Chrome To Freeze Flash Ads On Sight From September 1 190
An anonymous reader writes: Shaun Nichols from the Register reports that unimportant Flash content will be click-to-play by default in Google Chrome from September 1. He writes, "Google is making good on its promise to strangle Adobe Flash's ability to auto-play in Chrome. The web giant has set September 1, 2015 as the date from which non-important Flash files will be click-to-play in the browser by default – effectively freezing out 'many' Flash ads in the process. Netizens can right-click over the security-challenged plugin and select 'Run this' if they want to unfreeze an ad. Otherwise, the Flash files will remain suspended in a grey box, unable to cause any harm nor any annoyance."
I've had this as a plug-in. (Score:4, Interesting)
Hmm, I've had this as a plug-in for a while now (FF though). It interfered a bit with some sites, but it was the fault of those sites anyway, so I guess it is a good idea to have it built-in in the browser (it can work even better than a plugin)
Re:I've had this as a plug-in. (Score:5, Insightful)
...except that google gets to decide which adverts are played and which aren't.
I'm betting Google's own dancing monkeys will be as annoying as ever.
Re: (Score:1, Troll)
Yep. No one should be dancing for joy.
This wasn't done out of the goodness of Google's heart. They are merely taking down the competition.
Re:I've had this as a plug-in. (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm assuming HTML5 graphics and videos will still play, so if it's limited to just Flash, so what?
Re:I've had this as a plug-in. (Score:4, Informative)
I'm assuming HTML5 graphics and videos will still play, so if it's limited to just Flash, so what?
So what? It'll stop all drive-by Flash malware. cf. the AOL (advertising.com) attack vectors that are such a problem right now.
Amazon is refusing Flash ads on its CDN on the same day.
Re:I've had this as a plug-in. (Score:5, Insightful)
I think the real point here is that the big guys have finally decided Flash must die.
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:1)
HTML5 is better. Primarily one for one reason alone... Malware can't hide in the file.
Flash advertisements? Well go back to animated gifs. Or maybe finally adopt APNG. Or dig MNG out of the graveyard.
Like, Flash's real use, vector images, never got much use outside of Newgrounds.com , everyone else used it as a way to push terrible advertisements in a small space.
Then Adobe bought Macromedia and started digging Flash's grave by turning it into a video player for Youtube (ad clones) so they could sell their
Re: (Score:2)
HTML5 is better. Primarily one for one reason alone... Malware can't hide in the file.
Nope, already been proven to be possible.
HTML5 Can Be Used to Hide Malware in Drive-by Download Attacks: http://news.softpedia.com/news... [softpedia.com]
Re: (Score:2)
You're right about DRM issues. There is one big win and the reason I support HTML5 video. It can be cross platform unlike flash. Flash only runs on the big 3 desktop operating systems. It doesn't run on any other desktop OS and isn't supported on many mobile platforms. HTML 5 video can change all that.
Re: (Score:2)
GPU cycles don't grow on tress
If your desktop is in a position to be displaying a webpage then 99.999% of the time GPU cycles may as well be growing on trees. People using GPU for computing are a infinitesimal portion of computer users, and people running 3D games are typically not watching youtube videos at the same time.
That a GPU is sitting unused in a desktop application is one of the safest assumptions you can make in the current computing work.
Re: (Score:2)
Is it? I don't even know if I've got a GPU - why should I? I do know that when I try running a seismic-visualisation tool, it crawls like a dog run over by a series of artics. but I still don't know if I've got a GPU. [Checks details] "Intel GMA 650," whatever the fuck that means.
Re: (Score:1, Informative)
Yep. No one should be dancing for joy.
This wasn't done out of the goodness of Google's heart. They are merely taking down the competition.
Take off your tin-foil hat. It's click-to-play. You can still view your dancing cats or whatever if you like. I've had this turned on for pretty much everything for a while now and it is awesome
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Have you been asleep for the last ten years? Flash is a huge issue for a bunch of different reasons., and has been considered a legacy solution for some time now. HTML 5 is the modern replacement. Chrome isn't freezing HTML 5 content from advertisers, but if advertisers do insist on using Flash that's up to them; it won't be without consequence any more.
Jeez, can any company do anything without this mindless cynical twattle about capitalism?
Re: (Score:2)
I don't believe Google employs Flash ads, or at least I have never seen this done. I'd imagine every other manner of ad can still poke its way through to anybody not using an ad blocker, regardless of its source.
Unsolicited Flash content needs to die once and for all.
If you want to cry foul at Google, then wait until they kill Adblock Plus in their own browser extension repository.
Re: (Score:2)
No one is crying foul. But don't believe that Google has heard the cries of the long suffering public and decided to rescue them.
Freezing flash ads works in their favor.
Re: (Score:2)
Not Google directly, but the ad networks they do own do.
Google controls the vast majority of ad networks online, and chances are, those flash ads are indirectly tracable to Google. DoubleClick and others still serve them up, after all (and Google acquired them many years ago).
Anyhow, autoplay of HTM
Re: (Score:2)
Try this link : https://www.google.com/finance... [google.com]
Notice anything interesting ? HTML5 for the win, yes
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
Look, I'm dancing...firstly, Google is freezing ALL flash ads.. and second, the ads aren't blocked, you can see them any time you want to. Do you REALLY think autoplaying flash ads encourage business, or cause so much aggravation the the consumers run away from their products. With me, it's the latter. And I surely can't be the only one.
Re: (Score:1)
I should add the Google probably is doing this because the "Whoa! Google Chrome has crashed." pages it suffers are a direct result of flash overloading.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
Do they need to be? They're no longer competing with a zillion other animations to be the most attention-grapping thing around. The evolutionary arms race is over, so the optimal ad is one that the user notices but isn't annoyed by - after all, developing and installing ad blockers is hard work which people aren't going to do without reason, and besides, who wants to have their brand associated with annoyance if that's not required to be
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
...except that google gets to decide which adverts are played and which aren't.
I'm betting Google's own dancing monkeys will be as annoying as ever.
That's my worry - remember, Google already implemented a workaround for their own Flash ads, auto-converting them into a form which conveniently happens to be immune to this filter. Get back to me when they've bundled an ad-blocker. What they have here is basically a rival ad blocker - which really isn't something any of us should cheer, even if it does happen to knock out some irritating ads for the time being. (Equally, of course, the new ad-blocking facility for Mobile Safari in iOS 9 which just happens
Re:I've had this as a plug-in. (Score:5, Insightful)
no, this will stop only what chrome deems unnecessary. not everything.
now how about those damn autoplaying youtube videos? flash or no flash, they still autoplay and then play the next one, next one, next one, etc..
Re: (Score:2)
If I could +10 your comment, I would. As someone who works in content, it is a bane to my existence. It's stopped me from going to some sites altogether!
Re: (Score:2)
You are watching a porn site when you decide that you have to get ready for your hot date. Since nothing is going on you just turn your monitor off and forget about it. You convince your date to sleep with you so you get naked and watch as your date does the same. Except an ad for viagra starts paying on your computer. You get up and turn the monitor on and now your date sees what you have been watching. She turns to you and says "I am not enough porn for you. Forget it. I am leaving". Your evening
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
i'd have to keep google's cookie for that to work. i have 'self-destructing cookies' in firefox and 'tab cookies' in chromium so every time i close youtube tab, all related cookies get deleted. i do not wish to be tracked by google just so that their damn videos don't autostart
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Oh the humanity...
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Chrome dev doesn't autoplay videos that are in the background unless they have already been rendered once. See this commit [googlesource.com]
I'm sure if you really want to stop autoplay that you can find a userscript or extension out there or make your own that stops it on youtube (or even all websites that use html5.)
Sadly chrome devs seem to think that user configurability like Firefox has is a bad thing and so I doubt you'll ever see a default option for it.
Important to block competitor network ads. (Score:1)
After all, there's nothing really fucking annoying that can be done with HTML5 ads, and it's not as if the whole ad industry is a crock of malware-infested, distracting, lowest-common-denominator-producing shit anyway.
Good.jpg (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
My youngest brother is not so tech savvy asked why websites always looks different on my PC... the answer adblocker... I built him a new PC with ubuntu lts and KDE with a windows like layout and installed firefox and chrome w/adblocker, open office, a few other open source replacements, setup the printer, email, etc... I was worried his wife wouldn't like it and I would be installing win 7 in a month but they both love it everything was already setup and it was familiar enough that they don't even ask quest
Re:Do we really want Google... (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
> You've replaced something with a grey box. It's gone.
That's not what Chrome beta is doing. Turning off autoplay/autoexecute for 300x250 and smaller swfs is not the same as removing flash support.
Re:Do we really want Google... (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
If this is true, it's only because they've found more obtrusive and abusive ways to advertise to us that are more difficult to block.
Re: (Score:2)
"Flash gets special treatment due to its market share, but make no mistake, the browser manufacturers are looking to kill it as soon as reasonably possible, too." If this is true, it's only because they've found more obtrusive and abusive ways to advertise to us that are more difficult to block.
The elimination of plugins is happening for entirely technical reasons. Microsoft obviously has their own Silverlight plugin, support for which is also gone in their latest browser.
HTML 5 is the future, also for ads. AdBlock etc. handle them without problems.
Re: (Score:2)
Like it or not, all the major browsers are phasing out plugin support.
They are doing no such thing. They are converging on one standard plugin architecture, that is all. Flash works because it has been written for each type, not because it gets special treatment. If you want to download it it'll even give you the option of PPAPI (Chrome / Opera), NPAPI (Firefox due to be phased out), and ActiveX (IE due to be phased out). The phase outs are simply shifts to PPAPI instead.
Re: (Score:2)
They are doing no such thing. [...] PPAPI (Chrome / Opera), NPAPI (Firefox due to be phased out), and ActiveX (IE due to be phased out).
Did you just rebut my claim that plugin support is being phased out by mentioning three incompatible plugin systems, two of which are end-of-life? Neither Firefox, Microsoft Edge (nor Safari for that matter) are slated to gain PPAPI support.
PPAPI plugins are only supported in Chrome and its variants, and usage is dismal. Of plugins that were most popular just two years ago, neither Silverlight (end-of-life), Unity Webplayer (end-of-life), the Google Earth plugin, Java, the Google Hangouts plugin nor the Fac
Re: (Score:2)
Did you just rebut my claim that plugin support is being phased out by mentioning three incompatible plugin systems, two of which are end-of-life?
Yes I did. Did you just read half my comment and then claim it wasn't a rebut because you missed the part about the OTHER TWO CONVERGING?
So let me repeat it again for those of us with short attention spans: "They are converging on one standard plugin architecture". Firefox is phasing out support for NPAPI and implementing a system that supports Chrome extensions, basically a translation layer that will support PPAPI for those of you who missed the Slashdot discussion on this last week. IE has already implem
Re: (Score:3)
They haven't given up on extensions. On the contrary, they're giving their API a much-needed overhaul. Yes, you'll still be able to block ads and scripts.
Re: (Score:2)
Extensions are not plugins.
Plugins are native executables and work at the OS level. Extensions work at the browser level and are easier to contain.
All well known ad blockers are extensions rather than plugins.
Re: (Score:1)
ISP blocking and browser "blocking" are fundementally not equivalent. If my browser "blocks" a flash ad and I want to see it I click it and it plays. If my ISP blocks some content I never see it to begin with. The core difference here is that when the browser is doing it the way Chrome does it it's not blocking it per se; it's simply making it so it doesn't play by default (which, by the way, isn't blocking). When my ISP does it the content literally doesn't get delivered. That's blocking.
Yes I want security issues blocked (Score:3)
Do we really want Google or Mozilla, or any other browser determining what content we can see or not see in a browser?
When it is a known security problem then I have no problem with it. As long as I have the ability to override the decision I don't really see it as an issue. Flash needs to die a hot painful death and this is probably the fastest way to make that happen.
What next, will they block? This seems like an awfully big slippery slope and people are just accepting it.
Not worried about it. If browsers start getting too exuberant with the blocking then market forces are almost certain to correct the problem.
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Do we really want Google or Mozilla, or any other browser determining what content we can see or not see in a browser? I understand the security problems with Flash and I am not a fan of Flash, but everybody gets upset if an ISP blocks content, so why is it okay for a browser to do so? What next, will they block? This seems like an awfully big slippery slope and people are just accepting it.
Not really the same situation, I think a browser is perfectly entitled to say what third party plug-in/add-on/extension APIs it will allow, how they'll run and so on. Just like Firefox just decided to change their extension API, now whether it's a good idea is a different story but they're certainly entitled to do so. Would you be opposed to IE dropping support for ActiveX plug-ins too? I'm here assuming that there's some technical difference in flash between ads and video players, not that Google is actual
Re: (Score:2)
Do we really want Google or Mozilla, or any other browser determining what content we can see or not see in a browser? I understand the security problems with Flash and I am not a fan of Flash, but everybody gets upset if an ISP blocks content, so why is it okay for a browser to do so? What next, will they block? This seems like an awfully big slippery slope and people are just accepting it.
Not really the same situation, I think a browser is perfectly entitled to say what third party plug-in/add-on/extension APIs it will allow, how they'll run and so on. Just like Firefox just decided to change their extension API, now whether it's a good idea is a different story but they're certainly entitled to do so. Would you be opposed to IE dropping support for ActiveX plug-ins too? I'm here assuming that there's some technical difference in flash between ads and video players, not that Google is actually sitting there saying that's an ad and that is not.
But you're saying that because you don't like Flash or Ads. Also, there is a difference in dropping or retiring something, like Active-X, and modifying the functionality of a plug-in that is used to display content created by a third party application. For example, most people would be upset if Google decided to display all JPGs (i.e. the photo of your dog) with the google logo on top of them. This isn't that much different.
That being said, as long as Adobe can offer a plugin with full functionality and
non-important? (Score:5, Insightful)
Basically, "essential" Flash content (such as embedded video players) are allowed to automatically run, while non-essential Flash content, much of that being advertisements, will be automatically paused.
So.... queue adverts posing as video players in 3. ... 2...... 1......
Why can't they stop the autoplay of ALL content.
Re: (Score:3)
Exactly. Autoplay of HTML5 video is a real pain, and one of the more noxious ways modern advertisers try to shove their content down our throats. Modern advertising really is the haunt of sociopaths.
Re:non-important? (Score:4, Informative)
Exactly. Autoplay of HTML5 video is a real pain, and one of the more noxious ways modern advertisers try to shove their content down our throats. Modern advertising really is the haunt of sociopaths.
There are ways to stop autoplay [pcworld.com] for Chrome and Firefox.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Ironically enough, I just clicked that link and the "how to" video at the top right of the linked page autoplays...
Did you see the following paragraph from that page?
Why autoplay? (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
For Chrome/Chromium:
Settings, Advanced, Privacy Content Settings, Plugins, Let me choose when to run plugins.
All Flash content is blocked by default: you right-click to run individual Flash embeds.
Re: (Score:2)
My point was not that there isn't a way to do it, but rather that they are blocking it by default and yet providing a documented way of getting around the block.
It's like giving a criminal the keys to the safe and then asking them to pretty please not open it while we're not looking.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
It's all you deserve. You have already had it explained to you that I don't post anonymously to you, APK, I stand behind everything I say about you and your mental illness issues and your need to foist your insanity on everyone here.
Spamming loser.
Re: (Score:2)
Wow, you really are delusional aren't you? I've never used your hosts tool nor have I used uBlock or any other tool of that nature other than ABP. I care so little about the topic I'd be unlikely to debate you on it and as I've not used your software I cannot evaluate its performance.
I am however very willing and able to abuse incompetents such as yourself under my own moniker; in fact I really wouldn't have it any other way.
I do understand why you find it hard to imagine someone who has integrity yet is ca
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Premise: spammers are losers.
Fact: APK is a spammer.
Conclusion: APK is a loser.
Premise: pretending to be someone else to back you up makes you a loser.
Fact: APK depends upon multiple sockpuppet accounts and is laughably clumsy in his use of these accounts.
Conclusion: APK is a total loser.
Spamming loser.
Re: (Score:2)
There are a few lines you can add to the hosts file on your PC or your DNS proxy to block AdSense and DoubleClick networks. You don't have to go full APK unless you want to. Start with these two and see what else you can pull in from your browser's debugger.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
MalwareBytes' hpHosts Admin (MalwareBytes employee) hosts & recommends it
Thanks. Sigged till at least Patriot Day.
Stab (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Welcome to the Hotel Flash-it-for-ya... Such a lovely place... Such a lovely place...
Now this is a feature (Score:3)
I'd like to see in Firefox by default...
Won't be long (Score:2)
I'd like to see in Firefox by default...
Since Firefox apes a lot of what Chrome does it shouldn't be long...
Re: (Score:2)
I'd like to see in Firefox by default...
Are you a Mozilla Firefox dev, by chance?
The plug-in to do this has been around for years... there's no need.
Opera (Score:2)
Version 12 had that on by default. Loved it, it sounds like Chrome has it but it requires enabling. On Opera, it was one less thing to change after a fresh install. Somehow that browser came out of the box just the way I liked it.
Re: (Score:2)
Have you tried Vivaldi?
I love Opera 12.x, but sadly it's becoming more and more of an internet pariah.
You do have to install the chrome extension in Vivaldi though.
Another gripe (Score:2)
Malvertising risk (Score:2)
Unlike most people, I really don't mind ads.
You may have missed the recent story about malvertising [slashdot.org].
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Real question (Score:1)
The irony (Score:3)
Just a matter of time before they simply replace the "non-important" ad with an "important" one...
I just felt a great disturbance in the force (Score:2)
Good (but still easy to do yourself) (Score:3)
I've turned my Firefox flash plugin to "Ask to Activate". This way I can choose what is "important" and "not important", not the almighty God^Hogle. This doesn't do anything for fine-grained selection of flash objects on a domain, but you can also use the Flashblock add-on for that.
There is a god... (Score:2)
...and he/she/it has shown mercy on us by allowing the destruction of the bandwidth sucking, virus vector, POS that is flash.
Been doing that (Score:1)
The ends don't justify the means (Score:1)
While I do believe that Flash is horrible and destructive to the internet as a whole, I see this exactly for what this is: Google is closing the internet. They are closing it much like Microsoft did for many years. They marketed and waited until their browser was too much usage to ignore, and now use it to drive the direction of the web to their interest.
What happened to an open web? If people want to use technology x, they should be able to! Why does Google get to pick? What if google tomorrow decided that