Tag: Adobe Flash

Apple To Drop Flash Support In macOS Sierra

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
Apple has officially joined Google and Mozilla in the effort to put Adobe’s Flash to bed. The Cupertino company announced in a blog post on Tuesday that it will be deactivating Flash by default on Safari 10, opting for HTML5 content implementations on websites when available. That means no auto-playing video ads or animated web pages powered by Flash will be viewable in Safari in the new macOS Sierra which ships later this year.

What Brands Need To Do
Once the most popular way to serve rich media content and build an interactive website, Flash has been quickly fading out of use due to its resource intensity, numerous security flaws, and the rise of HTML5. Still, Flash has proven to be oddly resilient in the ad industry, partly due to institutional inertia among digital creatives. Now with Apple’s decision to default to HTML5, Flash is practically on its deathbed, which means it is high time that brands ditched Flash and switched to HTML5 for their ads and websites.

 

Source: The Next Web

 

Header image courtesy of Apple’s Keynote video on YouTube

Google Chrome To Pause All Auto-Playing Flash Ads

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
Just a week after Amazon announced its plan to stop its support for Flash ads starting September 1st, Google also decided on that same date as the day its Chrome browser will block auto-playing on all Flash content that isn’t “central to the webpage” – i.e. the Flash-based ads.

What Brands Should Do
Due to Flash’s long-standing security problems, Google’s AdWords network already automatically converts most Flash ads into the more secure HTML5 format. As the industry continues to move toward HTML5, brands would be wise to make the switch sooner than later, both for ads and for product demo videos.

Source: Ars Techica UK

Amazon To End Support For Flash Ads

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
Earlier this week, Amazon announced its decision to stop accepting Flash-powered ads on its site and advertising platform, effective September 1st, putting another nail in Flash’s coffin. Last month, Mozilla blocked Flash in its Firefox browser following a security breach, while popular e-sport streaming site Twitch also started to replace Flash with HTML5 video.

What Brands Should Do
Flash, despite being prone to security loopholes and ill-suited for mobile screens, has proven to be oddly resilient, possibly due to institutional inertia among digital creatives. But as the industry pushes toward HTML5, we will most likely be witnessing the demise of Flash soon, and brands would be wise to make the switch sooner than later, both for ads and for product demo videos.

 

Source: Digiday

Your creative deptartment’s new BFF

Posted on by Lab Team

Who is your creative dept's BFF? (Flickr/sirmightymac)Adobe recently went from near irrelevant in mobile marketing to king-of-the-hill. While Flash has taken online rich media by storm, a few months ago it was barely supported on any mobile handsets, and for the few which did claim Flash support, it was an incarnation that was bordering on painful. How quickly things can change in today’s mobile market.

The big news has been the addition of iPhone and iPod Touch-compatible file export from Flash Professional CS5. Flash developers can take existing or new Flash assets and use those to create iPhone apps with minimal optimization, and no knowledge of Objective C (which is what iPhone apps are written in). For creative agencies (and the media agencies trying to get those creative agencies to support an iPhone app) this is great news. Continue reading “Your creative deptartment’s new BFF”