Windows 8 To Run A Plug-in Free IE 10 Browser, Sounds Death Knell For Flash

IE 10 on Windows 8

Microsoft has announced on their B8 Building Windows 8 Blog that Internet Explorer 10 or IE 10 will be a completely plug-in free browser on Windows 8. This means that the world’s most common browser plugin will soon loose it’s place in the world’s most common operating system. This decision does not come as much of a shock and is more of a good news for the future of the Internet.

According to IE Team Leader Dean Hachamovitch’s post on the blog, plug-ins were important the history of browsing. They filled in important gaps in the browsing experience that the Internet by itself could not. That is how Flash gained internet-wise usage in the first place — it was something that allowed web-devs to do more than what HTML and CSS allowed them. But now that HTML5 is here and the web in general has evolved quite a lot, there’s no longer a need for plugins. They have served their purpose. And using them only increases problems.

Running Flash on tables will not only slow the system down but it will also degrade battery performance and also create security and stability issues. And like the other reason the best actually, because as a designer it makes sense to me — it simply does not go with the Metro style! And they are very right, it simple doesn’t.

Although it is not without research that Microsoft decided to remove support for the most commonly used plugin from the latest version of their flagship software product. They conducted a thorough study of the top 97,000 websites and found out that only 62% used Flash. Then they found out that most of them have options for non-flash supporting browsers (Apple’s shunning of flash kinda made that process faster for sure).

In fact, even for the average browser, the changes should be evident. YouTube has long since started offering an HTML5 alternative. Major websites that depended heavily on flash to create a sophisticated online UI for their users have also started using HTML5. In fact, the biggest online store for Electronic Dance Music — Beatport, also recently executed a switchover to HTML5. It is the default for whenever they detect an HTML5 enabled browser, with an option for switching back to Flash. With Microsoft making Windows 8 a pan-device-class platform, Flash has just lost almost all its market. Apple and Google have already shunned it and once Windows 8 takes over, the only mainstream OS with flash support would be, ironically, Apple’s OS X. But then again, they started the whole debate with iOS. Although, it is possible that the Desktop part of Windows 8 will be supporting Flash in its browser. But with IE 10 seamlessly switching between Metro and Desktop, it probably won’t support Flash.

Flash is ancient technology and no one should be too sad to see it go. HTML5 is a much better alternative and is the true cross-platform solution. An it is much more touch-friendly, which was Apple’s point as well.

http://thetorrentcave.com Robert

i never thought id know so mush about flash!
I Care

Flash is OLD! It slows down your network… ie internet cafe… Lets all try the NEW STUFF if it works better. Goodbye flash, good bye OLD SITES, goodbye those free game sites… Good riddance.
http://meercat9.com/ Billy Moffat

The desktop version if IE10 *does* support plugins.
Josh Strike

“only 62%” of sites use flash. So MS is releasing a browser that breaks 62% of sites? That sounds about right.

If IE 10 actually supports HTML5 properly, I’ll eat my hat. MS has yet to release a browser that renders anything in Javascript even close to the way it’s supposed to look.

And to the flash bashers, who have no idea what they’re talking about: It’s not old technology. Flash 10.1+ taps into your GPU, it’s the only way to get accelerated 3D in the browser. HTML5 has nothing of that kind. Look what else you’ll lose without plugins: Google earth, Unity3d, etc. Of course most WEBSITES don’t need Flex/Flash. But for applications and games in the browser, it’s infinitely beyond anything HTML5 can do, and it’s about 10x faster at doing the same things.
- http://meercat9.com/ Billy Moffat
  
  The metro browser doesn’t support it. The desktop browser does. You also don’t sound like you’ve used IE9 let-alone the preview of IE10 – it’ll be fine.
  
  Hey, I love flash and it’s powers, but there’s no denying the tablet browsing will be more stable and use less power if it’s disabled by default. You can still access anything flash through the desktop browser or a competing browser that will no doubt be available. It’s not like Microsoft are going to ban flash specifically like other unnamed companies. They’re just not letting it into one version of their default browser.
  - Josh Strike
    
    Last time I checked you still had to use a matrix filter and you couldn’t change the transform origin if you were trying to rotation something around an arbitrary pivot point. Does IE10 support webkit? Why are we going back to the stone age of moving around CSS elements to produce animation, anyway? And what happens when you try to do anything remotely flash-like in Canvas is, you use 5x as much CPU to render the same things (and forget about 3d)…
    I just don’t get the point; Flash’s engine has gotten so much faster over the past few years, and the language is so much cleaner, stricter and better structured than Javascript 1.x, of course the same app written in Flash will run faster than it will on the JS/CSS/Canvas so-called HTML5 stack. We’re talking about apps here, not ads, not casual games, not most websites, but full-on in-browser apps for business or gaming. These kinds of apps shouldn’t need to be written separately for every platform and 5 different ways for IE 6-10. And of course they should be mobile, because they don’t chew up any more CPU than running Javascript does — that’s absurd.
    
    My bet is, the only reason MS is announcing this is because they’re about to follow Apple’s lead and announce that they’ll have their own app store for Win8 tablets. The only reason Flash is a threat (and the only reason the apple trolls get so hyped up for HTML5 every time anyone mentions it) is because free in-browser Flash gaming platforms would cut directly into App Store sales. Everything else about speed and battery life is a joke.
    - Cristian Marcio
      
      Stop ranting sense. If you want the plugins, you’ll use firefox or the desktop version of the browser or whatever browser allows you to use them.
      - Josh Strike
        
        lol. All I want is to keep writing applications in Flash that work for my clients/users no matter what browser they’re in, so I don’t have to write them in client-side Java or try to use Javascript and CSS to do things that it was never meant to do.
        
        I’m all for standards, and ECMA-4/5 is the standard we should be aspiring to. I wouldn’t mind switching from AS3 to something like Javascript 2, where I can code for a browser and use regular OOP class inheritance and strict typing. What I mind is being told that some brand new browser that lots of people are going to use is stuck with a clunky, slow, 10-year-old half finished language as its only means of client-side scripting.
    - Johnnycuervo
      
      Well flash does slow it down but 60%+ of sites use flash and the rest don’t. I once bought an android tablet with eclair firmware and half the sites I would normally visit wouldn’t work cause of the flash not being supported. With win 8 it’s going to be the same but with the exception of switching to desktop mode for normal browsing which at first would make sense but after a while it will become a problem that alot of people will just leave it at desktop and forget all about the new windows 8 features. What alot of people don’t mention is the convenience over necessity ratio some want quick email check n quick web surf and some need full desktop usage…I think full desktop usage will be a bigger percentage over convenience which will make win 8 a love hate windows…well in my opinion that is…any thoughts about that?
Cyanna

“A Plug-in Free IE 10 Browser, Sounds Death Knell For Flash”. More like sounds the death kell for IE. Besides it is not only about Flash, it’s about ALL plug-ins. Browsing without a password manager, greasemonkey, bugmenot, unit converter, download manager and so on? Not any time soon. I want my browser to be able to do more things, not less, especially since we are actively contemplating a web-based Office solution.
Yes I know I’ll have the option to “get desktop view”, but why take the chance I’ll have to interrupt my work to do that? As it stands IE will be OK for some light general websurfing, but for any serious work or entertainment…………something starting with an F springs to mind.
Neutrino78x

uh, internet explorer is not the only browser. and I agree with Cyanna!!!!!!! I definitely want my browser to be extensible!!! I only run IE when I run into a web site that only works with it, which is rare. Other than that I use Firefox.
Joe

If IE 10 will be the only available browser for Metro UI then yes, if other companies (Google,Apple etc) create app versions of their browsers for Windows App Store then probably not as they will probably support Flash in one way or another. I use flash for YouTube, however I know there will be a HTML 5 video player alternative in the future so if this is the case I am not greatly effected by this! :)
Adrianthompson2010

“Flash is ancient technology” Then you have not used it to program anything. It is now a KIT compiler and a fully fledged OOP language. What is Javascript? Are you kidding me. HTML 5 does not change the fact that you still need to use 20 year old tech to make it work. Flash slow? Not in the least. Do a benchmark. This article has a lot of mis-information.
Adrianthompson2010

Also, who is microsoft or Apple to tell me what techs to use. The limiting of choice is limiting the advancement of technology. Only when we have competing standards do we move forward. And again, isn’t this the same company that keeps messing up the w3 standards. They are not heroes lol
Thor

“Microsoft has announced on their B8 Building Windows 8 Blog that Internet Explorer 10 or IE 10 will be a completely plug-in free browser on Windows 8. This means that the world’s most common browser plugin will soon loose it’s place in the world’s most common operating system. This decision does not come as much of a shock and is more of a good news for the future of the Internet.”
- Actually will became the oposite.
- World most used cross-platform engine called Flash ( keep on the picture – it is not anymore a plug-in ) will make Windows 8 became the most not used platform ever.

It is like drinking Coca-Cola. Peoples drinking it because it is cool, and make you feel cool ( somehow ).
Let’s assume you are market owner, and you are selling up now different foods and Coca-Cola, and the things goes well, and at some point come a guy and tell you : “this new product called Crap-Cola ( javascript + html5″ is like Coca-Cola ( flash ), but a bit more cheap because even kids can produce it just by pissing on a can and shaking well with a bit of extract… anyway it is taste almost like Coca-Cola, so – here – we will make you supper offer and price drop if you replace your selling of Coca-Cola with our Crap-Cola and the market ovner agree actually on the deal…
- The result will be a clean fail for his store, because peoples regardless the a bit high price of Coca-Cola to drink it – because it is cool.

once again – Windows 8 – without Flash and incompatible ARM-x86 desktop apps is like Windows XP with a messy pictures on it. – WE REALLY DONT WANA IT.
Anonymous

I will not even look at this explorer when windows 8 is released unless I can change the search engine from Bing to Google… Even then I will be very tempted to just stick with the beautiful and reliable Google Chrome.
- tomo008866
  
  Bing is better than Google.
- Bobtec14
  
  Google is better at stealing you information. Is that what you are saying?