Google now automatically converts Flash ads to HTML5

http://venturebeat.com/2015/02/25/google-now-automatically-converts-flash-ads-to-html5/

by cpeterso • 11 years ago

207 90 11 years ago

venturebeat.com

serve_yay• 11 years ago

Uhh, hooray.

vitno• 11 years ago

why swiffy? Why not use Shumway? Is this just a case of "Not invented here" syndrome?

melling• 11 years ago

Looks like Swiffy was started first.

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Swiffy

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shumway_(software)

evincarofautumn• 11 years ago

And I think Spaceport (now defunct) was started even earlier than that. Shame Google didn’t acquire it.

cpeterso2• 11 years ago

Swiffy is an offline publishing tool to convert SWFs to SVG. Shumway is a client-side SWF interpreter.

itsjareds• 11 years ago

On a related note: can someone explain the advantages of Swiffy over Shumway? Upon first glance, it looks like Shumway has the ability to translate Actionscript to Javascript and the Flash visual elements to HTML5 elements. Whereas with Swiffy, the SWF is just converted to what's basically an animated SVG. What would make Swiffy more attractive for Google to use over Shumway if Shumway seems to be a more complete solution?

bshimmin• 11 years ago

Most Flash ads don't really have a great deal of ActionScript in them beyond the odd call to stop and play in the timeline.

TD-Linux• 11 years ago

Shumway is a very heavyweight dynamic recompiler and includes a complex canvas/webGL rendering engine. Shipping it just for an ad is a bit much.

Naturally, Swiffy's method is quite limited in what Flash features it can support, but that's OK for its purpose.

akersten• 11 years ago

Shame that I automatically convert all ads to nonexistance.

It's too little, too late for rich media/content-heavy ads. Especially in the mobile sector:

* Ads are a performance burden on low-power devices

* They consume extra battery; power is wasted on superfluous cruft

* Bandwidth wasted; especially a concern given draconian data caps

* Tracking and privacy concerns

Not to mention the fact that ads are a primary attack vector (think of all the advertising CDNs that have been compromised and used to deliver malware). The real improvement here is moving away from a proprietary plugin.

Pointing out the problems of rich media ads isn't very useful here though, since most of us are probably aware already. My proposal would be simple, inline text, along the lines of "this page load sponsored by _". Doubt that will gain traction, though.

drzaiusapelord2• 11 years ago

They consume extra battery;

I find it fascinating that Google is always hurting their own mobile experience. Between all the issues android has with wake locks and memory leaks and the massive infrastructure of location and 'lifestyle' tracking for ad delivery, its a miracle Android devices get any battery life at all. Even without this html5 conversion, Android battery life often pales compared to iOS or Windows Phone.

The more I think about it, an OS from whats essentially an ad delivery company is probably a liability. Monetization will trump user experience. Get ready for some pretty invasive html5 ads.

higherpurpose• 11 years ago

Aren't most iOS apps ad-based, too?

tdkl• 11 years ago

That's probably why they're in size of a small tablet now.

username223• 11 years ago

Ugh. Blocking or not installing Flash used to be an easy way to avoid the most annoying ads. Now I need to figure out some mixture of request-blocking and CSS element-hiding to make them go away. And CSS hiding doesn't address the fact that most of the bandwidth I buy on a cell carries content I don't want: a 1000-word article is maybe 5k of text, but how many megabytes of ads and Javascript garbage? Nor does it prevent the tracking.

Simple, tasteful, first-party ads would make the world a much better place, but sadly, I don't think that's the direction we're heading.

oceanstone• 11 years ago

If you can live without Flash, it's worth uninstalling. These days, the killer apps you'll experience from Flash are zero-day exploits.

jevinskie• 11 years ago

Also, on my iPad, I find that many websites (news sites are the worst offenders) keep messing with my "tap to zoom on the main column of text" action. That is, my zoom setting is reset several seconds after the main content is displayed. I have a hunch that it is, in a large part, due to ad networks loading long after the main content has loaded and forcing a reflow of the page.

s_q_b8• 11 years ago

Like you, I don't mind ads per se. I even feel badly blocking them, knowing that I'm depriving a content creator of revenue. But the issues you point out are the very reason I can't have them in my browser.

I used a computer without AdBlock the other day, and it was like stepping back into 1999 with every page saturated with the 21st century equivalent of animated GIFs and auto-play MIDIs.

An alternative ad network isn't as far fetched as it might seem. Clearly delineated simple ads were a key differentiator in early iterations of Google Search.

Perhaps what we need is a "ethical ads" network, with strict requirements on what could and could not be done:

1. Plain text and link only, with clear separation of content and advertising.

2. No user tracking (Maybe with explicit opt-in? And even then with as-good-as-possible anonymization of the stored data.)

3. A deal with AdBlock and competitors to share a cut of the revenue, in exchange for allowing Ethical Ads through.

If advertisers and ad networks keep following the current trajectory, there will come a day when ads are simply too intrusive, and ad blocking will go (even more) completely mainstream.

Rich media doesn't do advertisers any good if no one ever sees their ads.

zabuni• 11 years ago

This already happens, and people were upset about it.

https://adblockplus.org/en/acceptable-ads#criteria https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5995140

rm999• 11 years ago

I used to work in the ad industry and deeply analyzed this stuff. There's a lot of unspoken secrets in the industry:

1. The majority of clicks go to flashy, annoying ads. 2. People who click on these ads rarely convert, i.e. sign up for a newsletter or purchase a product. These are probably accidental clicks. 3. The ROI on advertising is often negative. 4. No one cares about any of this because click through rates are still the gold standard. Advertisers aren't savvy enough to know better, and ad agencies don't get paid either way.

It's a terribly inefficient industry, made worse by the fact that attribution is very difficult ("did this costumer buy this product because of an ad?"). This all has led to a fall in ad rates, which is just leading to more annoying ads. It's a vicious cycle that makes clean, honest text ads even less likely.

Moru• 11 years ago

Don't feel bad about it. All the small advertisers are glad that you don't view their ads because they know you won't buy from them anyway and would be throwing out money without getting anything for it. Expecting your visitors to look at ads that you get paid for is just another type of fraud by the content-generator against the advertiser. :-)

vitd• 11 years ago

I think that eventually what's happening with TV and radio will happen with other types of media. I almost never watch TV ads anymore. I get more and more content through iTunes, Netflix, HBO, etc. where there are no ads. I TiVo anything I want to watch from the networks (even live events) and skip the ads. For radio, I use Podcasts, iTunes Radio and Pandora, and I pay to not have ads. I use AdBlock on the web, but mostly use sites that either don't have ads, or I pay to get rid of them when I'm able.

I'm sure free content with ads will exist forever, but I suspect people will find more and more paid options and start using them as ads get more and more intrusive.

Springtime• 11 years ago

Perhaps what we need is a "ethical ads" network, with strict requirements on what could and could not be done

Personally I don't mind unintrusive (small) static image ads from quality advertisers tailored to the type of audience of the site. A List Apart I can remember having a worthwhile ad network whose ads I've actually been interested in several times in the past (which is very rare). Problem with most ads for me, and the reason I choose to block the majority, is the lack of high quality products being advertised and the fact that the click-through rate is so low the ads rely on other tactics to grab attention, fueling the desire to block them.

userbinator3• 11 years ago

there will come a day when ads are simply too intrusive, and ad blocking will go (even more) completely mainstream.

That is, if the war on general-purpose computing doesn't eventually make it nearly impossible to perform any form of adblocking...

Currently, the most popular form of adblock is probably a browser extension. Browser vendors are seeing extensions as a possible vector for malware (which is true) and the trend seems to be for enforced signing. This gives them control over what extensions they'll accept, which also gives them the power to prevent adblocking extensions. It isn't happening now but I wouldn't be surprised if it does in the future. On the desktop there are ways around this but they are far more involved than they used to be. The situation on mobile devices is worse.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7237725

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9061592

Another form is a filtering proxy. Admuncher, AdSubtract, Proxomitron, Proximodo, Privoxy, etc. These were quite popular around the turn of the millenium... The downside is that setting one up to filter SSL correctly is a pain (for the ones that do support it) and now, thanks to Superfish, the general public probably has a fear of all things MITM, user-controlled or otherwise. On a mobile device it's rather difficult to install and manage one, so hosting it remotely is better, but probably most reliable way to block ads there.

A HOSTS file is another way. It works for blocking ad-CDNs quite effectively, but otherwise is very coarse-grained (easily defeated by ads hosted on same domains as non-ads.) Easy to use for desktop; will likely need to be done through DHCP/DNS server for mobile.

As much as I advocate adblocking, I only do it to the ads that are truly giving me a hard time. Tasteful static images and text-only ads don't really bother me at all. It's the annoyingly distracting animated, page-obscuring, misleading, screaming, user-tracking ones that get killed.

Aldo_MX2• 11 years ago

In the mobile apps world, some ad networks (ej. mopub) have a new type of ad named "Native Ad".

With this type of ads you have control on how you display them, and the intended use case is to make the ad look like a part of your application.

This is an explanatory PDF: http://www.mopub.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/Native_Ads_O...

I believe that something similar is what the web needs.

asdkl234890• 11 years ago

The problem with ads is that they suffer from the tragedy of commons. Each individual advertiser wants to be more prominent. All together virtually force you to block ads. In special cases, when a third party reviews all ads, as on PennyArcade, the ads tend to be much less annoying.

andyhmltn• 11 years ago

I used a computer without AdBlock the other day, and it was like stepping back into 1999 with every page saturated with the 21st century equivalent of animated GIFs and auto-play MIDIs.

Really? I'm not sure that's entirely true. I don't have adblock on the temp laptop I'm using because I just forgot to install it and I have barely noticed any change in my browsing habits.

tracker1• 11 years ago

Another thing that really gets me, given responsive design, is the lack of responsive ads... ad sizes that can go from leaderboard, to tranditional, to micro (phone) sized... as you stretch/reduce your screen size...

As it is, my plan is to render whatever original size, and resizes just won't see/render ads (flux/react)... it's too much of a pain to do more than that, and don't want to show multiples of ads for a single view.

I don't think things need to be plain text.. but if limited to HTML+CSS only, that would be a pretty great start.

makecheck• 11 years ago

It's true that ads use bandwidth and battery but ad-blockers and web standards implementations built into browsers are not "free" either.

It takes CPU to find and strip out ads, and bandwidth to contact filtering servers or whatever else guides the behavior of blockers (and generally the more blocking you opt in to, the more of this there is). I have seen an astounding drop in Chrome performance when using HTML5 YouTube videos on my laptop, where attempts to scroll and click take seconds to even respond and I haven't yet figured out why.

I would still expect the cost to be less overall without Flash but it would be interesting to measure everything that is really going on and figure out if ads are really the worst offenders.

mjuoop• 11 years ago

Could you share how specifically and on what levels are your blocking adds?

hsod• 11 years ago

Off-Topic: Can you expand on why you feel data caps are "draconian"?

marquis2• 11 years ago

I run the flash blocker extension in Chrome. So I expect, the next extension I'll be running is a <video> tag blocker with an option to enable on demand. (edit: known as "click to play" mode)

Igglyboo• 11 years ago

Or just use an adblocker and you don't have to worry what format the ads are in.

marquis2• 11 years ago

Adblockers don't catch everything, and also on some sites I am happy to support via Ads but I cannot stand being interrupted with auto-play video. I've really enjoyed the complete silence from ads in Flash format and am not looking forward to a repeat of the early 2000s.

whyever• 11 years ago

Running an adblocker when using Chrome on Android is non-trivial.

codesuela• 11 years ago

fyi you dont need an extension, Chrome has native click to play support

cpeterso2• 11 years ago

This looks like an optional conversion step for advertisers that want to target mobile devices that don't have Flash. So not wholesale replacement of Flash ads.

thebouv• 11 years ago

On the plus side: death to Flash ads!

On the negative side: life to more ads!

simonsarris• 11 years ago

So when are they gonna convert Google Finance to HTML5 instead of Flash?

azakai• 11 years ago

There's no financial benefit there. But, for ads...

bane2• 11 years ago

Almost 1500 days ago I made this prediction https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2300123

"(I can't wait for my quad core computer to grind to a halt with dozens of unblockable canvas advertisements wallpapering every website I go to from now on...sigh, the end is near"

The death of Flash doesn't necessarily mean a better world.

misterbwong• 11 years ago

Here. Have a cookie...?

eludwig2• 11 years ago

Question: not knowing anything about browser plugins, will it be possible to build a "Click to Canvas" plugin, similar to the Click to Flash plugins avialable? It seems like anything that can access the DOM can insert stuff into (override) or outright block elements, right?

bane2• 11 years ago

I'm sure we'll see such a thing. The problem is that it'll just shift to somewhere else in the browser, and killing off all the codepaths that might be doing something to the non-working canvas might be subtly hard.

It'll stay a game of cat-and-mouse for a long time I'm afraid.

quoiquoi• 11 years ago

https://github.com/kkapsner/CanvasBlocker

pacofvf• 11 years ago

" when action script will easily be converted to html5, then all mobile apps will finally move to the cloud"

that thread is a gold mine.

userbinator3• 11 years ago

Indeed, converting Flash ads into HTML means they can be far more subtly integrated into the page in a way that makes them much harder to separate out and block. With Flash, there was just one thing to block and most of the ads would be gone.

I have a feeling that the trend towards client-side rendering and single-page apps is partly driven by this too; when the JS for displaying ads is part of the JS for the app's core functionality, it gets more difficult to distinguish and remove.

cherylgreen• 11 years ago

perfect.this is very helpful.thank you

sebastianavina2• 11 years ago

I browse with javascript disabled, at first I thought, most websites would be unusable, but I barely feel the difference on most sites.

Bonus: Pages load way faster.

bostik• 11 years ago

I'm torn.

On one hand, this means that there will be less flash overall polluting the net. A good thing.

On the other hand, it also means that the polluters have less incentive to actually remove their flash-crap. Someone else will transform their guano into form that is more widely deliverable. A bad thing. Flash will persist even longer.

And of course, flash blocker will now kill less ads than before. Damn.

towelguy• 11 years ago

And of course, flash blocker will now kill less ads than before. Damn.

That was my concern too, but I guess the only difference will be you'll have to block a bunch of scripts and images instead of blocking just one flash file.

Why does it matter that Flash persist if it's being converted to html5 on the fly anyway? By the way, the swiffy service Google offers has a extension to Flash (the authoring tool) so it can output html5 directly.

woodchuck64• 11 years ago

Speaking of ads, what can block that obnoxious "THE BEST OF VB, DELIVERED" that pops up like a visual air horn just as you're starting to grasp the content of the first paragraph?

clarry• 11 years ago

Since I didn't see such a thing, I'm betting it's NoScript.

HTML5 and Javascript are cancer..

eyeareque• 11 years ago

What are these "ads" you speak of?

Zei33• 11 years ago

This is really good as somebody who uses google ads from time to time, albeit rarely. It's time for flash to take a walk.

thisjustinm• 11 years ago

We dove into this at work (where we make a lot of flash and HTML ads) and it took a 40k flash ad and made it into a 100k HTML add that also required the nearly 500k swiffly.js file to run.

So it's a start but it's not magic nor replacement for a competent human just yet.

chanux• 11 years ago

Also relevant: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2015/01/new-drm-boss-same-old-...

HN thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9013211

z3t4• 11 years ago

I've turned off JavaScript in the browser. And only allow it for sites where I really need it.

I though this day would never come.

72deluxe• 11 years ago

Hopefully they will finally fix the bug in Chrome where sites that require Flash pop up a "this site requires flash! - would you like to install it?" bar at the top of the screen, even though it isn't bundled with the app.

It is particularly annoying considering their own efforts to remove Flash from usage on YouTube, that is, with supporting HTML5 video.

Google now automatically converts Flash ads to HTML5

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