[was = Warning! A Linux Commercial] Flash Sucks

[blu-5a1Jt6qxUNc at public.gmane.org (Tom Metro)]

David Kramer wrote:
> But most of the complaints posted were more about what people are doing
> in Flash, not with Flash itself.  Why do you think a replacement
> technology that does the same kinds of things would be used any differently?

A replacement technology may be just as bad, but there is hope...

I started removing Flash from my systems shortly after I noticed that 
Macromedia gave the Flash authors' the ability to suppress the context 
menu that used to permit the end-user to stop animations. That ticked me 
off that they were removing control from the end-user, and because Flash 
is distributed as a closed binary, there is noting you can do other than 
remove it.

(I use Flashblock on one system, but it is less than ideal. One problem 
is that it still downloads the Flash file, even if you don't view it. 
I'd prefer to minimize hits on the flash file, and maximize hits on the 
site's "non-flash" content so attentive webmasters will start realizing 
that Flash isn't as ubiquitous as they think it is.)

DHTML and animated SVGs may end up being just as annoying, but because 
neither of these technologies are implemented with a closed binary, 
there's a good chance that the end-user will retain better control. 
Initially that will come in the form of Greasemonkey (and the like) 
hacks to disable functionality, and eventually as more people get 
annoyed, the browsers will adopt fine-grained controls, much as most 
browsers today have options to control various JavaScript operations, 
like opening and resizing windows.

In the effort to give users more control over how their CPUs get used, 
I'd like to see browsers adopt a better infrastructure for controlling 
plug-ins, as well as JavaScript. For example, I should be able to enable 
a setting that suspends all JS and plug-in threads when I minimize a 
browser window. Rarely does a browser need to do anything useful when it 
isn't the active window, yet accumulate a bunch of open windows and 
watch your CPU get eaten up.

  -Tom

-- 
Tom Metro
Venture Logic, Newton, MA, USA
"Enterprise solutions through open source."
Professional Profile: http://tmetro.venturelogic.com/

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