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You're not missing much.

My main workstation runs FreeBSD, which doesn't have a Flash player either. (There's an entry for flashplugin in the ports tree, but it's marked as broken due IIRC to a security issue.) As far as I'm concerned, this makes an excellent excuse when people send me URLs for Flash sites and bug me about watching them.

If I ever actually want to view Flash content for some reason, I can of course go to another computer and view it. On several occasions I have done this, including twice for YouTube videos, and in all instances it was a complete waste of time, devoid of entertainment value, let alone any actual information. The conclusion I have reached is that most people are *extremely* easy to amuse. (This is probably the same reason so many people watch television, which as far as I'm concerned is *actively* boring.)

So I consider the fact that the flashplugin port is broken to be a major selling point of FreeBSD. When people tell me that there's this uber-cool Flash content I've just absolutely got to see, I can respond without being rude or dishonest. "Sorry, I can't. There's no working Flash plugin for FreeBSD." This is a much better excuse than the one I used to use. Previously I used to tell people that I had uninstalled Flash because of how annoying it was -- I don't want my web experience to have blinky flashy animations. This was true, and seemed like a good reason to me, but for some reason it tended to upset people. (Why? No clue. I don't think I will ever understand humans.) Not even having the *option* to install the Flash plugin, due to my choice in operating systems, doesn't bother people nearly so much.

There are some things I don't like about FreeBSD, and it is possible that I will want at some point to move back to Linux. If so, I'll have to keep the 64-bit version in mind as a way to retain my good no-Flash excuse.


In reply to Re: I wish YouTube had not removed: by jonadab
in thread I wish YouTube had not removed: by jacques

and:  <code> code here </code>

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