This is a pretty common use case for Flash. There's a clipboard API of some sort now: http://caniuse.com/#feat=clipboard

There is a ZeroClipboard feature request to use the HTML5 Clipboard APIs, where available, and seamlessly fall back to Flash elsewhere. Hallvord R. M. Steen, editor of the W3C Clipboard API spec, started working on it here:

https://github.com/zeroclipboard/zeroclipboard/issues/171

re: dropping [flash] from Chrome -

NOOOOO this is what Chrome is for! The only flash I have is the built in to chrome flash.

I also do this. Firefox is my primary browser but I have Chrome installed solely to view flash-based video sites.

I think I'm missing something. Why not just install the Flash player from Adobe?

I'm not the person you asked, but here's my reasons.

I'm on Linux and there no longer is a supported version of Flash by Adobe. (Apparently there is some NPAPI to Pepper bridge though, to get Chrome's Flash working in other browsers.)

I already uninstalled before that, because I wanted to force HTML5 for sites that dynamically switch between Flash and HTML5 and because I wanted to nudge more sites to support HTML5 by boosting the stats of people who don't have Flash installed.

> I'm on Linux and there no longer is a supported version of Flash by Adobe

I'm using Firefox on Ubuntu with Flash (flashplugin-installer) and it's still receiving updates. It's an older version, but it has been working fine with every Flash site I've visited so far.

Yes, looks like I was misinformed there. While there are no more feature updates, security issues will continue to be released for about another year. (If I'm piecing the information here together correctly https://www.adobe.com/devnet/flashplatform/whitepapers/roadm... https://helpx.adobe.com/flash-player/release-note/release-no...)

Not from my experience. There's quite a few sites that require a newer flash player, so it's either Google's PPAPI Flash or Windows.

I think everyone got most of my reasons covered below, but here they are: no need to manage updates, smaller security surface, battery life, fan noise. I typically browse with Firefox Nightly, and without flash installed globally I get HTML5 or whatever a site wants to offer me if I don't advertise flash compatibility. If I hit some must-have flash I have a key combo that opens the current tab in Chrome.

Historically, it's tended to have had far more zero day exploits than the web browsers themselves. removing Flash removes a huge attack surface, and 95% of the time you don't need it.

I don't have flash installed (usually using Safari and Firefox) and have to jump over to Chrome to use a site maybe once or twice a week, which is more than acceptable given the insecurity of Flash.

I really don't like flash. It's full of security holes and its primary uses annoy the living hell out of me. So I only use a browser that has it when it's on my terms.

Then you enter the toxic hellstew of Flash Player updates.

don't need to install. Now its default in browser

Not in Firefox, and the GP said they're only keeping Chrome around for Flash.

I'm not going to cry rivers over this, but yeah, the only reason I have Chrome installed is for sites insisting on running flash stuff.

If Chrome stops supporting Flash I honestly have no need for it.

> I have Chrome installed is for sites insisting on running flash stuff

Same here, I use it for Facebook. But Facebook servers HTML5 video instead of Flash to Chrome. What a world!

An internal app we use at work requires an extension to do one button clipboard in Chrome and Firefox. And if you're using another browser, you're out of luck. I use it enough that I have the extension, but now the version we have and the extension it supports isn't "signed" in Firefox, so I have to make an about:config change.

This is all for a password manager.

We use clipboard.js in our product, it was the perfect replacement for flash copy. I highly recommend it, our users were none the wiser when we swapped it out.

I use that feature a lot, surely they can't all be Flash based.

Flash used to be the only thing that worked, cross-browser.

Chrome, I know for sure, changed their minds several times on whether they would allow it...security model thing, you could make it work only by tweaking some internal chrome setting.

The sales pitch at https://clipboardjs.com/ makes it sound like perhaps things have changed enough that a reasonable cross-browser solution is possible now.