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Adobe Concedes In The Battle Between Flash And HTML5

Adobe Flash has long been the primary application used for web graphics, videos, interactive web pages, and more. With the recent development of smart phones Adobe began working vigorously to provide an acceptable Flash player however it has been a long and troubled road for them.

Adobe has been competing with HTML5 as the dominant graphics platform for smart phones however they were fighting a losing battle. HTML5 was by far the superior contender in the battle and Adobe finally conceded here recently.

In a statement about their recent decision regarding Flash for mobile devices Adobe said this:

“Our future work with Flash on mobile devices will be focused on enabling Flash developers to package native apps with Adobe AIR for all the major app stores. We will no longer adapt Flash Player for mobile devices to new browser, OS version or device configurations.”

So why exactly did Adobe cease attempting to optimize Flash for mobile devices? Let’s take a look at the key reasons:

  1. HTML5 was superior – Adobe Flash simply did not work well on mobile devices despite the extensive amount of time Adobe put into working on it. HTML5 arrived a year before Flash and was still providing superior performance results than Flash.
  2. Flash lost support – Many people remember Steve Job’s message about Flash. Jobs stated Apple would cease working with Adobe and the Apple products would be using HTML5 instead of Flash. For Adobe this was a huge blow and the repercussions of Jobs’ decision were a determining factor in Adobe ceasing their work with Flash for mobile devices.
  3. HTML5 wasn’t owned by any company – While Flash was losing support HTML5 continued to gain significant support not only because it was superior but also because it wasn’t owned by a single company. Some of the biggest names in the internet world have switched over to HTML5 along with Apple including: YouTube, Twitter, CloudReader, Vimeo, Vudu, Pandora, SlideShare, and now even Adobe itself is working with HTML5.

The switch was a smart move for Adobe due to the fact that HTML5 is simply superior in almost every way for mobile devices. Now that HTML5 is fully supported by some of the biggest companies, web developers and publishers can rejoice and smart phone users can now expect to see far superior devices sometime in the near future.

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Why YouTube Is Staying With Flash Rather Than HTML5… For Now.

In an earlier post I discussed why Apple announced it would no longer be working with Adobe. To sum it up, Apple disliked Adobe Flash player for a variety of reasons. In Apple’s word’s Flash player had constant issues, was a closed system, and alternative solutions allowed web developers more options while allowing consumers to view web media without having to rely on a third party plug-in. Instead of choosing to stick with Flash, Apple is now relying on JavaScript, CSS, and the new HTML5. Unfortunately not everyone is cutting the cord from Flash and moving on.

One of the largest and most well-known video compilation websites is YouTube. Millions upon millions of people use YouTube each day and viral videos make it a great place for anyone looking for a few laughs. Here recently there has been a great movement to switch from Flash over to HTML5. YouTube, however, has decided to not make the leap over to HTML5…yet.

Since HTML5 is still a work in progress, it has a lot of issues that need to be fixed before it is a widely used by all browsers. It is for these reasons that YouTube has also not made the switch over. A big issue with HTML5 is that there are significant differences reported when viewing videos. YouTube has a trail session running for HTML5 and when you run the same video on it you can tell that HTML5 does not have as high of a quality as regular Flash. I tried it myself and noticed a difference in video quality when viewing HD, but didn’t see any difference in time delay which was also noted amongst other users.

On top of the lesser video quality and reported delays, there is also no set codec standard. Since there are users uploading video constantly, YouTube wants to minimize the amount of codecs it has to support. Then there are the limitations. HTML5 does not allow users to upload directly from YouTube’s built-in video recording software. The final issue with HTML5 issue is that YouTube wants to protect its Digital Rights so that no one is able to copy and spread the videos all throughout the web without the owner’s consent.

Despite YouTube’s current reluctance they are still waiting for HTML5. With their HTML5 trial running right now, YouTube is sticking with Flash, but is preparing for HTML5 in the near future along with all the other browsers.

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Opera 11 Beta for Windows, Mac OS X and Linux

Download Opera 11 Beta for Windows, Mac OS X and Linux

Opera development team has always been on a constant endeavor two provide best internet browser for their users, and now they have passed another milestone by releasing their next version of their popular browser, which is the Opera 11 Beta.

The development team has just released their testing version for users to examine the new attributes prior to their final release. Just like the prior version, this version also consists of many new features, interesting improvements, and enhancements for internet users.

Features of Opera 11 Beta:

 

Tab Sticking: Allows users to move one tab above another tab to generate a group.

Safe Address Field: This address field conceals the complexness of lengthy URL, and provides users effective control of security while browsing.

Extension Support: it has the extension support, which allows user to add new attributes easily and customize them accordingly.

Better Performance: WebPages load more quickly, and even the complicated apps perform more efficiently.

Enhanced HTML5 Support: Facilitates new requirements and HTML5 solutions, which implies that rich dynamic web apps, and more importantly the multiplayer games could be supported by it.

Extended auto-update: New auto-update technique makes sure that extension and opera apps will remain up-to-date all the time.

Plug-ins On Demand: An option has been added to posses plug-in like Flash player only with click.

Enhanced Email in Browser: The new Email control panel provides users with the option of control over the email listing order.

Faster Installation: Opera 11 Beta is 30% smaller when compared to the previous version Opera 10.60, and therefore the users can download it rather quickly.

The Opera users with be totally fascinated with this new version, as it offers them with enhanced functionalities and advanced security options

Download Opera 11.00 Beta for Windows

Download Opera 11.00 Beta for Mac OS X

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Try The New Google Chrome Stable 6

Try The New Google Chrome Stable 6

Most of the net surfers are very well familiar with the Google Chrome web browser, which is a WebKit LayOut Engine and it is an application framework. Recently, it has completed and celebrated its second anniversary with a new release of stable version in Google Chrome Stable 6, which is more streamlined with fast speed.

Google Chrome has been created with JavaScript and now the performance of Google Chrome has been enhanced and upgraded than before.  Now it is much more faster, than the time it was introduced, which is about two years ago.

According to latest blog of Chrome, apart from an improvement in speed, it has been introduced with new features like more customized New Tab page, better privacy controls, password manager, Autofill, HTML5 capabilities, synchronization of various settings, automatic translation, browser themes and side-by-side view.

The Google Chrome stable 6 has been added with these new improvements and features as mentioned below:

  • Improved and updated User Interface (UI).
  • Form Autofill.
  • Syncing of Autofill data and extensions.
  • Fast speed and improvement in stability.
  • Fixes Security issues.

 

The Google Chrome stable 6 can be downloaded from the official site of Google Chrome.  Just visit on Google Chrome website and type following URL in the address bar 6.0.472.53 to download the latest version of Google Chrome Stable 6.

Google Chrome stable 6 for Windows XP, Vista and 7
Google Chrome stable 6 for Mac
Google Chrome stable 6 for Linux