Living without Flash

a3e6u9 · 2012-10-04 20:54:32

I've been contemplating for years giving up on Flash, but never managed to do it. It's the worst piece of software on my old laptop, it's slow, buggy, resource hungry etc.

Anyway, a few weeks ago I finally removed it and I've been Flash-free ever since. If you found some interesting alternatives to Flash, please post them here.

For Youtube I use youtube-dl, some videos work with html5/webm, but Firefox does not support h.264 and most html5 videos are h.264. I also like street view, but I found this, so I can see street view with html5. I also needed Flash to hear words in some languages I'm learning, but there are dictionaries where you can download the pronunciation. I've had to find alternatives for porn too, lol don't be shocked, everyone watches it. Anyway, there are ways to download those kind of videos too from websites, but I'll give details if asked. smile

Finally, there are flash games and these can't be easily replaced, I know. So, people who like flash games will not be able to live without it, but games too are going mobile and therefore html5, because Flash is dead on the smartphones. One further reason for removing Flash is because I'm trying to remove the non-free software from my PCs, but that's another story.

dura · 2012-10-04 21:34:22

Sounds great, but doesn't forcing yourself to use youtube-dl kind of negate the point of youtube?

super.luser · 2012-10-04 21:36:24

YouTube is a massive black hole anyway, though. wink

dura · 2012-10-04 21:40:15

I guess its a sacrifice that might be worth being made. Funnily, today someone was telling me how happy they were to get flash working on their slackware, or centOS system...

one man's much is another man's gold (is that a sayng....is it relevant.....?)

super.luser · 2012-10-04 21:48:50

The only reason that I use YouTube is to share music with other people. Beyond that, I don't use it at all, really -- I find it incredibly distracting and detrimental to time that could be used on other, better things. tongue

Edit: I do use Vimeo, but they encode H.264 in HTML5 for their videos as far as I know. smile

Last edited by super.luser (2012-10-04 21:51:15)

dura · 2012-10-04 22:06:50

-- I find it incredibly distracting and detrimental to time that could be used on other, better things.

Ah, the finer things in life...

super.luser · 2012-10-04 22:25:21

d! wrote:

Ah, the finer things in life...

Like cleaning my ears. big_smile

Seriously, though, I think living without using Flash is really nice.

dura · 2012-10-04 22:55:58

Yeah me too. I don't like it. HTML5 will be nice when it arrives at last. I don't like the idea of downloading everything though instead; seems to be just, if not more, resource hungry perhaps.

Hell, them resources are there for using anyway (apart from some of course, which we should more thoughtfully reconsider their status as pure resource).

a3e6u9 · 2012-10-05 05:31:00

d! wrote:

I don't like the idea of downloading everything though instead; seems to be just, if not more, resource hungry perhaps.

It's not more resource hungry to download everything. Downloading a video and playing it with mplayer uses far less resources than Flash. There is the option of h.264 enabled browser, which will play most videos on the internet, I think, by way of HTML5.

a3e6u9 · 2012-10-05 05:58:23

I found another site today that downloads videos from other sites, it's http://downloadvimeo.com and it says:

Use this service to download videos off of Vimeo.com, Smotri.com, Redtube.com, xHamster.com, Metacafe.com, Dailymotion.com, Twitvid.com or Youtube.com.

I've tested it and it works with Vimeo and Redtube. It does not seem to work with the rest. Youtube has had some changes recently and every third party app failed to download their videos, so if you install youtube-dl, make sure to update it by: sudo youtube-dl -U

Doomicide · 2012-10-05 07:55:00

I wrote a quick hack for surf and bound it to a key, it uses youtube-dl and mplayer:

/* play flash video with youtube-dl & mplayer */
#define WATCH { .v = (char *[]){ "/bin/sh", "-c", \
"cd /tmp/; xprop -id $1 $0 | cut -d\\\" -f2 | youtube-dl -f18 -a - -o - | mplayer -fs -idle -",\
"_SURF_URI", winid, NULL } }

dura · 2012-10-05 09:15:10

a3e6u9

d! wrote:
I don't like the idea of downloading everything though instead; seems to be just, if not more, resource hungry perhaps.
It's not more resource hungry to download everything. Downloading a video and playing it with mplayer uses far less resources than Flash. There is the option of h.264 enabled browser, which will play most videos on the internet, I think, by way of HTML5.

That is if you omit the space used to save such downloads, the bandwidth used to download them, time to do so, the impact on your own labour, and everything else, of course smile

a3e6u9 · 2012-10-05 09:50:49

d! wrote:

That is if you omit the space used to save such downloads, the bandwidth used to download them, time to do so, the impact on your own labour, and everything else, of course

lol
The space and bandwidth are exactly the same as with Flash usage. It is indeed a bit slower to do, because you have to copy the link and paste it into a terminal, I've simplified it a little, by having an alias for my favourite setting:

alias y="youtube-dl -f 18"

So, I basically enter in the terminal:

y http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YE7VzlLtp-4

And that's it.

There's nothing else about it. Indeed, it would be easier to just use Flash, but the small sacrifice is worth it, for me at least. I could use Minitube, if I wanted to be even easier. There is a bright side to using youtube-dl, fullscreen videos work far better.

Doomicide · 2012-10-05 10:05:16

^If you don't want to save the vid permanently you can let youtube-dl write to stdout and let mplayer read from stdin as in my snippet above. I'm sure there are ways to extract the current url of firefox ( or most browsers) so scripting it shouldn't be too hard.

jens · 2012-10-07 05:20:24

i have thought about that recently as well.
but i'm not willing to give up XXX research.
so perhaps let's call it a flash-bang problem. lol

SuNjACk · 2012-10-07 11:39:52

I use youtube-viewer instead of youtube-dl

My main browser is luakit and I added this to my config

    key({}, "v", "Open Youtube video", 
        function (w) 
            local uri = w.view.uri
            if uri then
            luakit.spawn(string.format("urxvt -e youtube-viewer -I %q", uri))
            end 
        end),

So I can stream youtube vids by just pressing v.
And I also use a flashblock userscript for luakit.

Everything just works fine. big_smile

raken · 2012-10-07 17:25:11

http://www.gnu.org/software/gnash

Doesn't work as well as Adobe Flash; has a long way to go. But it does a great job on Youtube.

shengchieh · 2012-10-08 02:25:44

If yoiu are using iceweasel, add flashblock extension and stop all the flashes running unless you want it.
I do.

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefo … lashblock/

Yes, flash is a dying breed. Unfortunately, legacy sites still use them.

Sheng-Chieh

NewCityVegas · 2012-10-08 14:19:04

All the Youtube videos downloaded in FLV or WebM format in this Star Trek Fan Film collection were done using another Firefox add-on.

You can click the "Youtube Enhancer" gray box to get it --- http://www.gooplusplus.com/trekfan-film-collection.pdf

CrunchBang Linux

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#1 2012-10-04 20:54:32

Living without Flash

#2 2012-10-04 21:34:22

Re: Living without Flash

#3 2012-10-04 21:36:24

Re: Living without Flash

#4 2012-10-04 21:40:15

Re: Living without Flash

#5 2012-10-04 21:48:50

Re: Living without Flash

#6 2012-10-04 22:06:50

Re: Living without Flash

#7 2012-10-04 22:25:21

Re: Living without Flash

#8 2012-10-04 22:55:58

Re: Living without Flash

#9 2012-10-05 05:31:00

Re: Living without Flash

#10 2012-10-05 05:58:23

Re: Living without Flash

#11 2012-10-05 07:55:00

Re: Living without Flash

#12 2012-10-05 09:15:10

Re: Living without Flash

#13 2012-10-05 09:50:49

Re: Living without Flash

#14 2012-10-05 10:05:16

Re: Living without Flash

#15 2012-10-07 05:20:24

Re: Living without Flash

#16 2012-10-07 11:39:52

Re: Living without Flash

#17 2012-10-07 17:25:11

Re: Living without Flash

#18 2012-10-08 02:25:44

Re: Living without Flash

#19 2012-10-08 14:19:04

Re: Living without Flash

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