Date: Tue, 17 Jun 2008 00:36:36 +0200 From: cpghost <cpghost@cordula.ws> To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Flashplugin Message-ID: <20080617003636.72599109@epia-2.farid-hajji.net> In-Reply-To: <20080616201150.9308cd17.dick@nagual.nl> References: <200806071500.28001.derek.graham@att.net> <20080608000350.00006173@westmark> <20080608021633.GA6799@gizmo.acns.msu.edu> <200806080420.31427.gnemmi@gmail.com> <11167f520806080234u2b9e29b0l13c513d783ccadaa@mail.gmail.com> <20080615221249.GA86486@kokopelli.hydra> <20080616091453.I96785@wojtek.tensor.gdynia.pl> <20080616002729.341931f8@gom.home> <20080616095059.L96979@wojtek.tensor.gdynia.pl> <20080616140519.04515bc5@scorpio> <20080616201150.9308cd17.dick@nagual.nl>
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On Mon, 16 Jun 2008 20:11:50 +0200 dick hoogendijk <dick@nagual.nl> wrote: > On Mon, 16 Jun 2008 14:05:19 -0400 > Gerard <gerard@seibercom.net> wrote: > > > All this nonsense about using third party programs to download > > content from sites such as, but not limited to YouTube, is just > > unacceptable. If I navigate to a URL, I fully expect to be able to > > view all of that site's content as easily using FreeBSD as I can > > using Window's with IE. or even Firefox. Anything less is just not > > acceptable. > > Then you have a few options: > 1. use windows > 2. use linux > 3. use solaris > 4. buy Adobe > The latter simply does not support native FreeBSD. > > But I agree with you: Flash is not always shit or not needed. Quite a > few times it gives somthing extra that makes the web more attractive. > People stating it's advertizing 99% of the time are simply wrong. The problem with Flash is neither * Flash ads (blockable with NoScript) NOR * Adobe's dismal/no support of FreeBSD (other alternatives exist) NOR * the closed-sourceness of Adobe's Flash Player (runs in isolated virtualized sandboxes where it won't do much harm, either intentionally or unintentionally) but the fact that Flash *content* itself is being routinely blocked / filtered at the edge of many corporate networks for security reasons, and the number of corporate networks that block Flash is increasing daily... and IMHO rightly so! If your company decided to block Flash content because they are afraid of industrial or economic espionage with Flash-based malware -- and there's an increasing number of companies in Europe, Taiwan, Korea, Japan and China which do just that for exactly this reason -- your only recourse is to insist that websites provide alternative non-Flash paths. It's not a Adobe against FreeBSD thing, it's a very simple matter of accessibility in general to content and a whole technology that is deemed untrusted by the security people responsible for company's valuable data. Hobbyists usually don't have so many sensitive data on their machines, or they don't care much about them if they leaked outside, but companies can't afford being this lax: they've got much more to lose if something goes wrong. Nothing against Flash: those who want to provide it or view it, nice! But any respectable site ought to provide a viable alternative to an important class of users: it's not just us FreeBSD users, it's far, FAR more than that! -cpghost. -- Cordula's Web. http://www.cordula.ws/
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