[mvdtnz]

The overwhelming majority of computer users simply DO NOT CARE about things like "install a binary blob" or "free-software hostile vendor" or "non-existent Linux support". They installed the plugin and got a way better experience.

> Flash was a constant embarassment of RCEs vulns

I wonder if anyone has done an analysis of Flash versus Javascript (or other browser technology) vulns over their respective lifespans.

[kstrauser]

If Flash hadn’t sucked harder than a neutron star, that would be an argument to have. People install lots of proprietary plugins today. Flash would’ve been just one more on that list.

But it did suck, and badly. It crashed the browser all the freaking time, often hard enough to crash the whole OS. (“But the OS shouldn’t let that happen!” True, although even with that said, it was in the short list of common apps capable of crashing that badly. It was almost a talent.)

Flash was horrid. While idea was fine, the implementation was terrible. No mobile OS could have run it solidly and without sucking batteries like no tomorrow. Flash in the right hands could have been nice. We’ll never know because that never happened.

[radley]

> No mobile OS could have run it solidly and without sucking batteries like no tomorrow.

By the time mobile could run Flash, it was too late. Between Apple & Adobe, it had no shot of making the transition. But before that, Flash was pretty amazing.

[kstrauser]

It was never amazing. It was adequate to give creative people a way to work around its many shortcomings and make something cool anyway. The tech and the implementation was awful, and all credit goes to people who still managed to shine through it.

For all the many reasons people might dislike Apple, they were 100% in the right on this topic. Flash needed to die. It got everyone to collectively push the web standard technologies ahead into something way, way better.