Talk:Adobe Flash/Archive 2

This page is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Swfdec was nominated for deletion. The discussion was closed on 07 March 2013 with a consensus to merge. Its contents were merged into Adobe Flash/Archive 2. The original page is now a redirect to this page. For the contribution history and old versions of the redirected article, please see its history; for its talk page, see here.

Criticism of Adobe Flash was nominated for deletion. The discussion was closed on 03 January 2009 with a consensus to merge. Its contents were merged into Adobe Flash/Archive 2. The original page is now a redirect to this page. For the contribution history and old versions of the redirected article, please see its history; for its talk page, see here.

Flash intro was nominated for deletion. The discussion was closed on 27 October 2010 with a consensus to merge. Its contents were merged into Adobe Flash/Archive 2. The original page is now a redirect to this page. For the contribution history and old versions of the redirected article, please see its history; for its talk page, see here.

Security...

Anyone know if this issue has been resolved? Researcher finds "frighteningly bad" Adobe Flash flaw http://www.scmagazineus.com/researcher-finds-frighteningly-bad-adobe-flash-flaw/article/157734/

--Joe2832 (talk) 22:15, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

Why is there no section on "Security (Issues)" as there are many known and ongoing security risks, breaches and ongoing updates to flash!? This issue hardly gets any mention in the article and there is is no dedicated section for it and for these reasons there should be!!! 14:12, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

Then someone looking for Flash security need not look at wikipedia. hell the rest of the article is such random gibberish, why would you start here?

But to actually answer the question directly, both the issue that was cited, and the preference issue were resolved, but others have cropped up. Macromedia patched their sandbox code, and created site to manage site flash cookies/settings. The reason that no one writes about security is the experts are actually the primary researchers, who can't author here, ~~---- —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.218.217.45 (talk) 19:56, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

Well, Wikipedia is not a directory or indiscriminate list of security issues that come and go so fast. Only major security issues that have affected (or potentially affected) many people are worthy of notice. Otherwise, most security issues which can be ignored when one has a personal firewall must not be covered. They are just junk food for tabloids. Fleet Command (talk) 04:29, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

This article is about the format

The «Flash client security» section currently makes no attempt to distinguish problems with Adobe's player (which makes up the bulk of the section), from other problems (with the format, features, usage, etc).

There are alternative implementations, which should interest me if I am security conscious and need Flash. How many of those CVE entries would apply to me as a Gnash user? The article gives no clue. I guess none. I'm a bit fed up with journalists that don't get this distinction either (also with Java, which has more than the one official implementation), but we can do better.

There is a separate article for Adobe's player — let's elaborate on its bad security record there instead (Adobe Flash Player#Security), and reference it in this article. And (for those journalists), point out that the flaws in other players like Gnash are unrelated to the flaws in Adobe's player.

Stuff not specific to Adobe's player, however, should be in this article, like the one mentioned by Joe2832, and the privacy concern with webcam access from the other article. Anordal (talk) 12:25, 2 August 2013 (UTC)

Moved Adobe Flash Player's implementational vulnerabilities to the article it belongs in, moved the webcam concern in the other direction--84.209.119.158 (talk) 23:11, 13 May 2014 (UTC)

Proprietary?

There's a few mentions of this term in the article. Is this the case any more. SWF is a published format? Doesn't that mean it's not proprietary? Maybe someone who has a clearer understanding of the term and it's usage could check if it applies in this article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Multikev (talk • contribs) 10:22, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

Edited. --Mr2001 (talk) 08:39, 4 July 2010 (UTC)

Incredibly biased & poor quality

The entire "Security" section which is placed near the top of the article contains biased and critical language. This should be cleaned to removed biased language and incorporated into the Criticism section, much of which it duplicates. It feels very out of place at the top of the article and the author has a clear and obvious bias against the technology. Terrible. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.88.136.2 (talk) 20:24, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

I agree. It's already mentioned in the criticism section so I removed it. 155.198.65.73 (talk) 14:52, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

Misleading main description

I added the misleading tag because the article mixes up Flash software (Authoring environement and Player), content and various other formats (such as FLV). Article could be enhanced by describing each element separately and putting emphasis on ther fundamental differences. --69.70.28.178 (talk) 20:57, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

I agree. When I first read this article I couldn't tell if it was talking about the IDE or the Flash technology (format, etc) itself. — ^Fatal Error 03:04, 23 November 2008 (UTC)

Yep, there is an article about Flash Player, and that's where half of this article should go.--EmpMac (talk) 15:44, 29 December 2008 (UTC)

Price?

I can't find anything in there about the price? Is it expensive, cheap, download, retail, etc.? People who are browsing this article are likely to want to find how much it costs. Someone should add this in. 72.148.190.48 (talk) 20:13, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

good idea. The whole concept of a proprietary tool is about the price, and this article is woefully incomplete if it is of denial of this yamaplos 14:41, 25 May 2009 (UTC)

This should not be added.--208.111.6.203 (talk) 05:01, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

why? yamaplos 14:41, 25 May 2009 (UTC)

Good point, well made. 92.8.26.178 (talk) 02:25, 24 December 2008 (UTC)

I don't think price is a standard thing to list for software in Wikipedia, but if you can provides examples of other pages doing this consistently, then it would make sense to add. Beakermeep (talk) 07:04, 10 February 2010 (UTC)

Add something discussing its cost with a source and avoid using an actual dollar value. While it can be important, an actual dollar value may cause confusion if Adobe changes the price. People are quite inattentive and shit bricks and show this pages off as an advertisement instead of an encyclopedia. 24.246.40.139 (talk) 19:02, 22 June 2012 (UTC)

Flash Versions

Flash 9 is out, and Flash 10 is in labs. Can someone update this please? 168.103.172.60 (talk) 00:58, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

Biased beyond belief

This sentence should clarify the issue. "There is a large and vibrant open source community." --208.111.6.203 (talk) —Preceding undated comment was added at 05:03, 18 December 2008 (UTC).

I've removed the offending sentence. Carl.bunderson (talk) 23:42, 26 December 2008 (UTC)

Other icon?

Shouldn't there be a picture of the other icon here?

The one thats at this link: Flash LOGO —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.120.33.49 (talk) 23:50, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

Use of Flash in the film "Waltz With Bashir"

Adobe Flash was used to animate the Golden-Globe-winning "Waltz With Bashir". This is a new use for the program, unlike anything mentioned in the article. How should this information be incorporated? (I don't have any citations in English, but here's one in Hebrew: http://www.zmandigitali.co.il/Magazine/Article.aspx?Big_Article_id=74 )

No, there are plenty of other things that have been animated in flash and they are not listed. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.185.73.179 (talk) 00:19, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

External Links

So at the minute we have three external links: 2 resource, unofficial sites as well as the official Adobe site. Well, just a thought, but surely we should just have more reputale links. I was thinking:

Official Adobe Flash site

http://www.openscreenproject.org, for the Open Screen Project, which it founded.

DMOZ/ODP listing perhaps?

Anyhow, what does everyone else think?

- Jarry1250 ^{(t, c)} 11:57, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

Removed erronious statement

There was a criticism that swf files were large compared to animated gif or APNG. This is the opposite of the truth. Flash files using vector based artwork are remarkably small. While it may be true that animated raster content dumped into an SWF may produce a larger file than one dumped to gif or APNG, this would be a user error and not a problem with Flash file format. Flash compresses raster content as well, it is entirely possible that Flash compression is better (or worse) than GIF or PNG/APNG, although I don't have access to flash to test this at this time. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.202.89.125 (talk) 19:09, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

Silverlight

It's kind of ridiculous that Silverlight is not mentioned as a competitor, and is barely mentioned at all. At least there's a link for it at the bottom of the page. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.112.21.41 (talk) 23:37, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

Redirection?

If you are going to redirect, shouldn't you at least mention that term in the article? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.185.73.179 (talk) 00:16, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

HOLD ON A SEC?

Are you meaning to tell me Flash is the only program in Adobe Creative Suite CS4 that is compatible to Linux? If there are any more they aren't specified at the other Adobe pages, so you might want to check that out. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 125.60.241.244 (talk) 11:23, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

Actually, only one other program from that suite is compatible with Linux and that's Adobe Acrobat Reader. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.192.11.126 (talk) 14:13, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

"flash cookies existed previous to the Local Shared Object"

Really? In what form? How were they implemented if not as LSOs? I can find no mention of this anywhere on the web. This needs to be explained in the article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.33.254.177 (talk) 16:03, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

Open Screen Project link

The link to the Open Screen Project redirects back to that section on this page. I have removed the link for now. If anybody knows anything about the Open Screen Project and creates the article, please add it back. - Slithytove2 (talk) 04:04, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

Merge with page titled "Adobe Flash Player"?

Agree I suggest merging these 2 pages. This article mentions a lot about Adobe Flash Player. If you type "flash player" (without the speech marks) into the Wikipedia search, you are directed to the page "Adobe Flash Player", only without the criticisms lol! TurboForce (talk) 17:59, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

Not sure Seems like they should either be merged, or more clearly differentiated. This could be handled by removing content from this page that relates just to the flash player implementation and put it on the player page, and likewise remove content from the player page that relates to flash in general. Since the Adobe player has been the only implementation of flash for much of its history, seems like it may be difficult to separate the two.

Not sure Either way would be fine - but at the moment the two articles aren't clearly distinct enough. Zodon (talk) 01:07, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

Disagree I think the new articles should remain separate. Think about how each version of Windows has its own article. If the material on the Adobe Flash Player page was merged with the Adobe Flash page, it might become too cluttered. Especially, seeing that there is a lot of information on the Flash Player page. I would think differently if there wasn't that much information, but there is. --Jesant13 (talk) 17:01, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

Disagree They should remain separate and there should be a separate entry for Adobe Flash Professional. Flash is just a technology platform. There's the player, the IDE (Flash Professional), the movie format, etc. They are all a part of the Flash technology platform. Also, in the box in the top right, we should link to this page instead of the IDE: <http://www.adobe.com/flashplatform/>. There are many other tools used to create Flash, like Flex and Swish.--Chmod 777 (talk) 09:49, 20 March 2010 (UTC)

Disagree DO NOT MERGE. We do not need a bigger web page. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 152.31.193.40 (talk) 18:28, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

Disagree As dude above mentions, Flash = the IDE, Flash Player is something else. Both pages have information targeted at two clear different people - developers and users. Absolutely disagree. - Avindra talk / contribs 20:41, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

Disagree Flash and flash player are very different applications and should not be grouped together.

Inadequate sentence

The article contains this completely vague and misleading statement:

"The performance of the Adobe Flash Player on computers running Windows, Mac OSX, and Linux is inadequate."

First of all, inadequate for what? For medical imaging applications? You can't just say something is "inadequate" without saying what it's inadequate for. Second of all, if you read the ars technica article that this statement references (footnote 48), you will find that the article states anything but. Although the article admits that the Linux community "reviles" Flash (probably true), and that there are some crashes and other problems on Linux, Adobe has addressed some Linux issues. Meanwhile the article states that Flash 10 has dramatically improved performance over Flash 9 in both Windows and MacOS. The article doesn't talk about it's "adequacy" and in fact is overall a positive review of Flash performance.

I'd like to rewrite the offending sentence so as to more accurately reflect the actual content of the article, since the article does have a good amount of important information about Flash. Jscherer (talk) 17:19, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

- Response to Jscherer's accusations (4th Feb 2010):

The article very clearly shows that Adobe Flash benchmarks for Macs are horrendous. For example, the CPU load for viewing videos on Hulu using Flash 10 is 800-1200% higher on Macs than on Windows machines! For Youtube videos the CPU load is 667-1167% higher on Macs! These figures may constitute an "improvement," but there is clearly something very, very wrong when the difference is that large. The CPU loads are crippling on computers a few years old. I don't know how more blatant it could be that Adobe Flash performance is abysmal on Macs in comparison to Windows.

Here is the full quote from the article about the state of Flash on Linux according to its community: "Flash is widely reviled by Linux users, who almost universally disdain its proprietary licensing model, lousy performance, excessive resource consumption, poor platform integration, and abysmal lack of stability." Note how the latter part of that quote is quite a lot worse than "some Linux issues," and it is written in a matter of fact tone.

I will leave it to others to judge who is being biased or misleading. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.192.11.126 (talk) 23:51, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

I think it's perfectly OK to place information about Mac OSX performance as long as it's sourced but we should also look into the reason for the performance degredation. Adobe claims it to be a lack of the correct API's from Apple. I think putting both sides in would be good in maintaining NPOV -- Beakermeep (talk) 07:06, 10 February 2010 (UTC)

Criticism

Today's contribution by 24.181.25.214 needs a merciless re-edit. Although it contains true information with proof, the writer's strong opinion shines through and destroys credibility. It also looks "blown up". Strip it down to the bare facts, maybe further. I didn't like its re-prioritization of criticism either. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.241.203.56 (talk) 12:24, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

Agreed, working on it Beakermeep (talk) 04:54, 10 February 2010 (UTC)

-- Update: I made the edit but it was auto removed by Cluebot, I'm going to request this page gets protection. Beakermeep (talk) 05:49, 10 February 2010 (UTC)

--- Update two: having trouble getting this revert to stick. I had to do a manual revert to [1] Then was mislabeled by cluebot as page blanking and again by Aroncrick.

This revert should stay though (imo) as it has a much more neutral pov and even links to another section regarding privacy. Beakermeep (talk) 06:34, 10 February 2010 (UTC)

The Freedom of the Web represents opinions of notable people, published in notable sources, and I think that they argumentation seems quite and reasonable enough to stay. I am deeply convinced that removing this section increases POV issues of this article. Criticism section after all should represent the criticism of Flash, summarizing various negative opinions. Audriusa (talk) 11:03, 11 February 2010 (UTC)

The section about "freedom of the web" has existed since February 2009 when the "Criticism of Adobe Flash" page was merged in. It has been revised practically countless times for a year (by me among others), so it surprises me that the quality suddenly was so bad it all had to be deleted. I suspect it was thoughtlessly removed as part of the cleanup of 24.181.25.214's submission because it stood below the poorly written "Privacy" section. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.241.203.38 (talk) 11:59, 11 February 2010 (UTC)

Yes, indeed it may have bee accidentally removed. I tried to keep everything prior to his edit but I had to do it all by hand as there were a ton of edits since 24.181.25.214's vandalism. Please feel free to add it back in, it was never my intention to sweep up all of that Beakermeep (talk) 03:17, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

(wikipedia is not a) howto

The Adobe_Flash#Competition Competition / "Format and plug-in" paragraph looks very howto-ish. I dont' mind personally, but other howto-looking material was removed from other articles, so I miss consistency. --Xerces8 (talk) 18:51, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

Suggesting a major rewrite

This article has many problems that have built up over time. There seems to be a POV bias in many sections from both supporters and detractors. Additionally there is much information that is out of date.

I would like to suggest that a serious discussion be started as to what kind of information this page should contain in a major rewrite, and then we might consider adding it to protected if we continue to see this kind of vandalism as we have seen recently after Steve Jobs' comments. Please let me know your thoughts/ideas

Also, I have removed the "film portal" information from the talk page as I don't think Adobe Flash really counts as a part of film making. If anyone disagrees, please state why it should belong in that category. Thank you Beakermeep (talk) 06:46, 10 February 2010 (UTC)

Here are some very preliminary thoughts on possible sections. This shouldn't seem like anything too drastic, but I think this might be a bit more encyclopedic than a bunch of praises and complaints that we've seen.

History

- Future Splash player
- Macromedia
- Flash 3
- Flash 4
- Flash 5, Introduction of ActionScript
- Flash 6 (MX)
- Flash 7, ActionScript 2 ?
- Flash 8
- Adobe purchase?
- Flash 9, ActionScript 3
- Flash 10

Usage

- video
- games
- animation
- advertising
- mobile
- kiosks

Ubiquity

- What browsers/platforms support it.
- 64 bit support (with maybe a see-also to criticisms)

Programming Languages

- ActionScript
- MXML (flex)
- Bytecode/Remoting  (maybe not noteworthy enough?)

Open Source Relationships

- SWF format and it's mixed bag 
- Flex SDK
- Video codecs?

Competition

- Silverlite
- JavaFX
- JavaScript / CSS / HTML 5
- Open Source

Criticicms

 - Security
- Privacy
- CPU usage
- Web standards

Ubiquity / Platform Support

Worth noting that aside from performance differences, overall functionality also varies widely from platform to platform. The 32 bit x86 Windows binary appears to be the most feature-complete, with the x86 MacOSX and Linux binaries following closely behind. All other platforms are lacking the latest FlashPlayer 10 support (even though they are labeled as version 10.x) and are e.g. unable to play videos from Hulu.com and other sites that require FlashPlayer 10 for access. (The Linux x86-64 player also lacks this support.)

Also worth noting that the rtmpdump project's software works fine for all of these platforms, and successfully communicates with all of these video sites. I.e., Flash Video is better supported by open source than by Adobe themselves. Highlandsun (talk) 06:59, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Flash component

Flash component redirects here but there is no mention of it. That seems odd. Hutcher (talk) 05:36, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

Release date

I'm not up on wiki-code enough to want to make a direct edit to the page, but the Authoring Tools > History section lists a "release date" of April 12, 2010. This is incorrect, that's the date when Adobe will formally announce/launch CS5. The "release date" when the software will go on sale has not been announced yet. Source: http://blogs.adobe.com/jnack/2010/03/cs5.html (and many adobe marketing pages). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 202.32.93.230 (talk) 08:01, 6 April 2010 (UTC)

Incomplete information in section 'Flash blocking in web browsers'?

Konqueror version 3.5.10 does not require clicking on Flash content before playing it, this is not the default behaviour, and actually I could not manage to configure Konqueror to act this way. So, this information is either related to some other version of Konqueror (which should be stated) or it is completely wrong (and should be removed). At least, a source should be given (hopefully something that may be of help in configuring Konqueror to show this very desirable behaviour...). BTW, the corresponding articles in German, Dutch or Russian do not state this (in fact, none of these has a section on blocking at all). 132.195.109.57 (talk) 10:59, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

The correct terminology, I believe, is "Delayed Flash Interactivity," Because you aren't blocking flash if you can see the flash content but cannot interact with it without clicking. 24.240.67.71 (talk) 03:01, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

To toggle the desired behavior in version 4.3: Settings -> Configure Konqueror -> Plugins -> Load plugins on demand only. I haven't used Flash long enough to know when this feature was introduced, except I remember it from using Swfdec back in 2007 (might just have been Swfdec). If you can't find the setting in Konq 3.5.10, I suggest we say version 4, without being more specific.--129.241.30.66 (talk) 22:26, 15 May 2010 (UTC)

Steve Jobs' War on Flash

Can an expert on the subject please include a section describing Steve Jobs' attack on flash? This would either fit into the criticism section, or could be a new article entirely. The one sentence devoted to Jobs' criticisms seems hardly enough. <<((:-:))>>0X0<<((:-:))>> (talk) 06:05, 10 April 2010 (UTC)

There isn't anything much to add because that's almost everything Steve Jobs has said about Flash. He mentioned that it shortens battery life and it's buggy. He also mentioned that the standards his engineers co-developed (HTML 5 and H.264) are better than Flash. He obviously doesn't know enough about Flash to say anything more. There has been some speculation that Steve Jobs wants to move everyone to an H.264 codec so he can increase sales in his iTunes video store. But that's all speculation. Most of the press lately has been speculation about the real reason Steve Jobs seems to dislike Flash. But, again, it's just speculation at this point. Steve Jobs hasn't written anything authoritative or comprehensive on Flash, and that's why the section is so short.--Chmod 777 (talk) 06:22, 10 April 2010 (UTC)

Flash Professional/8?

was Flash 8 the last version of the Flash Editor that was produced by Macromedia? Wikipedia doesn't seem to note this anywhere. I really need to know, as I am thinking of purchasing old Flash software so that I do not have a limit on how many times I can install the software. (With Flash CS3, I could only install the software 15 different times or so before I had to ask Adobe for an extension, this is of course because I didn't deactivate each copy I installed before reformatting my computer. Adobe is hesitant on granting an extension as well, I was lucky.) 24.240.67.71 (talk) 02:59, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Nevermind, it still activates over the Internet. 24.240.67.71 (talk) 03:42, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

Flash Player keeps freezing on facebook apps.

I had Vista 32 bit and had the same problem. I updated to Windows 7 yesterday after having my hard drive replaced by Dell and the freezing is worse than before.

Previously, I found some instructions online telling me how to load it with Vista 32 and for awhile it seemed to be working. Then my hard drive crashed and I had to replace it. When I got it back yesterday, I also updated to the Windows 7 and had to reload the flash player as well.

Can you provide me with a way to stop this from happening? It is absolutely driving me CRAZY! My email address is sandyp4209@gmail.com.

I appreciate your assistance. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.179.1.29 (talk) 03:30, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

This is not the right forum. Wikipedia is not a howto. Please ask somewhere else.--79.161.192.128 (talk) 11:52, 17 June 2010 (UTC)

Competition

What about the competition Flash now has with HTML 5? —Preceding unsigned comment added by GTAddict (talk • contribs) 06:31, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

How does Adobe make money on Flash???

Can somebody that knows please add a sentence or two, or a paragraph, to this Wikipedia entry and tell us how Adobe makes money from Flash? Do they charge webpage owners who have a Flash object a few pennies every time it is accessed??? If so, how much is being normally charged? A penny? Five pennies? A hundredth of a penny? Also, the Open Screen Project seems to indicate that "licensing fees" are going to be abolished - if that is so, how will Adobe make money with Flash??? Thanks in advance to anybody that knows. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.129.158.40 (talk) 21:14, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

Adobe sells programs that make flash. It makes money on those programs. There's no licensing charge for flash. The open screen project removed all licensing fees in 2008. Even then, I think the licensing fees were for companies that distributed the flash player, not web-site owners.--Best Dog Ever (talk) 00:32, 23 July 2010 (UTC)

Flash blocking in some browsers - why???

Can somebody please add a sentence or two to the paragraph re Flash blocking in some browers - why would a brower, or a browser user want to block Adobe Flash? Thanks in advance to anybody that knows. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.129.158.40 (talk) 21:14, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

Lots of people have many different reasons. Your best bet would be to find some flash-blocking software and look for reviews of it. That is, the PCWorld "editor's choice" pick (an example award I made up) of FlashBlockerPro or Funky FlashFree Browser (two pieces of software I made up as examples) or article would probably say "this is a great piece of software for users who XXXXX and it helps avoid YYYYY"--there's your reliable source analysis of why this would be beneficial. I could tell you why I might use it, but that would be my personal opinion, not viable article content. DMacks (talk) 21:33, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

How is this the "CS5 Application" page.

By clicking on the links via the "Adobe Creative Suite" tab, all of the pages except this one are relavent to the series. The page on Photoshop shows release history of the program, additions to its source code, ect... and is not about the type of file it saves. The same is for all other programs, pages like Adobe Soundbooth don't even mention a file type at all. This page - however - Is not even about Adobe Flash Professional CS5, one of many applications to make .SWF files by Adobe (it exists, is Red and contains Fl as its two letters). The page on Microsoft Word is about the program and .DOCX is about the format. The same is for Windows Media Player and .WMA. Why is Adobe Flash about the file, but not the program. There is no page about the application, its features, etc. May I request a name change to, or merge with, .SWF so an article on Adobe Flash CS5 be created? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ipfreely555 (talk • contribs) 13:13, 11 September 2010 (UTC)

Merger proposal: FutureSplash Animator

I propose that FutureSplash Animator, which is a non-notable article should be merged into this article, under section "Adobe Flash Professional". Fleet Command (talk) 06:08, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

No one wants to talk about it? Very well then; per Wikipedia:Silence and consensus, I am proceeding with the merger. Fleet Command (talk) 06:06, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

Historical question

A friend mentioned Shockwave and I came to the Wiki to read that article. It states that Shockwave is essentially a browser plug-in system for playing Director, and then mentions differences with Flash. So then I clicked over here to see why they have both.

Shockwave was released in 1995, but they bought Flash in 1996. Why would they do this? I don't know, because neither article offers a comparison or any other reason for this.

Anyone know?

Maury Markowitz (talk) 20:36, 29 October 2010 (UTC)

Adobe Shockwave and Adobe Flash are two different things. Macromedia created Shockwave in 1995; but in 1996, it purchased a company called FutureWave Software and with it acquired what we currently know as Adobe Flash.

However, Macromedia did something very comic too: It added the prefix Shockwave to everything it produced for web! So, if you read Shockwave Flash somewhere, know that it is Adobe Flash.

As for their differences, looks like Shockwave is mean to be more heavy-duty while Flash is meant to be used for more lightweight tasks. It is possible to create complex computer games with Adobe Director and Adobe Shockwave. Fleet Command (talk) 06:53, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

Related file formats and extensions

I moved the table of related file formats and extensions from this article to SWF. For a general audience, it seems like too much technical detail for the main article. It's a little hard to tell, but it seems like the content of Adobe Flash#Format and SWF should be refactored, to more fully flesh out SWF. This article should retain a summary, with less detail. --Pnm (talk) 01:31, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

Totally cool. However it might be nice to distinguish between the flash application file extension and the output file names. The flash application file extension is .fla. Nowhere in this article is that mentioned. Given that the article is about Flash and that Flash in all it's output forms (.flv .swf etc) COME from the application file it might be a good thing to clarify here what is the originating file format that contains all the source material. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 174.91.158.167 (talk) 16:05, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

Structure

I made some changes to improve the structure which are documented in the edit summaries. I made no substantive changes, and in fact changed as little text as possible. --Pnm (talk) 04:53, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

simple

There is no mention of the word 'uninstall' within the article, is this because wikipedia is not a how-to or because of bias 80.42.193.4 (talk) 11:13, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

Because this article is not about "uninstalling". It is about a file format. In addition, uninstalling Adobe Flash Player is no different that uninstalling any other Windows product. Are you sure you are not in the wrong talk page? Fleet Command (talk) 09:10, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

B class

This article appears valid enough for WikiProject apple inc. to upgrade C class into B class! Thomas (talk) 20:34, 28 June 2011 (UTC)

Erroneous link "Detect if Flash Player is installed"?

Is the external link "Detect if Flash Player is installed", which points to the address http://ipaddress.net16.net/, correct? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 109.204.227.66 (talk) 06:52, 20 July 2011 (UTC)

I have investigated the link, and it does indicate if Flash Player is installed. It also shows your IP address and some other data about you. I would not consider it a recommended or preferred link. The official Adobe link is http://www.adobe.com/software/flash/about, and I have replaced the first link with it. My rationale is that the first link does not have troubleshooting or support pages available if the player isn't installed properly. The Adobe link is also more likely to be maintained than an anonymously-hosted webpage. _{Senator2029 | talk | contributions} 01:23, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

Adobe Flash Cookies are a Threat to Computer Security

It is possible for web-sites to use Adobe Flash Cookies as a means of tracking User's movements. Deleting "normal" cookies and even changing IP Addresses is not enough; one must also delete the Adobe Flash cookies. Adobe Flash is a direct threat to any User that values anonymity and privacy. This information should be included in the article. ````Jonny Quick

First off, Jonny Quick, let's calm down here. Adding information to an article in this manner is inflammatory and distracts readers from the real facts. See this previous discussion. Second, the existence and functionality of LSOs are already known to computer experts (who create security software) and general users (who install that security software to protect themselves. _{Senator2029 | talk | contribs} 20:57, 19 September 2011 (UTC)

Jonny Quick (talk) 02:13, 13 October 2011 (UTC)It's a question of "What's most important to most people?" It's nice that "Computer Experts" are aware of the threat Adobe Flash poses to the average person and their internet anonymity, but most people do not. Most people think that by deleting their "normal" cookies, they have somehow erased whatever identifying information that might be contained on their computer. I also disagree with your assertion that my point is "inflamatory"; it's simply true. The fact that it is an alarming truth is no reflection on the person that presents it. Your statement supports my general point with your reference to "LSO's". What's an "LSO" ? I don't know. Most people don't know either. The fact that you might know what an "LSO" is does not give you the right to hide critical information from the Public, just because you and a few "computer experts" may have already decided this information is... what? "fully explored" ? "already dealt with" ? "something that most people don't need to know" ? If the latter, I disagree. People's right to privacy and internet anonymity have been steadily and incrementally eroded since it was invented and the existance of these cookies and your apparant attempt at suppressing the information regarding their existance and what they can be used for (besides limited to Adobe-relevant functions only) is yet another example of the larger dynamic. Why didn't you address the larger question, but instead choose to make an ad hominum attack on myself and my "inflammatory" comments. I'm not calling you names, so knock it off or I'll report you.````Jonny Quick

Local Connection Object

After discovering that the open source "Gnash" alternative to Flash Player contained the option "Disable Local Connection object", I did a little research, and was a bit surprised to find no information on Wikipedia. Could someone with more knowledge about these objects add a section on them to the article?

I did do a little research, and consulted the following webpages:

http://help.adobe.com/en_US/Director/11.5/UsingScripting/WSc3ff6d0ea77859461172e0811d50262762-7f1c.html http://help.adobe.com/en_US/Director/11.0/11_Using_Flash_Interactive_025.html http://livedocs.adobe.com/flex/3/html/17_Networking_and_communications_4.html

In the case of the third of these, the section "Connecting to SWF documents in different domains" worries me. Again, posing my question to someone with enough technical knowledge of Flash: Does this allow Flash Player to replicate a "third party cookies" effect?92.30.162.91 (talk) 22:13, 15 October 2011 (UTC)

Accessibility Criticism

I have a feeling I've heard criticism of flash on the basis that essential content is put into flash animation and video and therefore not available to accessibility readers - undoing the advantages of a level playing field that a largely text-based web had created: I think it should be easy to find references but I have young-ish children on half-term to care for! Kathybramley (talk) 11:13, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

Flash article redirects here.

redirected to Adobe flash. --182.12.66.142 (talk) 12:17, 29 May 2012 (UTC) Roland

No it doesn't.--JohnBlackburne^words_deeds 13:39, 29 May 2012 (UTC)

....!!

There is not redirect! Huh... I not Create it again!!! Mmhh.... :-( — Preceding unsigned comment added by 182.4.226.107 (talk) 13:12, 1 June 2012 (UTC)

Version history table

Let's have a "Version history" table, using Template:Version, much like those of the Dreamweaver and Firefox Articles. What do you say? Anyone who happens to know the version history of Flash, it would be nice of you to contribute to such a table. The Mysterious El Willstro (talk) 02:32, 24 December 2012 (UTC)

hi — Preceding unsigned comment added by 117.204.48.95 (talk) 11:02, 24 April 2013 (UTC)

Old Info: Revised market penetration section

There was a more elaborate paragraph on market penetration, but the referenced links (all five of them!) have changed and no longer support the claims. The Adobe pages all redirect to this one, which no longer has the per-version market penetration charts -- there's just some marketing copy there now! Even the referenced Adobe blog articles are gone. The statowl.com link just says "Sorry, no results were found for the report you were attempting to run." (That whole site seems dead.)

I did find a different reference to their market numbers on the Adobe site, but it's from 2011. ^[1]. I'm sure these numbers are much lower now (or else they wouldn't have taken down their main chart pages!) but since I don't have any links supporting that claim, I'm just going to link to this article, and say "In 2011, Adobe claimed..." since at least it still exists.

Also removing reference to support for desktop platforms that have been dropped by Adobe, such as OS/2 and Solaris.

Heimburg (talk) 19:35, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

Is the Wayback Machine any help with recovering copies of the old refs? - David Gerard (talk) 20:31, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

buggy

why is there no section on Flash's problems, on its endless bugginess? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:6:5600:5AC:B0D0:A83B:7B2F:BB59 (talk) 08:16, 26 April 2014 (UTC)

Adobe lineage

The info box at the top right lists the developer of Flash as being Adobe, "formerly Macromedia". While it is factually true that Macromedia was the developer of Flash before Adobe bought out Macromedia and thus became the next developer, the statement implies that perhaps Adobe itself was formerly known as Macromedia, which is not true. There should be a better way to say this to clear up this ambiguity. 98.230.199.85 (talk) 06:33, 5 June 2014 (UTC)

Fixed Codename Lisa (talk) 14:22, 5 June 2014 (UTC)

attempts to prevent reader confusion about adobe/shockwave flash (with and without "player")

I'm completely confused by the recent revert. I specifically accepted the correction of my error (which had consisted of saying that Adobe Flash [instead of Adobe Flash Player] is still called Shockwave Flash in Firefox) and used that friendly correction in my new edit, which was not at all the same. On the contrary, this new edit correctly said When this article talks about the file format Shockwave Flash, this should not be confused with the Adobe Flash Player plugin, called "Shockwave Flash" in Firefox for historical reasons. Perhaps the reverter would prefer a shorter addition to the hatnote, changing the current

Not to be confused with Adobe Flash Player or Adobe Flash Professional.

to

Not to be confused with Adobe Flash Player (called "Shockwave Flash" in Firefox) or Adobe Flash Professional.

and adding the longer clarification into the article when it talks about Shockwave Flash?

Maybe at least some experts on this topic have no idea how confused almost all normal people are by the terminology chaos around Flash technology. --Espoo (talk) 16:34, 18 June 2014 (UTC)

Bias and criticism

Gosh! What a lot of negative bias this article had and probably still has. A good 70% of the content was simply complaining about missing features, broken features, outdated bugs and shortcomings, security issues, accessibility issues, and so on.

I've moved all of the obviously negative content into a new section called "Criticism". Please do NOT simply move everything into sections falsely titled "User experience" or "Availability". Sections that discuss the feature set of the platform and available software (authoring tools, playback tools) have been moved just below the discussion on formats supported (FLA, SWF, etc).

I've merged and cleaned up what content I can, and attempted to add some meagre information on application development on Flash, since the entire article simply goes on rambling about "animation" and "graphics" and treats "Flash content" as if it were simply "Toon Boom for the web". Flash is similar to the .NET platform in that both support app development, and Flash/AIR takes it further by making apps run multi-platform. All of this is not covered in the article.

I don't know where to begin, but the negative bias is obvious, and the lack of information takes this bias further by offering an incomplete and inappropriate image of the Flash platform and the possibilities offered by the same.

Wonderfl ^(reply) 06:28, 14 December 2014 (UTC)

History

What is the meaning and origin of the word Flash? Blonkm (talk) 21:58, 4 January 2015 (UTC) because it's fast in performance and production. 90.204.225.22 (talk) 04:30, 19 March 2016 (UTC)

Update to Adobe Flash security section needed?

For the third time in two weeks, Adobe Flash has had to patch a Zero-day exploit. I don't see anything about that in the article. My source is here: http://krebsonsecurity.com/2015/02/yet-another-flash-patch-fixes-zero-day-flaw/ --108.85.149.233 (talk) 08:52, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

It also had a security update today, but I'm not sure that a detailed log of each incident belongs in an encyclopedia article, or the article for just about every software product would be filled with exploit notices. Perhaps a generalized note would be appropriate in the Implentantional vulnerabilities section. — 68.165.195.73 (talk) 21:39, 23 June 2015 (UTC)

Complete overhaul

This article looked like it had been written in the late nineties. Every para only spoke of creating "animations" and "interactive animations" with Flash. Fast forward to 2015. Flash supports mobile games using Adobe AIR and Stage3D (Angry Birds and FarmVille are built with Flash, BTW). Flash supports apps with Flash Builder, FlashDevelop and other IDEs. Flash is a huge platform like Microsoft .NET that can be used to build apps, games, tools and whatnot.

Demise? Everything in the article seems to show "Flash is dead". Idiots. More than 1 billion video games powered by AIR have been downloaded from app stores. Newgrounds is a hugely popular website dedicated to online Flash gaming. AdventureQuest is another good example of the popularity of Flash-based online gaming.

For everyone who seems to misunderstand how "alive and kickin'" Flash is, I recommend reading these:

I've therefore updated the lead, fleshed out a complete history section and more, to indicate that Flash has been, can be, and will be used to build apps, games and a ton of more content. Keep rockin' with Flash.

Wonderfl ^(reply) 08:46, 14 May 2015 (UTC)

New sections

I'm on a roll. 50+ consecutive revisions later, you have the following new/heavily improved sections:

Feel free to expand, improve or fix 'em. Section blanking will not be taken lightly.

Wonderfl ^(reply) 09:03, 14 May 2015 (UTC)

Availability

Why on earth was the Availability info under the Criticism section? Flash is actively developed for desktop (FP, AIR) and mobile (AIR). Of course, Flash websites cannot play on mobile devices and that is appropriately indicated with another section under Criticism.

Before I moved the "device support" info into the new Availability section, it looked like FP/AIR was completely unavailable on both PC and mobile. Is this done on purpose to support the "anti-flash" sentiment that has been floating around for some time? (OccupyFlash? "Please uninstall Flash from your web browser because Flash is dead"). Ridiculous.

Wonderfl ^(reply) 09:39, 14 May 2015 (UTC)

Outdated Logo

The logo shown is outdated. The new one is darker. Could someone please fix that? --DeskOS (talk) 15:14, 21 June 2015 (UTC)

Is it? I just compared it to the icon of the Flash player on my machine and they are identical, as best I can tell. Do you have a link for the one you are thinking of?--JohnBlackburne^words_deeds 15:34, 21 June 2015 (UTC)

You are right. The files on my computer were a little out of date. More importantly the logo on Adobe's web site has changed, as as the image hosted on their web site [2] which ours is based on. I have updated the image accordingly on commons. It may take a little while for the article to update.--JohnBlackburne^words_deeds 20:05, 26 June 2015 (UTC)

server 2012 Flash

In server 2012 / IE11 (and possibly others) flash is installed by default by turning on Desktop Experience. Where would this information be best included in the article? http://www.electronerdz.com/2014/10/adobe-flash-on-windows-server-2012/

https://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/windowsserver/en-US/4a178833-1fe0-4cec-81b0-bb8769f0ea03/how-do-i-install-flash-player-in-server-2012?forum=winserver8gen Unconventional2 (talk) 14:12, 10 July 2015 (UTC)

External links modified

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Upcoming name-change

See: http://www.wired.com/2015/12/adobe-flash-is-dead-in-name-only Kdammers (talk) 21:49, 1 December 2015 (UTC)

As of 8th Feb 2016, Adobe have officially renamed/repackaged Flash as Animate CC on Creative Cloud, therefore this article (and presumable the Animate one) need amending accordingly, but this is probably a bigger job than I am able to do. EDIT: I see this has been sort of done on the Animate article, but it is still very unclear on this page that any change has occurred.Dutpar (talk) 12:40, 11 February 2016 (UTC)

Security

Have merged. I suspect someone in the past wanted separate Flash the protocol from Flash Player, but that wasn't clear, or being followed. Snori (talk) 07:13, 11 February 2016 (UTC)

Biased and outdated

As previously stated in this talk page the article is biased and needs to be updated, which is why I added the appropriate tags.

As random examples, the See also section starts off with "Creative Cloud criticism" instead, say, "Creative Cloud" itself. There's a one paragraph section to promote HTML5 as an alternative. Highlighted quotes of opinions in the criticism section.

In the security section, also under criticism, it says "For many years Adobe Flash Player's security record[121] has led many security experts to recommend against installing the player, or to block Flash content. [122][123]" But the source says something very different "Expert says Adobe Flash policy is risky."

The other source is a guy writing about it on Internet Explorer! Windows and Mac have had zero-day exploits too, why doesn't he recommend throwing your computer out the window?

See what has been said before in the talk page, read the article, there's no doubt it's biased. 2001:8A0:4306:F901:4DAA:CA0E:710D:F26 (talk) 15:08, 5 April 2016 (UTC)

I just removed four, yes, four sections of "criticism." Unsourced, original research (could very well be tagged) including categorizing a mere description of how Flash works as "criticism," repeated information... When you check this article for neutrality, it's very important to note all the work that has already been made. Since currently it doesn't look as bad, but it's still based on an originally biased article that was just touched up to make it more tolerable. 2001:8A0:4325:9401:B0EF:9576:1E2E:975E (talk) 14:30, 6 April 2016 (UTC)

Removed a statement that wasn't explicitly criticism, but even worse, not corresponding to the source. The article stated that "Google announced that they would soon stop accepting ads made with Flash content due to the dangers of "malvertising" - malicious content delivered through advertising networks." This had a source and that source in that respect only read "Google said: “To enhance the browsing experience for more people on more devices, the Google Display Network and DoubleClick Digital Marketing are now going 100% HTML5.” The article is plain out lying, saying one thing, and sourcing something else! Compare the original sentence and how they distorted it completely, there was no mention of "malvertising" whatsoever. 2001:8A0:4325:9401:B0EF:9576:1E2E:975E (talk) 14:41, 6 April 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for your edits. The article is biased against Flash but that's the best we can get on the politically-correct WP. There's a large anti-Flash sentiment going 'round, for whatever reasons, propagated by whatever party, to whatever end. Some say Adobe wanted to kill it from the beginning, which is why it bought of Macromedia and instantly killed Freehand, and doubled the price of Illustrator within 3 years of the acquisition. Note how all of Macromedia's products have not seen any much improvement ever since it went into the hands of Adobe. Dreamweaver? outdated. Director? outdated. Coldfusion? dead. Anyway that's another topic. Keep improving whatever you feel. All I ask is you preserve this one important section : Adobe_Flash#Mobile_support. Its still correct and needs more attention. Adobe AIR needs and HTML5 must be recommended for new mobile projects and websites. Wonderfl ^(reply) 17:55, 10 April 2016 (UTC)

"There's a large anti-Flash sentiment going 'round, for whatever reasons, propagated by whatever party, to whatever end."

Disingenuous would be the understatement of the year to describe this assertion. Why would anybody wonder why Adobe Flash is widely criticized. Every time I use it, I am informed that my version is obsolete and needs to be updated. The versions become progressively larger to the point at which one wonders what all is in them. I finally just removed all flash versions from my system and am using alternative players instead. ---Dagme (talk) 14:13, 9 May 2016 (UTC)

Article is outdated

I removed the "outdated" notice above the lead. As such, I have already been updating the article to reflect changes (eg. Adobe Flash rebranding as Adobe Animate). Nothing major happened in 2016. If anyone has specific requests for missing content, please add your requests here instead of adding an ambiguous "outdated" notice to the top of the article. Wonderfl ^(reply) 16:14, 24 October 2016 (UTC)

^ http://www.adobe.com/mena_en/products/flashplatformruntimes/statistics.html

[1] ttp://www.adobe.com/mena_en/products/flashplatformruntimes/statistics.html

[1]