Fight Flash Here!

[Tamara]

Originally Posted by scottjl

personally I'd keep it off. I keep flash disabled in chrome unless absolutely needed and the only thing I seem to miss is lots of adverts. oh and I guess disney's site.

We live near Disney and I absolutely abhor going to their website for information. Their splash page is horrid.

[Sonist]

Originally Posted by Tamara

We live near Disney and I absolutely abhor going to their website for information. Their splash page is horrid.

Wow!

First, there is no "splash" page on the Disney site. I'll assume you are referring to the home page.

Second, what exactly do you "abhor" and what exactly do you find "horrid?" Disney is famous for their extensive testing and tracking, so if you really feel this way, you may be way removed from their target audience (or are simply an Apple zealot )

Third, how does the fact that you "live near Disney" have any bearing on your competency to critique the Disney site?

Originally Posted by scottjl

hmm. infoworld is trying to broker peace between apple and adobe. will it work? I doubt it, jobs is pretty stubborn and adobe would have to release action script to standards bodies, something they have resisted for years (well macromedia did before adobe).

Infoworld makes much more important point in Eric Knorr's Stop bashing Flash:

"... the bulk of Hachamovitch's post was devoted to explaining that H.264 will be the only video codec natively supported by IE9 -- and should be the codec of choice for HTML5. Both Silverlight and Flash already support H.264, but due to licensing restrictions (you can't embed a proprietary codec in a pure open source browser), Firefox cannot provide native support. In an HTML5 future where neither Flash nor Silverlight will be required to play embedded Web video, Firefox gets aced out.

Jobs' motives are less convoluted. His "most important" reason for shutting out Flash is that it's a "cross-platform development tool." Even more transparently: "The 200,000 apps on Apple's App Store prove that Flash isn't necessary for tens of thousands of developers to create graphically rich applications." In other words, he doesn't want the competition, and wrapping himself in the HTML5 flag is a great way to look "open" as he slams the door on Flash. ..."

The wide adoption of the proprietary H.264 video codec pushed by Apple, and now MS, will kill open source browsers.

The only hope for open source browsers and open video on the web, is the possibility that Google opens VP8, which it acquired for $125 million recently.

[scottjl]

Originally Posted by Sonist

Wow!

First, there is no "splash" page on the Disney site. I'll assume you are referring to the home page.

Second, what exactly do you "abhor" and what exactly do you find "horrid?" Disney is famous for their extensive testing and tracking, so if you really feel this way, you may be way removed from their target audience (or are simply an Apple zealot )

hmm.. what was that about bashing someone who has a different opinion than you..? i'd say tamara is entitled to think what she wants about disney's web page, just as you are. and really, what does disliking disney's web page have anything to do with liking or disliking apple products? what's next? chewbacca is a wookiee from the planet kashyyyk???

Third, how does the fact that you "live near Disney" have any bearing on your competency to critique the Disney site?

no one said it did, she was just sharing where she lives.

someone needs to lay off the caffeine.

[Sonist]

I was asking Tamara what exactly did she "abhor" and found "horrid" on the Disney site.

These are rather strong adjectives, so I was curios. Perhaps you can answer this (sometimes I do wonder if you are Tamara.... )

On a more positive note, here is a new video of Google's Nexus One, running Android 2.2 and going through a bunch of Flash pages, including some with heavy 3D lifting:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0y7XJI4NN7k

[scottjl]

sonist, take off the tin foil hat and step away from the computer. really. you need a few days off i think. maybe go find an android forum to hang out on since you love them so much.. this is the apple forum after all.

[dmaul1114]

The Disney site is pretty annoying to me.

I hate sites that have video with audio that play automatically on loading for one. And I'm not big on sites with animated menus etc. in general.

My only really need/use for Flash is video and some Facebook games etc. as I tend to prefer more simple, text based sites for the most part. ESPN.com would be about the most complex/multi media type of site design that I can tolerate.

[Sonist]

Originally Posted by dmaul1114

The Disney site is pretty annoying to me.

I hate sites that have video with audio that play automatically on loading for one. And I'm not big on sites with animated menus etc. in general.

My only really need/use for Flash is video and some Facebook games etc. as I tend to prefer more simple, text based sites for the most part. ESPN.com would be about the most complex/multi media type of site design that I can tolerate.

And this is totally fine, of course. You may not be the audience for many of these sites, just like many who like Disney may not be interested in ESPN.

But the point is that the consumers should decide if they want to frequent a site or not. Right now, largely because of Apple's protectionism, we are seeing the unnecessary Balkanization of the web.

To point to Disney again, they have to create a regular site, a mobile site, and an iPad site. I do believe the iPad version is a nod to their largest shareholder, but nevertheless it serves to fragment to web.

My hope is that with the impending availability of Flash on most major mobile platforms, the need for mobile sites will lessen, and so will the fragmentation.

But the move to browser-embedded, proprietary video (H.264) is much more worrisome in the long run, as it will restrict commercial content viewing to commercial browsers only.

Apple, Microsoft and the content providers would love this, since it will potentially allow for DRM schemes built into your browser. With no open alternatives.

[dmaul1114]

Oh I agree with you 100%.

As long as Flash is so prevalent, I won't buy any hardware that I plan to browse the web with that doesn't support it as I lose access to too many sites, videos, games etc. currently.

I want Flash support. I want the option to just avoid sites that annoy me with it. Or the option to block it and only allow it on sites I choose etc.

Things should ideally be as open as possible and leave as many options as possible to the end user.

[pshrynk]

Again, we find that the name calling and insults are taking over a thread. Stop now, on this and any other thread, or the thread will be closed and further infractions will be viewed quite seriously by the moderation team. If you disagree with someone, do so in polite terms that do not denigrate the other.

pshrynk (moderator)

[scottjl]

Originally Posted by Sonist

Of course, for the big one coming out, Toy Story 3, the Pixar home page to TS 3's own site, which is, unsurprisingly, in Flash.

turns out the ipad has a separate site for ts3.. scratch that one off your list.

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by scottjl

turns out the ipad has a separate site for ts3.. scratch that one off your list.

Ah yes, separate but equal...segregation and jim crow in action, how touching.

[scottjl]

give me a break.. you're going to compare racial discrimination to separate web sites? are you that culturally insensitive or just that bad of a troll?

the ipad site says it has "exclusive content". maybe it's the desktop folk who are missing out for a change.

[Trubu]

Originally Posted by Sonist

The wide adoption of the proprietary H.264 video codec pushed by Apple, and now MS, will kill open source browsers.

The only hope for open source browsers and open video on the web, is the possibility that Google opens VP8, which it acquired for $125 million recently.

You're going overboard with this. VP8 shares a common ancestor with Ogg Theora, and would likely face similar patent issues. It's not a magic bullet. And while MPEG-LA could conceivably do an about-face in 2015 and decide to demand exorbitant license fees from free and open-source projects for h.264, they've shown no inclination to do so thus far. There's no real upside for them to - they wouldn't be able to collect much from a bunch of projects that immediately went belly-up because they couldn't afford the fees, and they'd spark a PR nightmare to boot.

I would feel better if there were an open, patent-clear, highly-optimized codec available that everyone agreed on, but there isn't. Like I said before, h.264 seems like the best of a bad lot.

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by scottjl

give me a break.. you're going to compare racial discrimination to separate web sites? are you that culturally insensitive or just that bad of a troll?

the ipad site says it has "exclusive content". maybe it's the desktop folk who are missing out for a change.

Ah! Yes. The TROLL Accusation again.

[John F]

Originally Posted by scottjl

turns out the ipad has a separate site for ts3.. scratch that one off your list.

Is your link broken? I can't get to it in either IE7 or IE8.