9 Reasons This Article Is Misinformation (or Disinformation?)
I almost feel a little bad pointing all this out and negating this entire article, but misinformation has to be challenged.
1) "Flash is an interpreted language" - No, no, no, a thousand times NO. Flash is a virtual machine platform which uses state of the art JIT (just in time) compilation like many other modern VM platforms. This is not even close to comparable to an actual interpreted language and not even in the same league in terms of speed. Flash is no more "hungry" than anything playing video on mobile. You can't compare Flash running video or anything else intensive to an application which does nothing but render mostly static HTML. Stop spreading Steve Jobs disinformation he created to attack a competing app store platform that Apple couldn't profit off of. The reality is, Flash has had years worth of optimizations built into it.
2) Anything, including HTML5 video players, which does the same things Flash does will have to at some point interact with a machine's hardware. This requirement does not magically go away (along with the security risk) simply because you're moving the functionality to another location. Obviously the exploits aren't there yet because the alternatives are new. Adobe is also pretty remarkably fast at getting out security updates. Much faster than browser vendors have ever been, actually (you know, the guys you're now trusting to handle all those security risks with HTML5).
3) While Flash is proprietary, it is not completely closed--the open source Tamarin JIT compiler was developed by Adobe and is a core portion of Flash. Of course Adobe believes that Flash's proprietary code is a strength which enables it to work consistently, unlike browsers. This is probably the only thing on this article's list which is mostly true, but it's also not very important.
4) "Flash" is not a media format. SWF files which you are referring to are essentially compressed archives which can contain many types of resources and compiled bytecode. And it's existence is not making your life any more complicated than the mess of 50 technologies needed to build comparible software using HTML and JavaScript in a browser. The irony here is hilarious.
5) Okay, yeah, Flash is not HTML5. So what. How is that a reason to abolish Flash? We're more productive when we need to seek out dozens of software libraries to build applications with comparable functionality? Obviously using a dozen additional technologies and integrating them all is more complex so I don't understand the logic here.
6) Essentially a repeat of #2 which was already debunked. With HTML5 exploits on the horizon now we have many more moles to worry about. And good luck patching them--users may not be fond of updating Flash player to fix security issues, but they are even more annoyed when they are asked to update their actual browser (or mobile OS), where these security exploits will soon be moving.
7) #6 above already covered this. You can be stupid and delay or ignore OS updates. You can ignore browser updates. You can ignore native application updates. WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE?
8) Putting redundant functionality into browsers makes them more complicated. By the way, Firefox backtracked on disabling Flash almost immediately after a massive user backlash. If they weren't biased (like the author of this article), they would have made "click to play" a default instead, which not only blocks Flash ads by default but also seriously mitigates any security risks. The vulnerability Firefox blocked Flash for during that day was not proven to be an actively exploited vulnerability anyway.
9) This one is just stupid and needs no rebuttal.
I look forward to reading your correction article. If you are an honest person, you will soon write one to be published and linked to here.
Tweet This