[kwlug-disc] Flash and Java

[Khalid Baheyeldin]

On Sun, Aug 24, 2014 at 10:32 AM, Paul Nijjar <paul_nijjar at yahoo.ca> wrote:

>
> In thinking about this refresh with our installers, I am also
> wondering about Java and Flash player for Linux. For years you had to
> install both of these monstrosities if you wanted your users to be
> functional on the Internet. Now it looks like Java is less widely used (and
> the openjdk support in Debian looks pretty good), so there is no need to
> install the Oracle versions.
>

Indeed, Java is no longer 'necessary' for browsing. I had it disabled for
many years and only occasional few and far between web sites would need it.


> Flash is more troubling. As far as I can tell there are a bunch of
> websites that will not work in Linux no matter what you do. The 11.2
> version of Flash that Adobe supports is not recognised on certain pages.
> Chromium (or maybe just Chrome?) supposedly had Flash built in, but my
> version of Chromium does not work with most Flash sites.
>

Yes, Flash is kind of necessary, sadly, specially for Youtube. Although
Youtube supports HTML5, there are some missing features there.

I browse with NoScript blocking Flash from all sites, unless I white list
them. If a site is not browsable, I temporarily allow it.

This is sort of a techie solution, and probably not feasible for the casual
user.

As an aside: more and more sites are using MVC frameworks (e.g. Angular.js
...) written in Javascript, and would not even show content unless you
allow Javascript for them. I see that as a  continuing trend, even with
Drupal, with 'headless Drupal' being in vogue (i.e. Drupal manages the
content, but content is displayed using JS frameworks for various devices.


> I have not tried gnash and friends, but my understanding is that they are
> not ready for prime time either.
>

Flash (at least the Linux version) assumes that you have a CPU that has the
multimedia extensions (forget what exactly they are called). So, regular
Flash does not work on those older CPU (was it AMD Durons?)

I was able to get Gnash working on such machines and Flash games as well as
Youtube do work acceptably.

Here is a concrete example: the videos on http://kitchener.ctvnews.ca. I am
> probably just being dumb, but I do not know how to trick this site into
> playing videos for me under Ubuntu or Debian. Do you?
>

In this particular case, it is the web developers who are dumb. It is not a
Flash issue. Even if you have Flash that works with Youtube, the site's
videos will not play.

The issue is that the developers have backend logic to parse the User Agent
from the browser. This is generally a bad idea, but in this case, it is
also buggy (perhaps a catch-all 'else' case).

I was able to get it working by fudging the User Agent (using User Agent
Switcher extension, or on Android, there is another extension which I
forget). Using these, you set your device to be an iPad and the site would
work if you have Flash.


> How do you deal with these kinds of situations?
>

Your audience are different from techies, so can't say that what I
suggested would be a viable alternative.


> If there is no trick then maybe not installing Flash is the way to go,
> both for ideological reasons and practical ones. I do not have Flash
> installed on my personal laptop, and although there are things I cannot
> consume in most cases I am better off not consuming them. (Hello, Vimeo.)
>

Try gnash, at least for your own machine, and see where that gets you.

-- 
Khalid M. Baheyeldin
2bits.com, Inc.
Fast Reliable Drupal
Drupal optimization, development, customization and consulting.
Simplicity is prerequisite for reliability. --  Edsger W.Dijkstra
Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication. --   Leonardo da Vinci
For every complex problem, there is an answer that is clear, simple, and
wrong." -- H.L. Mencken
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