Comment by bunderbunder | Hacker News Reader

Comment by bunderbunder | Hacker News Reader

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Cue stanard Betteridge's Law remark.

The whitelisting only applies to the "mobile" version of their browser. To that end, Microsoft's policy is markedly more Flash-friendly than what's happening on other Mobile platforms. After all, at least some Flash content will be permitted. By contrast, iOS and (as of recently) Android are effectively Flash-free platforms.

I think the fact that there's no restriction on desktop, combined with their published requirements for how to get whitelisted for mobile, make it pretty clear that this isn't really meant to be an attack on Flash. It's more an attempt to deal with the large number of websites whose Flash content is fundamentally incompatible with touchscreens because it assumes the presence of a mouse. Blocking Flash on those sites hopefully results in a better user experience because the site is theoretically degrading to a Flash-free version instead.

Far from being a Flash-killing move, in hindsight the other mobile platforms adopting a similar policy might have been the one thing that could have saved Flash for them.

Maybe you meant this by putting quotes around the word mobile, but this applies to IE10 on desktops as well; when running IE10 in Metro... I mean Windows 8 UI. In the official documentation [1] they refer to it as "Windows UI". I think it's a bit misleading to claim it only applies to "mobile" [sic].

1 - http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ie/jj193557(v=vs.85)...

Right. IE 10 Metro being the mobile version of their browser.

It's true that it runs on desktops. But it's also true that it's primarily intended as the version of the browser that's used on touchscreen devices.

Eh, I hate to split hairs here, but I feel like the author of this blog post is being unfairly taken to task for a misleading headline. I disagree with the characterization of the WinUI version of IE being the "mobile version of their browser". It's the only version available on mobile, but WinUI is the default UI when you boot Windows 8, isn't it? That's not rhetorical. I haven't used Windows 8 much, but I did install the beta in a VM, and it booted to Metro (...er Windows UI). When I launched IE, it launched in WinUI, so it's reasonable to assume that mom & pop are going to use IE10 in WinUI at least as much as they do "desktop" mode.

The whole kerfuffle here centers around the ambiguity of the terms in use. It is unfair to take the blog author to task over his language, only to use unclear language in return. Characterizing this as the "mobile version" of the browser is incredibly unclear, considering it's the default on the OS that will ship with desktop and laptop computers.

EDIT: Here's a little matrix I posted further down the page. I think this makes the context a little more clear.

                        Windows UI  |  Desktop
                        (default)
    ================================+================                    
    Tablet or phone :   Affected    |  N/A
    Desktop or laptop:  Affected    |  NOT affected

Maybe, I suppose it depends on how you use it. I've been using the consumer release Windows 8 on my personal laptop for about a month now, and I honestly haven't even seen the Metro version since then. I know it's there, but the desktop version's generally quicker and easier to get to.

As far as the whole "mobile/not mobile" thing goes, I think that ambiguity is totally inescapable on Windows 8. Windows 8 has an identity complex, and is full of bits of UI that were clearly designed for touchscreen devices but are also used on the desktop OS. But I don't think the fact that they're available negates the fact that they're primarily optimized for a mobile experience. It's more just a symptom of Microsoft trying (and, as illustrated by cases like this, not necessarily succeeding) to shoehorn a mobile experience and a desktop experience into the same environment.

mmm but default mode for Windows 8 is "Windows UI" (Metro). You have to specifically switch to Desktop mode.

You have to wonder how many people will never switch modes...

That page refers to it as "new Windows UI", not simply "Windows UI". Sorry to nitpick, but there's enough ambiguity around the naming for the new/modern/metro/Windows 8 UI already.

Flash can be downloaded and installed on Jellybean. Sure it doesn't come standard anymore, but it works just fine. Android is far from a flash free platform. In fact I'd say its still the superior mobile flash platform.

Its kind of crazy to me Google doesnt include Flash with jellybean when it works just fine. I'm all for killing flash asap, I hate it... but when it works... why deprive people of that bullet point feature?

Either way, its beyond false to call Android (even jellybean) a "flash free platform". You have to download and install flash on a desktop computer, just like you have to download and install Flash on Jellybean. Still works like a dream though.

It can be installed. But it's not supported, and Adobe has specifically recommended against doing so, and is telling everyone to uninstall Flash before installing Jellybean. So while sideloading it might work for now, most people probably won't bother. And sooner or later it's going to break, anyway. Meaning anyone who's looking to support a mobile browsing experience on Android needs be thinking of it as a Flash-free zone, on pain of being alienated from their userbase.

The headline did not end in a question mark.

"Did MS just kill Flash?"

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