Can Flash Survive HTML5?

Is HTML5 going to put the hurt on Flash? Rumors of Flash’s demise may be greatly exaggerated, but the long term prospects for Adobe Flash seem pretty dim indeed.

Joe Brockmeier

Thursday, March 25th, 2010

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There’s been a lot of talk lately about HTML5 and whether Flash is in it for the long haul. Word on the street is that HTML5 will be able to deliver rich content without the need for a proprietary plugin clogging up your Web browser. If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.

Let me get this out of the way up top: I don’t have any particular axe to grind against Flash or Adobe. I’m happy that the company ported Flash to Linux and eventually made Linux more or less a first-class citizen for Flash content. Having used Linux as my primary OS for more than 10 years, I can remember what it was like when Flash became ubiquitous but wasn’t well-supported on Linux. It was a frustration on most days, and sometimes made it outright impossible to get things done online using Linux.

I’m glad…

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