Apple iPad doesn't support flash and YouTube has an HTML5 beta version which is flash-free and supports Safari, Chrome and IE8 with Chrome Frame. Add to that the power of AJAX which can probably replace a lot of the GUI capabilities of flash and it seems like the future of flash is about decline.

It's quite entrenched though so it may take quite a while, but suppose that few years from now all browsers have HTML5 and youtube is completely flash free. Other sites will probably follow suit and these popular video sites are probably the heaviest users of flash. Just this switch alone would probably begin rendering flash to the fringes.

What do you think? And would you welcome this? I think I would. Flash is a proprietary resource hog.

I've never been a bug fan of Flash, but it seems somehow odd to see it going.

Isn't it interesting that YouTube's HTML5 Beta doesn't support Firefox? Firefox is supporting the open-source Ogg video format, while YouTube is pushing the patented H264 format -- probably because that's what Apple supports on the iPhone.

Firefox and Opera refuse to support H264 because of the costs and difficulties of patent licensing.

H264's patent limitations may keep Flash alive for quite a few more years.

Will.Spencer wrote:
I've never been a bug fan of Flash, but it seems somehow odd to see it going.

Isn't it interesting that YouTube's HTML5 Beta doesn't support Firefox? Firefox is supporting the open-source Ogg video format, while YouTube is pushing the patented H264 format -- probably because that's what Apple supports on the iPhone.

Firefox and Opera refuse to support H264 because of the costs and difficulties of patent licensing.

Indeed, I heard of that and it's quite unfortunate. I mean it's quite unfortunate that Google and Apple push a proprietary patented format over an open one. I hear h264 is supposed to be superior, but Theora can be improved. I think it's always a better bet for the future to go with open rather than proprietary.

It's likely though that if Apple and Google win with this (which they probably will) someone will just make a third party extension that will add support to Firefox as well.

Will.Spencer wrote:

H264's patent limitations may keep Flash alive for quite a few more years.

Hmm could be.