Why I hate Flash: outside of youtube, 95% of all Flash content is just advertisement - including flashy corporate home pages. Very little actually affords any utility to me.
Flashblock is by far the most valuable Firefox extension that I use.
In that case, you should actually like Flash. Several commenters here say that standard, open technologies like Javascript should be used instead, because they can do everything Flash can do. But if that happened, all the annoying stuff that is currently in Flash would simply be ported to Javascript. And it is much more inconvenient to block Javascript than it is to block Flash.
What we have now is an almost ideal situation: Much of the stupidest stuff on the web is in Flash, little of the important stuff needs Flash, and Flash is easy to block.
True enough. Though if it weren't for Flashblock, it would be a whole different situation. (I'm often surprised to find out how much I'm "missing" when forced to use IE)
Yea... think of anybody trying to create a new web-enabled hardware. In addition of getting a browser working right, they would be at Adobe's mercy for providing a flash plug in for it. Now imagine if Silverlight becomes hot together with JavaFX. How many private corporate interests will you have to deal with to support your platform then? Because you'll need A LOT of runtime support to be a useful web surfing tool. Yet another obstacle towards truly mobile web.
Flash, Silverlight, and other proprietary "extenders" all need to be replaced with extended standard CSS/JS/XML solution, supported by all browsers out of the box.
They released the details of Flash with the condition you couldn't create clients. So the Flash clients are all Adobe, but you can write software to create Flash stuff.
>>Flash's main problem is being easy enough for a novice to pick up and create a garbage site.
So is plain HTML, but if someone creates a crappy site in HTML, at least I don't need a proprietary codec to view it. It works in any browser, will deliver everything an informative site needs to, and won't take 5 minutes for it to load.
Flash violates the K.I.S.S. design principle by being unnecessary in 90% of use-cases.
There are many valid reasons to use flash. Flash has proven itself the best tool in creating animation of many sorts for lightweight delivery over the web.
You dont HAVE to use flash for anything. But there are MANY cases where it is the best option.
although i have to say, I would prefer a standardized codec similar to flash. Aside from big corporation, I think flash is an awesome product, although inappropriate in some places. I don't think its bad across the board though. I can use an swf vector image thats 350b as opposed to a png of the same size thats 15K. Even with the Flash VM loading it is quite efficient if one is a good designer.
You are sick of flash haters, flash haters are sick of you. And people who simple don't use or like flash -- like me -- choose to live on the side of the web where we can read the information we want and move on. We can even use the web without a full blown gui, and it works just fine.
There's clearly demand for people who use the web for playing games, watching movies, etc. Anyhow, you have to understand that there's people who's on the web for the information. That kind of people will be annoyed by poping flash screens messing up their reading experience.
who wants to use the web without a GUI? how many ppl want an experience like that? Maybe diehard code nerds like a few of us, but we are a extremely small minority in the sea of web users.
"Last fall, I quoted on a website contract for our city college"
You don't have to read past that first sentence to realize that this is heavily biased opinion from a person who earns his living doing web design. Many of the issues are completely independent of whether or not flash is used -- like improperly configured domains, accessibility, background music, rest interfaces. With a little creativity you can solve most of the issues on that site.
One of the comments on that page ("Jeremy") kept going off on how terrible YouTube is:
'Obviously it was forced on them by the giant failure "YouTube".'
What is he talking about? I thought YouTube was extremely successful, so much so that Google bought them out?
Now, this doesnt mean Flash is better than Javascript.But when delivering heavy weight RIAs, its better to stick on to Flash.Why overload client side with untargeted code?
You don't do that sort of thing in javascript :)
There's a couple of areas where things are different - event handling for example.
Either you use a library, or you feature sniff. Certainly not browser sniff.
Flash is pretty slow and inaccessible. I'd bet my money on javascript every time. The only thing missing is video/audio. Which should be there soon afaik.
flash is actually very much like java in the event handling dept. And javascript is changing to adjust to the superior features that flash has. The argument about people just use the web for information is rediculous, as the majority of ppl play online games, share video via youtube, have myspace/facebook and want VISUAL STIMULATION.
As a programmer, sometimes we have to step our of our comfort zone to see how the rest of the world uses the web. The average consumer responds well to many flash sites. This can not be denied from a developer standpoint.
Companies are making millions on those flash ads, and many of us are dying to get the user base so we can attract those tacky ads. Our stance as developers that this technology, which is on 90+% of computers is useless, may need some reevaluation.
Why is this poorly written article getting front page attention? Oh, because the internet reads headlines... forget the important substance or in this case, lack there of.
Both of these things can usually be done without flash. Doing anything else with flash does positive harm to the usability of the site. If all your site does is provide information, don't use flash. I shouldn't have to have some proprietary, third-party plugin to read text or view simple images. In the long run, it will be you who loses out.
I shouldn't have to have some proprietary, third-party plugin to read text or view simple images.
Would that make http://www.scribd.com the antithesis to your statement? It solves the problem of viewing documents that would otherwise require a special plugin or application.
No, because he preceded his statement with "If all your site does is provide information." It is fair to assume if you provide information, you can choose the format for providing that information. That is, you don't have to provide PDF's, you can put it straight into the HTML. In fact, that's his entire point. Whether it's a PDF or a Flash file, that's not necessary. It's just text, so it should be rawly embedded into the page.
There is no need for flash just to view a document. Just convert it to an image on the server. I hacked together a script that did this in an afternoon once, so it is doable.
Using flash has some benefits, but it's not impossible without it.
I disagree with you at one point. A site that provides information may not want the information to be indexed.
For example, an escort girl's website may just want to show portfolio of pictures to her potential clients, but she will not want Google to index them.
Information is to be consumed by human. Sometime we may just want to keep machines to access it.
But right click on the image and "save the image" beats the robots.txt, too. The in the previous example, this girl just don't want any pictures to be saved by anyone.
I agree, but I hate the idea of delivering movies with flash. There are plenty more flexible options out there. It's much more enjoyable to watch videos on my favorite media player.
I can't read French, it is true and so my ability to evaluate certain aspects of the site are compromised, but as an ad piece I do find it compelling to be honest.
If you are creating a site that has a lot streaming audio or video the embedded player must be flash, just as youtube does! There is no other way in this instance! 99% of net users use flash to enjoy audio and video through their browser.
Flashblock is by far the most valuable Firefox extension that I use.