Date: Sun, 3 Apr 2016 02:38:00
From: Adam Wilson <moxalt@riseup.net>
To: debian-user@lists.debian.org
Subject: Re: Flash update
On Fri, 1 Apr 2016 23:34:58 -0500
David Wright <deblis@lionunicorn.co.uk> wrote:
On Fri 01 Apr 2016 at 11:39:29 (+0100), Anthony Campbell wrote:
On 27 Jun 2015, Lisi Reisz wrote:
[snip]
1. Using iplayer with flash involves downloading a file.
2. Wouldn't it be nice if the file could be downloaded, preferably
using a program which is in a package in the Debian archives?
3. Such a package has been mentioned in this thread. It is extensively
documented at the program's home page and in its manual.
4. The file being downloaded is a .flv. While it is being downloaded it
is being stored on disk so it can be accessed and viewed. vlc is one
player which can view .flv files.
[snip]
I know this is an old thread, but I thought it would be worth mentioning
that BBC IPlayer now works without Flash. If you go to the BBC IPlayer
web page it says you can access the programs using HTML5. You just have
to install a cookie to do this. It's still in beta but it works for me,
at least with recent versions of Firefox and Chromium.
I don't think I've ever installed a cookie. How would I do this?
Enable cookies in your browser- in most they are enabled by default. The rest should happen automatically.
Is it one cookie to make the browser entirely HTML5, or is it a
different cookie for every site?
If you are using a relatively modern browser (Midori, Iceweasel, IceCat, Firefox, or Epiphany) it should already support HTML5, and it should be able to stream videos in-browser.
In this particular use-case (the BBC website) they should be able to detect that you aren't using Flash and offer you an HTML5 video instead. If this doesn't happen automatically, usually websites which support both will offer you a link ("Use HTML5 player instead" or something to that effect).
Would I know that a movie was being played with HTML5 as opposed to flash?
Yes. The HTML5 player has a unique look. Just open this file in your web browser:
http://audio-video.gnu.org/video/short--undated--rms--free-software-four-freedoms.ogv
and play it. If it plays successfully, then your browser supports HTML5 video, and you will now know what HTML5 looks like.
It is vastly superior to Flash both functionally and ethically.
When flash streams a movie, a copy is downloaded somewhere on my
disk. One beneficial effect of this is that if I click the slider to
an earlier point in the movie, the player plays instantly from that
point, without a wait for buffering. Is that the same with HTML5,
or is it truly streaming (with no local copy on the disk)?
I'm not sure about this. Just because moving to an earlier point in the stream resumes from that point instantly does not necessarily mean that flash is downloading a local copy- I'm pretty sure flash just keeps the entire stream in RAM, just like HTML5.
Either way, HTML5 does this too- you can instantly resume from an already-buffered point.
Is it easy to revert to flash if I don't like HTML5?
Re-installing the flash plugin should work fine- simply uninstall gnash (or whatever you used as your flash plugin), try out the web in HTLM5 sans flash, and then re-install gnash if you don't like it.
I think you'll be pleasantly surprised. Very little of the web requires Flash these days.