Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

How come Flash isn't well liked?

Well lets see at this point you are comparing apples to oranges. Cromulent your websites:

http://www.craigslist.com - a classifieds website. (no godly reason for flash)
http://www.google.com - a search engine (Once againno godly reason for flash)
http://www.wikipedia.org - A online encyclopedia (yes lots of need for flash there)
http://www.twitter.com - A social networking site (oh my yet again no need for flash there)


Now lets look at the sites I listed.

http://disney.go.com/index - Walt Disney Corp. needs the ability showcase music, video for their films and virtual tours for their attractions.

http://www.universalorlando.com/home/home.aspx - Universal Studios needs the ability showcase music, video for their films and virtual tours for their attractions.

http://www.dreamworksanimation.com/ - needs the ability showcase music, video for their films and DVD releases.

http://www.sixflags.com/national/index.aspx - needs the ability showcase and provide virtual tours for their attractions.

http://www.buschgardens.com/Bgt/default.aspx - needs the ability showcase and provide virtual tours for their attractions.

Cromulent - none of the websites you listed would have a need for a flash medium so there was really no point there and the bottom line is there are websites with need for flash and there is no way around that. You also mentioned the "popularity should be a metric that you are intimately familiar with" then heres a question directed at you with no disrespect intended: If I walk up to a five year old and asked hIm about twitter or google he or she would have no idea what those websites are or even care. If you walk up to a five year and ask what disney is you will get an overwhelming response not just from the child but every person in the house. Just cause the site is more traveled dosen't mean it's more popular by any means.

Just to make the truth more apparent: McDonalds, Coke The New York Yankees all incorporate flash in their sites. How about youtube.com, every video on there incorporates flash oh and that happens to be number three on your Alexa rankings but you neglected to list that. I also see you neglected to list Facebook which uses flash for the videos on it's system and it is ranked number two on your Alexa rankings. as a matter of fact the numbers 2, 3 and 4 on your Alexa rankings all have flash incorporated in them. Yahoo is number 4 and there is a flash ad on the right the second you get there. HOLY CRAP is that a flash ad I see on the right of you Alexa Rankings. So I guess Alexa, Youtube, Yahoo, Facebook, Disney and all the other billion dollar companies are wrong and you are right including the resource you chose to highlight (Alexa) OOOPs forgot one, Google your number one listing on Alexa and one that you listed has Google Videos on it which is what? FLASH BASED. I guess that flash is more popular than you think sir.

THE FACT IS: FLASH AND ALL OF IT'S WONDERS IS NOT BAD, IT'S USED BY A SIGNIFAGANT AMOUT OF BILLION DOLLAR COMPANIES INCLUDING THE TOP FOUR ON YOU ALEXA RANKINGS.

I'M SURE THIS COME AS GREAT SURPRISE TO ALL THE FLASH HATERS OUT THERE.
 
I think in most cases it is not necessarily that flash intrinsically sucks, but rather how sites incorporate it.
 
TuffLuffJimmy said:
The Dave Matthews site could have been done in web standard code, there's no reason for it to use flash.
Click to expand...

As pointed out it does fall back to standard html when flash is disabled, but the flash site functions and acts as a normal website even with flash enabled. Further, doing the website in flash allows for the music player to continue to play the same song even when navigating away from the page, puts a music visualizer in the background graphic during audio playback, allows for a more interactive photo gallery, allows for video to be embedded in popups, and allows for the consistence use of custom fonts.
 
gibbz said:
I think in most cases it is not necessarily that flash intrinsically sucks, but rather how sites incorporate it.
Click to expand...

Once again this gentlemen is correct, the last poster picked once site out of all the ones listed. It's funny how people trying to make a point pick one little piece out of the whole pie.
 
Funny how every person who wants to make a point on how bad something is picks through 5 or 6 things to get to one. lol Once again there is no valid point against flash! IT'S PREFERENCE
 
neonfluxx I'll ignore all the valid points (portability, usability, etc. and that Flash is a proprietary plugin, not a standardized language like XML) made by other members and point out it's still not preference: It's also $699. $700 or HTML? HTML or $700? If it's really all about preference, I'll stick with standard, semantic markup and save my self some big money.

I'm beginning to think you're either Flash developer left over from about 2002 or bought the app for hard earned money and don't want to stop using it on principle.
 
i understand your a coder, I understand No worries mate!!! The truth is the truth and no one can refute what I have posted as being inaccurate. The information and stats that others have provided that I was able to point out the truth about stands on it's own. The member should be able to make an informative decision based on all the information provided and thats what the forum is for. He will also learn what I have said all along, web developers are close minded and can knit pick all the want but the facts are the facts.

I will comment no more on this topic except to say.

NOTHING IS WRONG WITH FLASH AND ANYONE WHO CLAIMS THERE IS NOT CAPABLE OF USING IT PROPERLY, CLOSE MINDED OR INEXPERIENCED.

The stats show and prove that conclusively, all assumptions beyond that reality are misplaced.

Good luck in your career no matter your position on flash.
 
The funny part is I believe the exchange of info in the thread ended up giving the member a plethora of view points and information from both sides of the fence. A heated but professional exchange. I hope that standard continues as it only benefits the forum.

Cheers and thanks for the input.
 
I can tell you the one main reason why I love using Flash so much.

Code and content security.

Some users hate Flash because they cannot steal the images or code but from a business perspective this is very critical. Web design is the one field of design in the world where it is virtually impossible to copy protect your hard work. Once it gets out there anybody can rip it off. With Flash I am allowed to create complex web based applications or websites that are secure. I can also protect images, audio and video data so nobody can ever steal them.
 
smetvid said:
Some users hate Flash because they cannot steal the images or code but from a business perspective this is very critical. Web design is the one field of design in the world where it is virtually impossible to copy protect your hard work. Once it gets out there anybody can rip it off. With Flash I am allowed to create complex web based applications or websites that are secure. I can also protect images, audio and video data so nobody can ever steal them.
Click to expand...

That's incorrect (except for code protection). While it may be harder to gain access to the content (by maybe a factor of 1), it's still accessible to anyone viewing the page. I have taken plenty of images and audio from Flash-based sites. If you think that content is truly safe from theft you're naive, as myself and many others do it regularly. Google can show you how easy this is if you're curious how.
 
smetvid said:
I can tell you the one main reason why I love using Flash so much.

Code and content security.

Some users hate Flash because they cannot steal the images or code but from a business perspective this is very critical. Web design is the one field of design in the world where it is virtually impossible to copy protect your hard work. Once it gets out there anybody can rip it off. With Flash I am allowed to create complex web based applications or websites that are secure. I can also protect images, audio and video data so nobody can ever steal them.
Click to expand...

Hate to burst your bubble, but there are lots of tools out there for ripping audio and video streams out of Flash. And for images, a simple screen capture and it's game over!

As for the ActionScript itself you can get just about as good of protection when using JavaScript by using an obfuscation tool.

FWIW, I do use Flash now and then depending on the project. Actually, I do use it all the time for 360° virtual tours. So this is not a slam on Flash but just an "FYI" on your expectations of the security of your content.
 
All of this is true of any form of copy protection. Even a Blu-ray can be copied if you have the right software. My whole point is that it is much harder to do and isn't as easy as just viewing the source in your web browser or right clicking and saving a jpeg to your desktop. There are a lot of people that would rather not go through the effort to find a program to decompile a SWF file.
 
angelwatt said:
That's incorrect (except for code protection). While it may be harder to gain access to the content (by maybe a factor of 1), it's still accessible to anyone viewing the page. I have taken plenty of images and audio from Flash-based sites. If you think that content is truly safe from theft you're naive, as myself and many others do it regularly. Google can show you how easy this is if you're curious how.
Click to expand...

If you are talking about programs like Flash Miner then I know how to prevent that. Those tools can only see the SWF files inside the HTML file. I never put all of my content in the main SWF file. You would have to download my SWF, decompile it, find out the links to all the other SWF's, find a way to direct link to those on my server and download them, decompile those to get at the content.

Sure it is possible but it is a heck of a lot more work. I sometimes also use a Flash Media Server to host a lot content via remote shared objects and that my friend you will never be able to get at.
 
smetvid said:
Sure it is possible but it is a heck of a lot more work. I sometimes also use a Flash Media Server to host a lot content via remote shared objects and that my friend you will never be able to get at.
Click to expand...

No it's not much more work. If I can see or hear it, I can quickly get it. I don't need to know where your files are at as that's not generally the way I get them.
 
I'm surprised no one's mentioned the singlemost important reason we should all stop using flash — because it's proprietary and non-standard…

Petition for Adobe to improve the poor performance of the OS X version of Flash

Petition for Adobe to make a 64-bit version of Flash

Petition for Adobe to make a FreeBSD version of Flash

Petition to get Adobe to make Flash run on the Mozilla browser

Petition begging Adobe to implement support in Flash for blind and visually impaired users


…Some of those issues are old and have been addressed over time, some of them are still open petitions with thousands of signatures — THIS SHOULD NEVER, EVER HAPPEN.

Adobe have shown in the past they don't much care for supporting low market share devices. Sure, you see Adobe jumping to support the hugely popular iPhone, but they'd previously never shown an interest in supporting flash on mobile devices. And their Flash support on OS X is acceptable today thanks to the large increase in market share, but even just five years ago the Flash support on OS X was terrible — it was low quality, laggy, and often used 99% of the CPU often freezing the computer — for many users it's still like that today, especially on Linux.

The internet should be freely open and accessible to everyone, using any system they choose. The problem with Flash is that it's not open source… coders can't just implement Flash into their browser or operating system, they have no choice but to rely on the hope that Adobe will make them a working version of it. The internet should never be under the control of a single company.

The second biggest important reason to dislike Flash is that it's the #1 cause of browser crashes. Again, this isn't something the browser developers can fix - they have to rely on Adobe to fix the crashing, and often Adobe don't have a strong commitment to doing this on smaller platforms like Linux and OS X.


Don't get fooled by my strong words, I actually used to be a heavy flash developer. I even have a few major flash projects under my belt. But nowadays I won't touch it with a bargepole, and I'm really glad to see Apple and Google both taking the same stance. There's really no reason not to use HTML5 and CSS 3 animations as a 21st century replacement of Flash - They're standards specifically implemented by the World Wide Web Consortium so browsers will support the specifications natively without needing any sorts of plugin, meaning it also runs considerably faster than Flash; it's designed with accessibility and disabled users fully in mind; and best of all: they're open and free standards, so any operating system and any browser can use them, even iPhone. I appreciate that the standards can't do everything, but it can currently do about 85-90% of what Flash can, and the rest is quickly on its way. :)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back