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The Trouble with Adobe Flash
Adobe Flash is used to deliver the bulk of the video, advertisement, and browser-based game content on the internet. Unfortunately, both the SWF format itself and the decoder that Adobe releases is entirely proprietary; basically, Adobe's market share is more important to them than making the internet a more open and cooperative experience. Fortunately, for those of us that consciously value our freedoms, there are alternatives.
There are two free software Flash players:
- Swfdec, which has good compatibility but abruptly ceased to be developed sometime in early 2009.
- Gnash, the GNU SWF player, which is being rapidly developed and relies on the gstreamer and ffmpeg backends to perform. It has good compatibility up to SWF 8 and 9.
YouTube
YouTube has HTML5 video support, currently in beta testing, in the free and open WebM format. Go here to join the beta.
For flash playback, the latest versions of both Gnash and Swfdec should be able to play YouTube videos with good performance.
Another way to play flash YouTube videos utilizes the Greasemonkey add-on:
- Download the free software Greasemonkey add-on for the browser.
- Install the YouTube without Flash Auto script.
- Now you can view any YouTube video as a converted MP4 video.
Dailymotion
Since 2009 Dailymotion has offered HTML5 playback for many videos. Go here to activate it.
Unfortunately, Swfdec and Gnash do not currently playback the remaining flash videos on Dailymotion.
Linterna Mágica
Linterna Mágica is a Greasemonkey userscript that aims to support many websites and browsers. It replaces Flash objects, so you can watch video with a browser video plugin.There are some patterns common between video sharing and posting sites that Linterna Mágica is using, so it supports a lot of sites. In most cases it will work without modification. Some websites even have high definition support.
Supported browsers are:
- Epiphany
- GNU IceCat
- ABrowser
- Midori
Supported video plugins are:
- Totem plugin
- VLC plugin
- Xine plugin
This is a short list of supported websites:
- youtube.com
- video.google.com
- dailymotion.com
- metacafe.com
- vimeo.com
- blip.tv
How You Can Help
- Use free alternatives to Flash whenever and wherever you can.
- Let your friends know that most of the videos and games on the web rely on a single company's closed standard to work, and why this is bad for an open and cooperative internet.
- If you develop online games, don't use Adobe Flash, and please share your source code.
- Put pressure on Adobe to release free software.
