Flash is under fire again, and this time the attack comes from Opera Software. In an interview with Techradar, Opera’s product analyst Phillip Grønvold said that the future of the web is made of open standards, and that Flash is not open. If Opera wants to stay in the market, they need to support them and Flash for video really doesn’t make sense.
“Today’s internet content is dependant on Flash,” said Grønvold. “If you remove Flash you do not have today’s internet. We are trying to give the best internet experience for our users therefore we need Flash - there is no way to beat around that bush.”
But at Opera we say that the future of the web is open web standards and Flash is not an open web standards technology. Flash does have its purposes and will have its purposes, the same as [Microsoft’s] Silverlight and others, especially for dynamic content. But flash as a video container makes very little sense for CPU, WiFi battery usage etcetera – you can cook an egg on [devices] once you start running Flash on them and there’s a reason for that.”
So there you have it, Opera joins the debate as well. I think they’re making the right move.
