FLASH in the web interface

[Mobis]

CHROME

Saying goodbye to Flash in Chrome

 

Anthony Laforge

Product Manager, Google ChromePublished Jul 25, 2017

 

Today, Adobe announced its plans to stop supporting Flash at the end of 2020.

For 20 years, Flash has helped shape the way that you play games, watch videos and run applications on the web. But over the last few years, Flash has become less common. Three years ago, 80 percent of desktop Chrome users visited a site with Flash each day. Today usage is only 17 percent and continues to decline.

This trend reveals that sites are migrating to open web technologies, which are faster and more power-efficient than Flash. They’re also more secure, so you can be safer while shopping, banking, or reading sensitive documents. They also work on both mobile and desktop, so you can visit your favorite site anywhere.

These open web technologies became the default experience for Chrome late last year when sites started needing to ask your permission to ru...

If you regularly visit a site that uses Flash today, you may be wondering how this affects you. If the site migrates to open web standards, you shouldn’t notice much difference except that you'll no longer see prompts to run Flash on that site. If the site continues to use Flash, and you give the site permission to run Flash, it will work through the end of 2020.

It’s taken a lot of close work with Adobe, other browsers, and major publishers to make sure the web is ready to be Flash-free. We’re supportive of Adobe’s announcement today, and we look forward to working with everyone to make the web even better.

Can the Arlo website upgrade please.

[Mobis]

Makes sense now Dan, we are having problems with the cameras being slow to record on the pros, pro2s, sounds like the firmware change might be what apple done, slow the phones down so you will upgrade ... Just my opinion.

[REB1149]

I've one out of four camera's that will load . Granted , they are old , and the one camera that does load is new, so this makes sense . They work if i take them down , the will sink , but never update . No way can i justify buying three cameras when people are having so much trouble, including me , and arlo now is apparently self sustaining , and not part of Netgear . . The fear is real . Like others have post , i'm tired of signing in multiple times because i have google . We need a lot of answers , and can't even get HTLM5 on our systems 

[Skewbee]

I have moved(replaced) 5 of my 7 Arlo cams to a more robust platform not hobbled by the Adobe issue. I'm quite pleased with the new UX and expect to be off Arlo completely before Chrome kills Flash. It was a difficult decision to replace an otherwise functioning camera system. Perhaps continued defections will steer Arlo towards giving the UX greater attention. For me, that point will be a moot soon enough.

[viper111]

I replied to the writer of this article. Probably takes a while!

[Mobis]

G'day Viper, how can we all help ya buddy?

[jdelbs18]

When is Arlo going to end flash support and redesign their web interface to use HTML5 or another standard? Flash is dead and this is causing lots of issues for my parents who only use the web interface. Arlo, why are you using a dead web language? When will you be updating? This should be your #1 priority for app / web interface updates. Also posted to reddit about this with many others wondering when you are going to make this update.

https://www.reddit.com/r/arlo/comments/dfpbkp/arlo_and_flash/

[cryocide]

...wait a minute.  The page works without Flash enabled, but only if you view prerecorded video.  It requires Flash to view live video from the cameras though, at least on my system.  Does that mean THE CAMERAS were coded to output in Flash format?!  What the heck?!  And Arlo Ultra cameras (mine) were launched well after Adobe set the sunset date on Flash!

[StephenB]

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@cryocide wrote:

...wait a minute.  The page works without Flash enabled, but only if you view prerecorded video.  It requires Flash to view live video from the cameras though, at least on my system.

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Yes, mine too,

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@cryocide wrote:

Does that mean THE CAMERAS were coded to output in Flash format?! 

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That doesn't necessarily follow, since the live camera output always goes through the base station

[SteveFox]

We have a few Arlo Pro cameras and were looking for a way to stream them to HTML5 tag with minimal latency. So we explored WebRTC options and tested Webcall Server and Unreal Media Server, and found the latency to be stable 0.5 sec, which is good for us.

However, the audio needs to be transcoded from AAC to Opus. Hence the feature request - any plans to support Opus encoding in hardware/firmware?

[cryocide]

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@StephenB wrote:

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@cryocide wrote:

...wait a minute.  The page works without Flash enabled, but only if you view prerecorded video.  It requires Flash to view live video from the cameras though, at least on my system.

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Yes, mine too,

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@cryocide wrote:

Does that mean THE CAMERAS were coded to output in Flash format?! 

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That doesn't necessarily follow, since the live camera output always goes through the base station

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True.  Maybe I should've specified the hardware, and not just the cameras.  My Arlo Ultra setup required a new base station (VMB5000, specifically) when I upgraded from Arlo Pro.  I just did a packet capture and the incoming stream seems to be coming through Amazon AWS, so the hardware relays video via a leased cloud service.  I haven't set up a monitor port on a switch to sniff the traffic directly leaving the base station, so I don't know what format it takes when it leaves.

What's coming in to my Chrome browser is Flowplayer output according to the contents of the stream on the developer console, and judging from the contents of Flowplayer's website, they're up and running on HTML5, but you have to pay for the upgrade. Since Arlo didn't develop the video streamer, that rules out them being incompetent. Now it's probably just a case of them being too cheap to stay current.

[mxm]

>> I'm just saying that HTML5 won't cut it alone, they need an API.

Hi Viper,

Respectfully, it seems like some dunning-kruger coming through in your comments about technology. HTML5 is pretty much the industry standard currently (Netflix, etc.) and what Arlo engineering does on the backend is up to them. While I would love for this to be done as soon as possible, I'm happy to see they acknowledged that its on their roadmap. 

[Fonebone]

I think it would be nice to have a Roku channel that lets you sign in securely to view cameras.

[viper111]

Hi all,

like I said, yes HTML5 is the standard.

It is easy to have video and audio embedded in this language.

HTML5 will not secure the source, that need to be done in an API.

They are probably not willing to program different API's for different platforms.

I wouldn't want to!

Guys think about it!

Of course you want that, but it need to be secure too, this is my home someone could see!

Best Regards

Viper111

[jbandes]

Out of all the cameras that are out there I love Arlo. Not perfect but damn good. As far as Flash, obviously Netgear will not strand its customers and will re-write the code as many have said in HTML5 which does not require Flash. I suppose that Netgear should post something to calm everyone down but I am sure they will do it.

[Skewbee]

Does this calm users down?

Netgear no longer owns any shares of Arlo common stock 

[jbandes]

Perhaps not but do you honestly believe that the best Camera solution out there today is going to strand all of its customers because it will not re-write the browser code in HTML5? I dont think so.

Arlo integrates with Alexa and Smarthings and Apple HomeKit and runs in IOS and Windows and Android I mean to think that they will not re-write their browser code is ridiculous. Even if they decided to get out of the business, someone else would surly purchase the company and re-write the code. 

[WallstX]

Is the team working on rolling out the HTML 5 a Chair and one guy team?

From reading some of these responses, they are making it sound like we are launching new Internet satellite's into Outerspace  *couch*

[michaelkenward]

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@WallstX wrote:

Is the team working on rolling out the HTML 5 a Chair and one guy team?

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I have yet to see any evidence of stuff going on behind the scenes. Then again they rarely talk about these things. Local access to USB/memory storage only comes up because it affects buying decisions. This is probably not the case yet for Flash.

[Overassist]

It's 2019 and we are still waiting on the replacing of Flash...............maybe 2020 will never come

[zeadlots]

Dear Arlo support team,

We are coming up to just under a month before Flash is completely dead.  Talk about cutting it close?  Is there a BETA/ALPHA program we can opt into in order to help test the new HTML 5 solution?  I would love to get in on that asap.  Last thing I want is no access to my camera's on Jan 1st because the new solution wasn't tested enough by real customers.

Contact me if there is such a thing!

[danwriter]

You're off by a year. Flash support terminates December 2020:

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/4520411/adobe-flash-end-of-support

That said, McRae does need to get his act together soon, because no technology solution/fix has ever been perfect from Day One. And there's going to have to be a lot of slack in the rope for this one.

[MHCB]

Since Apple is discontinuing using Flash next year, what is Arlo doing as an alternative so i can continue to view live video on my Macs, Ipads, and iPhone?

[BC_Innkeeper]

Thanks I was just going to post this......flash is dead to the world not just google 

[StephenB]

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@BC_Innkeeper wrote:

Thanks I was just going to post this......flash is dead to the world not just google 

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No need to post it over and over.

Arlo has announced publicly that they will switch to html5 before flash is removed from the browers in Dec 2020.

Hopefully they will switch sooner rather than later. 

[talkanderson]

That's  Dec 2020 (not 2021).