Flash is really a thing that people love and hate, it used to be a lot of sites and excellent solution for streaming media play system, but some significant flaws all scientist on their guts. Flash is what has brought the world of the Internet, and what other disadvantages, perhaps this topic is of interest to fans on the Internet.

The origin of Flash

In 1993, the programmer Jonathan Gay founded a graphics program the company called FutureWave Software and SmartSketch software was developed in 1994. After 1995 the World Wide Web, Jonathan Gay awareness in the realization of a wide variety of animation effects on a Web page can bring a lot of opportunities, so the company developed an animation tool called FutureSplash Animator. In this tool, the company developed applications in the SmartSketch Netspace browser plug-in, the name also known as FutureSplash Animator.

In May 1996, FutureSplash Animator after the official launch, Microsoft is Disney's largest customer for FutureWave Software, these two Web companies use FutureSplash Animator. Soon, in December 1996 Macromedia bought FutureWave Software, and FutureSplash Animator and the name was simplified as Flash 1.0.

The success of Flash

By the year 2001, has 500,000 Flash developers in the world, more than 325 million people install Flash Player in the Web browser.

We Flash the visual impression is it possible to use the gate of two-dimensional vector animation player to play, and therefore save bandwidth and decrease overall site traffic, and so on. But by the year 2002, with the opening of Javascript support, and start-compatible HTML text, streaming video encoding capabilities. Therefore, early Flash animation is no longer a simple Web page creation and playback tools, but became more versatile Web-end streaming media player tool.

2007 Adobe launched a survey report found that global 96% computers have Internet access and browser the Flash Player is installed, there are 2 million professionals in developing with Flash.

Disadvantages

But even with so many users use Flash's own there are still some problems that cannot be avoided, and these problems will also Flash to the awkward position of now.

First Flash is not open, it is heavily dependent on vendor-supplied content. This was vehemently opposed by Mozilla Europe, Tristan Nitot, founder:

Enterprise website construction should be wary of Adobe's Flash and Microsoft's Silverlight, proprietary rich media technology, you cannot be sure you and your users with content of the production will be between prying eyes.

Put Flash advertising typically use objects embedded in a Web page or HTML embed element, so the ads to load pages accordingly in the process of loading and use of user's network bandwidth, so the user need plug-ins to prohibit playback of Flash ads.

Introduced in the Flash version 10.3, Flash Cookies are not deleted through the easy way, and Cookies usually is when a user is browsing on the Internet using the information, once the hacker tracking, users must not escape unscathed.

Flash is the most worrying emerging security vulnerabilities. Network security company Intego on February 12, 2015, released a report, saying that Adobe Flash Player has more than 400 CVE project, 300 of which have may lead to arbitrary code execution vulnerability, and webcam to spy. In 2010, Steve Jobs said, because of the low Flash security, all iOS device will not allow the existence of Flash.

Opponents

HTML5 Flash real opponents in 2011 was officially named and developed, 2014 release final version has now become the major development in many frontier website text.

Compared to Flash,HTML5 open source and easy to develop, no DRM and other digital authorization management, perfected streaming media play system, the final release is better than HTML5 versions of Flash have significantly improved. Text as the latest proven Web development, HTML5 also have enough qualifications to replace Flash.

Yesterday, Google announced that Chrome will be goodbye to Flash at the end of this year, and in early April this year, when Microsoft announced the Win10 Edge browser will abandon Flash at the end of the message.

Currently available in most major browsers have default comes with "stop Flash" feature, but given the large number of Internet users base and some inert Internet company, the complete demise of Flash may still have to wait for some time.

Flash真的是一个让人又爱又恨的产品，它曾经是许多网站和流媒体播放机制的优秀解决方案，但本身的一些重大缺陷让所有科技人士都对其恨之入骨。那么Flash具体为互联网世界带来了什么，它又有哪些其他方面的劣势，这或许也是互联网爱好者们关心的话题。

Flash的由来

1993年，程序员Jonathan Gay创办了一家图像程序公司，名为FutureWave Software，并在1994年开发了SmartSketch软件。1995年万维网出现之后，Jonathan Gay意识到在网页上实现各式各样的动画效果能够带来不小的商机，因此这家公司便开发了一款名为FutureSplash Animator的动画制作工具。而在这个工具之前，这家公司还开发了应用在Netspace浏览器上SmartSketch插件，名字也叫做FutureSplash Animator。

1996年5月FutureSplash Animator正式上线之后，微软迪士尼变成为了FutureWave Software的最大客户，这两家公司的网页都会使用FutureSplash Animator。很快，Macromedia在1996年12月购买了FutureWave Software，而FutureSplash Animator这个名字也被简化成了Flash 1.0。

Flash的成功

到了2001年，全球已经拥有50万Flash开发者，超过3.25亿人网页浏览器中安装了Flash Player。

我们对Flash最直观的印象就是它能够利用装门的播放器来播放矢量二维动画，并因此做到节省网络带宽、节约整个网站的数据流量等等。不过到了2002年，随着对Javascript开放支持、并开始兼容HTML文本、流媒体视频编码等功能。因此，Flash很早就已不再是单纯的网页动画制作和播放工具，而是成为了更加全能的网页端流媒体播放工具。

2007年Adobe推出的一项调查报告发现，全球96%拥有上网功能和浏览器的电脑安装了Flash Player，有200万专业人才在使用Flash进行开发。

缺点

但即使有这么多用户在使用，Flash自身仍存在着一些无法避免的问题，而这些问题，也将Flash推向了现在的尴尬境地。

首先Flash并不开放，它十分依赖供应商提供的内容。这一点遭到了Mozilla欧洲创始人Tristan Nitot的激烈反对：

企业网站在建设时应提防Adobe的Flash和微软的Silverlight等专有的富媒体技术，你无法确定你和你为用户生产的内容之间是否会被人偷窥。

网页中投放的Flash广告通常使用对象嵌入或者HTML元素嵌入，因此这些广告在网页载入的过程中也会相应地进行载入，进而占用用户的网络带宽，因此用户需要插件来禁止Flash广告的播放。

在Flash推出10.3版本之前，Flash Cookies是无法通过简单的方式进行删除的，而Cookies通常又是用户在网上进行浏览时的使用信息资料，一旦被黑客跟踪，用户必然难逃一劫。

Flash最令人担忧的就是层出不穷的安全漏洞。网络安全公司Intego在2015年2月12日公布了一项报告，称Adobe Flash Player拥有的超过400条CVE项目，其中有300条有可导致任意代码执行、并通过网络摄像头进行间谍活动的漏洞。2010年，史蒂夫·乔布斯表示，由于Flash过低的安全保障，所有iOS设备产品不会允许Flash的存在。

对手

Flash真正的对手HTML5在2011年正式命名并进行开发，2014年发行最终版本，如今已经成为许多前沿网站的主要开发文本。

相比Flash，HTML5开源且便于开发，没有DRM等任何数字授权管理，完善了流媒体的播放机制，最终发行的HTML5版本性能也比Flash有着显著提升。作为最新的成熟网页开发文本，HTML5也有足够的资格取代Flash。

谷歌昨天宣布，Chrome将会在今年年底彻底告别Flash，而在今年4月初的时候，微软也宣布了Win10 Edge浏览器将会在年底彻底放弃Flash的消息。

目前市面上的大多数的主流浏览器都已经默认自带“截停Flash”的功能，不过面对庞大的互联网用户数量基数和一些不思进取的互联网企业，Flash的彻底消亡可能还需要等上一段时间。