobe: rumour has it that Flash will be bundled with the Chrome web browser and/or the upcoming Chrome operating system. Update: It’s official: “When users download Chrome, they will also receive the latest version of Adobe Flash Player. There will be no need to install Flash Player separately. Users will automatically receive updates related to Flash Player using Google Chrome’s auto-update mechanism.”
The rumour comes courtesy of ZDNet, citing the usual “reliable sources” (several of them, even). According to the rumours, the announcement of the deal will be made today, and since today has barely started in the US (we’re past half-way here in the old world), it might still take a while for the news to arrive (if true, that is).
For some reason (can’t put my finger on it) I find it unlikely that Google will bundle Flash with the Chrome web browser – it seems far more likely that the Chrome operating system will include it. After all, Chrome OS is targeted solely at the web, and whether we like it or not, Flash is part of the web and here to stay. It would make perfect sense for Google to include the runtime with its operating system.
It could also mean act as a selling point for Google when competing with Apple on the iPad. While the Chrome OS is targeted at netbooks, it will surely appear on tablets as well. We’ve already seen countless Android tablets, so this rumour might also mean that we will find Flash on Android devices.
Whichever way you look at it, it would be an interesting turn of events. Google has been very supportive of HTML5 and related standards and openness – at the same time, however, Google is actively pushing H264, the patent-encumbered video codec companies like Apple and Microsoft are trying to shackle the web to. In other words – Google is obviously no saint, so the company promoting Flash certainly shouldn’t come as a surprise.
If anything, I’d have thought Google have more to gain from decommissioning Flash as HTML is much easier to scan and build search engine results and targeted adverts against than Flash (let’s not forget that adverts are Google’s bread-and-butter business)
Also Google have always (publicly at least) been advocates of open technology. So while Flash is undeniably a web standard, it’s not an open standard.
Edited 2010-03-30 13:21 UTC
Not open? Uhhh…
http://www.adobe.com/devnet/swf/
and…
http://opensource.adobe.com/wiki/display/flexsdk/Flex+SDK
Just because Adobe uses the word “open” on their webpages and gives out tools for free means nothing.
In order for a format to be truly open it needs to:
* Have a standardized spec whose change is not subject to the whim of a single entity.
* The tools needed to implement the spec need to be FOSS, not simply open sourced. Take a look at the FLEX SDK license (which, BTW, they say it’s an EULA!) and then we’ll talk:
http://www.adobe.com/products/eulas/
So no, Flash is not open. Adobe controls both the spec and the SDK exclusively. And they haven’t even made a statement to the effect of promising the public they won’t break spec, or pull the SDK, or come after you with patent claims etc.
An open spec is a public specification, plain and simple. I have no clue where you got the requirement that all tools that implement the spec must be GPLd from…
Based on Gnash still needing to reverse engineer parts of flash functionality; I’d say the details that have been provided openly by Adobe are not a complete and open file format spec.
I’m not sure where the previous poster got the idea that tools have to be GPLd either. They obviously believe FOSS (Libre and Open Source Software) is only that which is licensed under a GPL version rather than licensed under any Open Source license.
FOSS does not mean GPL’d software only and Flash is far from an open and documented standard.
I just want to mention a comment by an x264 developer about the gnash guys that has probably much more weight than my humble opinion:
Gnash or not, Flash is not open. It might be partially documented, but huge parts are missing and require reverse-engineering.
By the way, the x264 people have a history of spreading blatant lies.
Such as?
Enough BS. Anything that allows third-party intervention without prior consent is enough to be defined as “opened”. The OP was asserting that Flash content couldn’t be scanned and indexed because it’s encoded in a way that’s not quite as plain as HTML, and the answer was that the format was documented by Adobe, so it can be done, period.
Many Flash applications do not adhere to the standard and the Flash player allows this. One could even claim that the Flash player itself does not adhere to the standard.
There also exist obfuscators for Flash, and their use is very common. Most of those also produce non-standard swf.
This is all known and being researched on. If you’re interested, see
http://events.ccc.de/congress/2009/Fahrplan/events/3494.en.html
Open specifications are good, but sometimes, if there is only one full implementation on the market, they can become worthless. Another example for this is the OpenDocument format.
I prefer Adobe being in control of flash spec and SDK instead of some FOSS people. I think that Adobe can make flash technically better than GNU foundation.
If you love so much FOSS, you have gnash which is a junk compared to flash.
you have gnash which is a junk compared to flash.
You’re quite ignorant, aren’t you? Adobe hasn’t released API documentation for Flash so Gnash developers have to reverse-engineer everything and OBVIOUSLY that takes time, effort and will contain bugs.
And still, give Flash and Gnash something to run that both can run without issues you’ll notice how much faster Gnash is.
If Adobe released the API specs Gnash could take giant leaps forward and would probably suck a whole lot less.
Flash has an open spec and ALL the codecs used by flash are available as open source. Gnash people are simply incompetent. Gnash is a shame. Look at the Moonlight, the open source implementation of Silverlight. That’s a competent implementation.
I think you are the ignorant one…
Sweet.. where can I go download the source for Adobe Flash Player? I’d like to stop using the non-free provided patent encumbered and closed source 64bit Adobe Flash Player package.
(not such an open file format when it’s limited to only being read fully by Adobe’s own player plugin which has historically delivered updates late to non-32bit and non-windows platforms)
Rob Savoye, Gnash dev, seems pretty intelligent.
If you haven’t listened to the FLOSS weekly show about Gnash you should. I remember it as entertaining:
http://twit.tv/floss94
H.264 is used by Flash and there is no open source implementation of H.264 which can be legal distributed to users.
Linux video codecs in Moonlight are provided via a binary-only package from Microsoft.
x264 it’s a open source encoder compatible with H.264 and you have an open source decoder in libavcodec.
x264 it’s a open source encoder compatible with H.264 and you have an open source decoder in libavcodec.
And neither of them are legal in countries which honor software patents.
aka: neither of these are legal in the third world countries….
But this doesn’t mean there is no open specification, isn’t it? Specifications like JEDEC standard for memory, Ethernet, USB standards are all open specifications. This doesn’t mean you can implement them without paying royalty for patent holders.
S/W is different from algorithm. GSM standard consists of series of signal decoding algorithms. You can use a very fast DSP and implement it and it is will be just software. This doesn’t mean you can use it without paying royalty. Same holds for video codecs.
Flash is open in theory. In practice, it is not, because the specs are not complete, you need to do lots of reverse-engineering, etc.
Does bundling really matter?
You only need flash for websites and you can’t get on websites without an internet connection and the first time you visit YouTube.com you will be prompted to install it. It is effortless and I don’t think you even need to restart chrome.
Seriously… who cares?
If the history of Microsoft and IE has shown us anything is that yeah, bundling means a lot towards adopting and keeping a product used by lots of people…
There is a difference.
To visit wikipedia, ebay, online banking, etc you only use 50 different browsers.
To play FarmTown on facebook you only have one choice… Adobe Flash.
It will be installed the first time a user goes to a site where the content they want is flash based.
Should browsers be bundled with animated GIF support, or should you wait for them to visit a site uses them before downloading and providing support? How about PNG or SVG images?
I actually didn’t realize that animaged gifs where not supported by some modern browsers. Support for PNG and other open image formats; sure.. no cost to include, well documented specs – go for it.
Flash is a product of a single controlling company who is legally obligated to deliver profits to the shareholders long before considering end user details. Bundling a flash pligin is not like including application level support for well known image formats.
But, I’m also of the opinion that the video tab needs to be ratified and used rather than continuing to rely on a third party plugin just to display webpage content.
I think the real benefit here is ongoing updates. You’ll get Flash with Chrome which is handy for new computer setups choosing Chrome.
Think ongoing use though; how many users are going to go update there Flash plugin regularly? If Chrome says “say, there’s an update plugin available. Should I install for you now?” there is a higher chance of regular users keeping current.
…it would make sense. On the other hand it is a rumor.
GOOD.
You want to know why?
1. Go to Adobe.com
2. Click on Get Flash Player
3. Click “Agree and Install Now”
4. Accept prompt to install Firefox extension or download Adobe Download Manager
5. Install said unwanted extra, restart browser and download begins
6. Find out that McAfee security scan has been installed as well
Avoiding installing the download manage is difficult as you have to click the “troubleshoot” link, scroll to the very bottom of the page and click the download here link, which gives you the IE version of Flash, not the Firefox and others version.
Adobe utterly, utterly abuse their position when it comes to downloading and updating Flash. I can’t count the number of users who have come unstuck just trying to install Flash into Firefox. It’s not uncommon to see four copies of Flash_installer.exe because the user didn’t know they had to close the download window to close Firefox.exe itself.
If the user can have Flash on ChromeOS without having to go through Adobe’s abusive site, then I’m all for that.
A few problems with your post:
1/ ChromeOS is not Windows. So you wouldn’t have Firefox.exe (or indeed any copy of Firefox is unlikely), let alone any of the other crapware you described.
2/ even on a Windows platform, Firefox can download the Flash plug in for you automatically. So why would you even bother downloading it manually?
3/ Why are you even talking about Firefox when this topic is about Chrome and ChromeOS?
[instant update]
re point 2: sorry, you’re point was that users find ways to fsck up installs, not that it had to be downloaded. Sorry for the misunderstanding.
Edited 2010-03-30 14:44 UTC
I understand that ChromeOS is not Firefox and vice-versa. My point is, that given enough inbound traffic from users, Adobe _will_ abuse said users in whatever way is necessary.
They may force people to install a Chrome extension, or ask people for their e-mail address. But know this, the Adobe flash install page is a massive monetisation target for Adobe.
Uh… Why do you install Flash in such a roundabout way? Here’s my instructions for installing Flash on a machine that doesn’t have it yet:
1) Go to YouTube video.
2) Click the “Install plugin…” button (or whatever it’s called in Firefox or Chrome)
3) Get yourself a cookie, you earned it.
Or, the Linux method:
1) Launch terminal
2) sudo apt-get install flashplayer-nonfree
3) Get yourself a cookie, you earned it.
Try method 1 again, notice how it doesn’t work, and hasn’t worked in a long time. The plugin finder service on Firefox can no longer install Flash automatically and you are forced through their website.
Method 2: Beneficial to 1% of people, and not one single customer of mine in four years.
Might be broken on Firefox, but works fine in Chrome. Firefox’ fault.
Same thing is true for Apple.
Try to install iTunes and and see if Apple doesn’t try to sneak Safari and other crap in with it. WTF do I need Bonjour for on a Windows system????
Same of also true for a slew of other programs out there.
I have to make sure I get the slim version of CCleaner to avoid getting the Yahoo! toolbar. I have also seen lots of installer try to push Ask.com, McaFee, etc that have nothing to do with Adobe.
The point is that we should be frowning on all companies that do these Trojan Horse installs and not just Adobe, but Kroc is so anti Flash/Adobe lately I read his comments with a strong critical eye if any of the players are involved.
Edited 2010-03-30 17:08 UTC
And ChromeOS, and the iPad will hopefully put a stop to this bundling and generally disrespectful behaviour to users; for a while.
The difference between Adobe doing this, and Apple or CCleaner, is that CCleaner or iTunes are not positioning themselves as absolutely necessary, core components of the web that all users need in order to participate.
Well, at least Adobe is upfront about its intentions: it intends to keep Flash relevant. While I disagree with that, I at least respect their honesty.
The same cannot be said for Apple. While they deride Flash and tout their openness and web-friendliness to the Apple faithful (who even fall for that charade), accessing Apple’s very own website still results in bullshit like this:
http://twitpic.com/1bsjqh
It’s all relative. Just like so many others, Apple is only for an open web where they can profit from it. Same for Adobe and Microsoft. They are no better than one another.
I didn’t deny that was the case. You are putting words into my mouth in that context. I fix computers for a living and the Flash installation procedure is a mountain that stands in the way of users installing and adopting Firefox on their own. Fact.
Google are now seeking to rectify that problem: http://blog.chromium.org/2010/03/bringing-improved-support-for-adob…
Firefox and NoScript.
On Adobe’s site, I select the “choose other system” or “choose other browser” option since I need to grab both the IE and Firefox/Chrome plugins and without the bundled extras.
On Sun’s site, it complains because NoScript blocks Javascript. I select the “manually download” option.
None of those download helper or direct installs for me and my user network.
Just remember to uncheck the boxes that say you want to download that as well.
I never had any issues.
Edited 2010-03-31 07:57 UTC
It’s not about you not having any issues. I’m talking about the majority of computer users, who largely do not notice the tick box.
Majority of computer users download a cookie and install Flash automatically, by visiting youtube or another flash enabled website.
By the way, after installing Flash 10.1 which use hardware acceleration, my CPU use is near 0 when playing flash.
I got the perfect remedy for the Adobe and Apple issue, Adobe has the upper hand here. Quit making Photoshop for Mac. Guaranteed that would shut Apple up and Flash would come to the iPhone and iPad.
Apple would buy Adobe. In cash. And then drop the Windows versions.
It’s all very well saying that, but are Apple actually big enough to do it in practice?
They’ve bought out a number of other companies (eg the makers of the ex-PC studio kit: ‘Logic’) and done what you’ve described. So given how important a partner Adobe are for Apple’s dominance in the creative industries, I’d have though Apple would have bought Adobe out before now if they could have.
It was kind of a joke. But the Mac represents a massive chunk of Adobe’s sales. They would have to be absolutely mad to drop Mac support.
Not at all. Many people depend on Adobe products, not on operating system. If Adobe drops Apple, they will be happy Windows users.
“Not at all. Many people depend on Adobe products, not on operating system. If Adobe drops Apple, they will be Windows users.
“
It’d be far cheaper to simply keep their current hardware and use an older version of Creative Studio.
Mac is just a PC, so they can keep their current hardware and install Windows 7.
You don’t run a business, do you? You can’t just drop a new OS onto everyone’s workstations and expect things to go tickety-boo.
As well as the cost of a new license for Creative Studio, you’ll need new software (workflow management, timelogging, asset management), you’ll need to train the staff in the new systems (we are talking ordinary people here, not geeks), you’ll have to actually transition an office full of machines over to new systems, and most importantly, the transition itself takes time (networking, drivers, updates, virus checkers, etc.) and little or no real work is done costing the business money.
I’ve seen ill-advised mass migrations like this kill businesses before.
That’s a good idea and I don’t know why people at Adobe don’t catch it. Adobe can hurt Apple bad if they cease to develop their products for Mac. Many Apple users are designers and web programmers. I they can’t use Dreamweaver or Photoshop or ColdFusion or Illustrator on Mac, they will have to move to Windows.
Or dump that and learn how to web develop properly.
hehe – I would have +1 funny you if I hadn’t already posted
hehe – I would have +1 funny you if I hadn’t already posted [/q]
Don’t laugh, please. What Kroc wanted to say by “learn proper development” is installing and learning to use Visual Studio and Visual Web Developer.
<Here is where I usually write unrelated cosmetic stuff to shield myself them who most likely will start bashing what I am about to say next>
Dear OSNews staff – stop obsessing about Flash. I thing it gets way to much publicity here. There are probably a few who are interested and that is all fine but I’ve seen about a hundred (this is a so called exageration) news items about Flash here on OSNews lately. There are so many other wonderful things happening in the world besides Flash that you usually pick up and write about.
I don’t care if I get voted down or whatever – it is my god damn honest oppinion.
So write an article and submit it to OS News.
I know. If I don’t like something I can do something about it – like writing articles that would interest me. Somehow ranting here seemed like the easiest path to take but most likely a futile one. I might actually take your advice.
Great suggestion.
Flash and Browsers. Always about Flash and Browsers.
… here at BrowserNews.
We’re barely getting any written article submissions on other topics. I try to keep my radar tuned to alternative OSes, but not much is going on right now that I’ve seen. If people submit just links and not written articles, then it overfills Pg.2 and we have to throw things away.
If there is a lack of articles and not enough room on page 2 – would it be possible to have something like a “twitter-feed” where the staff can post what they think is worth presenting from the submissions they’ve recieved. It would make it easier for smaller (but still interesting) news to get published compared to the situation we have now when they have to make way for the news targeted at the wider audience. The feed does not even have to be on the front page.
There is probably not much general interest in an operating system with say less than 50 users. Still, I would find it very intriguing to read about the progress beeing done and how they implement stuff et.c. Sadly those news never reaches me because no one think they are worth publishing. But they are.
Blah blah and when we have a few Ubuntu stories in a row, we’re UbuntuNews. When we have a few iPhone stories in a row, we’re iPhoneNews. Seen all the nonsense.
We have a submit button. You’re free to use it.
We’re all moving to the cloud so Windows vs Linux vs Mac is not so interesting anymore.
We will run apps from the cloud so we are more interested in IE, FF, Chrome, HTML5, H.264, Theora, Flash and so on…..
If you don’t like the news they are posting, why don’t you just go elsewhere?
Edited 2010-03-30 21:15 UTC
As others mentioned before, you can always submit your own news. In any case, I personally enjoy most OSnews articles for their lack of biased. While you accuse Osnews for bias, I can testify that most others sites are are far more biased. If you don’t believe me, hear this story:
I used to have an account at engadget.com. One day, I read this story [1] about N900 getting new firmware with support for Ovi Store, but the Engadget crew somehow almost turned that into something negative for Nokia (!!). I posted a few comments about the obvious Engadget bias. I pointed out that when the same functionality became available for iPhone/iPod, the Engadget crew published miles and miles of articles with extremely positive tone. It turns out that many, many more were upset about the Apple-bias at Engadget and the obvious Nokia hate.
So how did the Engadget crew tackle this? Did they have a review of their internal reviewing and publishing policy? No, they turned off the comment system for a few days to cool down the revolution [3]. They also, without any prior notice, removed or disabled the accounts that criticized the Engadget bias, and removed all their comments. If you search for my comments, you will see that my comments are gone while some replies are still there but point to wrong OP [1, 4]. Obviously, Engadget was in such hurry to remove the critical comments that they didn’t fix this, which resulted in broken threads in many posts.
So nowadays, I am a happy OSnews costumer and enjoy the high quality articles and unbiased stories that report from both sides.
[1] http://www.engadget.com/2010/01/14/nokia-n900-gets-its-second-firmw…
[3] http://www.engadget.com/2010/02/02/were-turning-comments-off-for-a-…
[4] http://www.google.com/search?q=fatjoe+site%3Aengadget.com
PS. If anyone is interested in this story, I can provide more information and data.
Geez. Take your internet warfare elsewhere.
BTW, I’m guessing that you broke the rules, and now you are mad because they bothered to deal with it.
Wasn’t YouTube going to start implementing HTML 5 for video? I thought Google was a big supporter of HTML 5 (including the video spec) and this just seems like a conflict of interest.
I hope they have a valid reason and not just playing some political card here.
Maybe Google will drop HTML5 to further hurt Apple. It’ll be a nice move.
Today, when I updated the Chromium on my Linux machine I noticed a weird package was being pulled. Google supports now Theora with OS codecs(I think) at least on Linux. I think supporting HTML5 doesn’t detract from their objective to make money with their stupid netbooks, and having Flash will give them an upper hand over Apple for Web browsing.
Better Flash than Silverlight I guess.
Ha, ha! Die Apple, die! You deserve that kick in the big fat ass.
After all, isn’t Blink an important and integrated part of the internet?
Actually, I’m more curious about Chrome/Flash. Will this be just for Windows/Chrome/Flash or will they be providing Chrome/Flash in the *nix system install package? Will they provide 64bit versions of each. How will this conflict with my existing but seporate Chrome and Flash debian packages?
Also, downloads have enough crap bundled in them. If it’s not the program I want plus Yahoo Browser Bar, it’s Google Browser Bar telling me I can’t live without it infecting my system. Bundling Flash into the Chrome install package does not make it more attractive for business use either; we tend to like to track those versions and installs.
Both of these questions will be answered soon enough in testing.
Possibly the best piece of software I’ve installed in the last 5 years is ClickToFlash, this has made the web usable again. With flash blocked, you can go to a site and not have 300 popups, spinning, animated, flashing CRAP buzzing around, and you don’t have perpetual browser crashes. With flash enabled, both Safari and Firefox would crash several times a day, now, zero. And better yet, I don’t hear the fan kick in everytime some BS flash advertisement displays.
Adobe is a big licensee of the now-Google-owned VP6 codec. My guess is that Google has now struck some kind of cross-licensing deal which will possibly mean Adobe adopting VP8 in the future. The other thing Google may be getting out of it is a renewed promise from Adobe to invest in Flash on Android.
Now Google just needs to open-source VP8 and make it a standard, and I will be a happy geek.
People will install flash anyway, might as well have their update tool be responsible for pulling the latest version of flash than relying on the users.
Given the total lack of security/copy protection on the HTML5 tag, I found the very notion of youtube; a company that has always used endless javascript trickery, RTMP streaming and other techniques to PREVENT people from copying video off their site, would be the LAST group to embrace HTML5 where it’s view>source, CTRL-C, CTRL-V, hey, I’m downloading.
… and it seems like their current parent company might just recognize the reality of this.
Endless codec bullshit arguements aside, the large COMPANIES that distribute videos online (or redistribute user submitteds) have ZERO interest in open formats, never have. Developers of those sites go to extreme measures from watermarking, to non-standard protocols, to wrapping video playback in a flash based player that streams it over an encrypted (kind-of) channel…
In other words, another thing flash is better at than HTML5 Video ever will be. It’s TOO open for the BUSINESSES who run sites like youtube, dailymotion, etc to seriously be considering.
I was in serious “whiskey tango foxtrot” territory over YT’s “HTML 5” preview – of course that their idea of an HTML 5 test was slapping ONE HTML 5 tag into the middle of a XHTML 1.0 Tranny document pretty much said it all.
Edited 2010-03-31 02:35 UTC
The good news: No need for adobeupdater.exe, just install Chrome and Foxit. Integration could bring optimization improvements.
The bad news: Even more confirmation that Google likes Flash and plans on keeping it around.
That’s not bad news, that’s good news. I hope they will cease to use H.264 for HTML5 and use VP8 instead. I’ll like to see Jobs’s face then.