Flash in the Pan
No, we’re not discussing the merits of the recent TV series (although my son would like it known that it’s rather good!), more Adobe Flash.
It’s well known in the tech space that Steve Jobs hated it. In a 2010 ‘mainifesto’ he wrote about why he would not allow Adobe Flash to work on Apple mobile devices. Reducing reliability and security were top of the list.
This week he has been joined by Facebook’s new head of security, Alex Stamos who tweeted:
This comes after a well publicised hack which saw a security company’s file leaked online, in turn leading to a huge amount of critical vulnerabilities being disclosed relating to Abobe’s Flash player.
Whilst Adobe is busy patching these issues more cracks are showing. Over 20 other critical issues were discovered last week alone. This doesn’t bode well for Adobe or for Flash, especially when there are more flexible, secure options such as HTML5.
Fans of Flash needn’t worry too much. We can’t see Adobe killing it off just yet, especially when so many websites and applications rely on it. The question should be asked though – how long can Adobe keep patching Flash until a serious security flaw is exposed? Also, it’s worth considering just how much new business Adobe will pick up given this news. As web designers we’ll be giving it a very wide berth.
