Mozilla Firefox browser to block 'not essential' Adobe Flash content

Blocking unnecessary Flash content loading in the Firefox browser will lead to improved battery life, faster web page loads, and greater user security, according to developer Mozilla. And the block starting in August is only the beginning.

The partial Flash block, scheduled for the Firefox update on August 2, will be applied to content that users cannot see, like so-called "supercookies" planted by ISPs and similar entities for user tracking. Initially, the Mozilla blog post announcing the block notes that plugins that are on the Firefox block list all have functionality that can be duplicated in HTML 5.

Later in the year, Mozilla will also further block Flash plugins intended to measure advertising effectiveness, beyond just supercookies. Mozilla will roll out a new HTML 5 API at that time for website coders to duplicate the features of the Flash plugin that will be blocked from loading.

Starting in 2017, Firefox users will have to approve any Flash content loading, regardless of source. Mozilla recommends that websites that rely on Flash or Silverlight for media presentation or games adopt HTML 5 alternatives to Flash as soon as possible.

Mozilla works with Adobe to secure and improve Flash, and has for some time. However, in the blog post outlining the timeline for blocks, the company claims that "Plug-ins often introduce stability, performance, and security issues for browsers" adding that "this is not a trade-off users should have to accept."

As Adobe updates its Flash plugin, or as security issues are discovered with the plugin, Apple deprecates the old ones, and remotely disables them from working in Safari. Additionally, Safari version 6.1 and newer has security settings that can be configured by the user to always allow, completely block, or ask the user if a specific website is allowed to execute Flash content.

9 Comments

cropr 1142 comments · 11 Years

About 8 years ago

Welcome move

charlesatlas 401 comments · 9 Years

I get really tired of being told at least once a week that the Flash plug-in is outdated, blocked and needs to be updated. You suck, Adobe.

As for supercookies, that's one reason I use Firefox as my main browser and installed Privacy Badger and Self-Destructing Cookies. Chrome just doesn't give me as much control or as many options. (BTW, I like Privacy Badger over Adblock Plus, which I've abandoned, because now I can allow ads so sites like AI can get ad revenue, but I still block cookies.)

appex 670 comments · 11 Years

Get rid of obnoxious Adobe Flash. HTML5 is much better.

volcan 1799 comments · 10 Years

appex said:

Get rid of obnoxious Adobe Flash. HTML5 is much better.

They both have their pros and cons, however I would certainly accept the functional limitations of HTML5 over the technically superior feature set, ease of development and better animations of Flash, especially considering the lack of Flash support in mobile devices, higher CPU/memory overhead, and of course, the security issues.

Though, I have found that using Adobe Animate (formerly Flash Professional) is one of the easiest ways to develop for HTML5, although they are dependent on loading some Adobe frameworks at runtime. Hand coding canvas tag Javascript is really tedious and time consuming.

Marvin 15335 comments · 18 Years

volcan said:
Hand coding canvas tag Javascript is really tedious and time consuming.

This has been one of the biggest problems holding back HTML5. When Flash was dropped from mobile, it wouldn't have been much of a problem if there had been reliable HTML5 tools (any tools in fact) but they didn't come about for years. Hype, made by a couple of ex-Apple employees arrived in 2011, 4 years after the iPhone:

http://tumult.com/press/pr05202011.html

HTML5 is at a very advanced stage now with DRM support for video and high quality graphics with 2D in Canvas and 3D in WebGL. Some of the WebGL demos are really impressive. There's a full Quake 3 Arena game and a Flappy Bird game:

http://webgl.nu/

Zynga developed some WebGL games using emscripten, which converts C++ to Javascript. This was used in the Quake game. Some hacking around is needed to get complex projects to work right, this would be true for Actionscript to an extent too.

https://www.zynga.com/blogs/engineering/zyngas-first-foray-webgl-and-how-it-runs-ie10-2

Physically-based rendering demos are here:

http://alteredqualia.com/xg/examples/deferred_skin.html
http://www.fractalfantasy.net/#/4/uncanny_valley (hit F to freeze the lighting, 1,2,3 to change head)

This wouldn't replace full 3D games as they are too big to download but Flash games like on Facebook can be moved to WebGL and Canvas and all embedded/premium video to HTML5 video.

The 3D games show one of the other problems with native browser features, which is that different browser developers implement the features differently. Safari crashes loading some of the games. Developers tend to design for Chrome but all browsers should work the same. The cross-platform authoring software can help out with this. Flash was a singular platform so it was reliable for content authoring but it's just too dangerous to have an internet-facing code interpreter from a 3rd party. If software needs to be more complex than what HTML5 can do then making a standalone app is a better way to go.