Breaking News: Adobe just made an announcement on the official Air and Flash Player Team Blog that changes are coming to Flash Player on Linux. The company has partnered up with Google to “develop a single modern API for hosting plugins within the browser”. PPAPI (code-named Pepper), adds a layer between the browser and underlying operating system that “abstracts away differences between browser and operating system implementations”.
Google will provide a PPAPI implementation later this year for all 32-bit and 64-bit platforms that are supported by the company’s Chrome web browser. All Chrome version on all operating systems, and not only Linux, will receive an update that implements the PPAPI-based Flash Player.
Changes do not end here though for Linux users. Adobe notes that the Flash Player browser plugin for Linux will only be available via the PPAPI plugin that is part of the Google Chrome browser distribution. Adobe will not provide direct Flash Player browser plugin downloads anymore on their site, nor will it update Flash Player on Linux anymore with non-security related updates.
This basically means that Flash Player 11.2 is the latest cross-browser version of the browser plugin for Linux. While it is theoretically possible that other browser developers will implement Pepper, it could also mean the beginning of the end for Flash on Linux. Mozilla for instance states on MozillaWiki that it “s not interested in or working on Pepper at this time”.
Adobe will support Flash Player 11.2 on Linux for five years after release with security updates. Linux users have five years that they can continue to use Flash contents in other browsers besides Chrome. After that, they either have to hope that other browser developers have implemented Pepper by now, ignore Flash from that moment on, or switch to Chrome when they want to access Flash contents in their operating system.
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This is a bad move for Adobe since they’ve already lost most of the iOS community when Apple refused to support flash. I expect that bit by bit, flash is going to get phased out from mainstream use, even if the alternative, HTML5, isn’t nearly as mature or convenient as flash is now.
HTML5 FTW
This sucks. I was already disappointed by Adobe with their updates policy and absence of Flash plugin for my Samsung Galaxy Gio smartphone for it’s processor (there is information on XDA Developers forum that flash can be provided with some hacks).
Now they again show us the need of freeing ourselves from vendor lock-in and copyright lock-in and moving to open standards and libraries. I hope that in some years from now we’ll get rid of Adobe.
“Don’t be evil. We believe strongly that in the long term, we will be better served — as shareholders and in all other ways — by a company that does good things for the world.”
Like, going into comedy?
Willy,
who knows? Maybe they just found a good trick to fool and discredit Flash in favor of HTML5? ;)
I would never use google’s browser and i wouldn’t miss flash or any adobe product at all.
I just don’t give a f*ck about those two companes. Don’t be evil, my ass don’t be evil
We can only hope this will be the beginning of the end for Flash. It is the curse of the Internet. Sadly though, Mozilla’s decision will drive some users away from FF because so many sites use Flash. It seems Flash is a no-win solution on Linux.
Flash has never really been supported on Linux anyway – the official Adobe plugin can be very glitchy, and attempting to make flash full screen is buggy across multiple distros.
With growing HTML5 support, flash is barely needed anymore anyway.
Another Google move to put everything under its control. I’ll never user Chrome, I don’t want to be tracked by these dictators…
It is not about browsers and flash, but the case is that Google is taking control over everything on the Internet, quietly and steadily. It’s like to cook a frog in warm water.
For a way to use Chrome without using Google, try Comodo Dragon. Based on Chrome, it is even more de-Googlefied than Chromium.
Once again I’m tempted to mention geese and golden eggs…
People never learn.
God, I hate Adobe!
I am never using another piece of software from Adobe ever again. I hope the company goes out of business.
HTML5 can’t get here fast enough!
I use Linux & FF at home,
and this is the perfect situation where I would say “F**K… ADOBE”
well,
F**K ADOBE.
from comodo dragon, win7@ work :(