Any good reason not to use Flash?

[Jose]

Bald Pup asks..

Are there any cogent arguments against the use of Flash?

1: Flash is used primarily by advertisers to steal your attention away
from the content the user came to see.

2: Flash cannot be turned off at the browser preferences level, like
animations, graphics, sound, java, scripts, and other stuff can be.
True, there are workarounds with additional software, but that's not the
point.

3: Flash is free to the user - Macromedia makes its money from flash
content creators, which are largely the advertisers mentioned above.
Therefore it will probably always be the case that flash is not
defeatable, since that's the way advertisers want it.

4: Flash content is large. Large content is discouraged on home pages
and anywhere small content would suffice.

5: Flash doesn't resize gracefully. Flash movies and slide shows play
at their own pace, not at the user's pace, unlike text which is read at
the user's pace.

6: Flash is powerful; it can take over (for example) the user's
microphone. Flash will be upgraded and there may be illicit uses for
this ability. I am not all that confident that other such abilities
will be introduced, should advertisers want it. Can you say "Sony"?

7: Flash is ubiquitous and getting more so. This is a very bad trend
which should be impeded, mainly because of (1) and (2) above.

8: Most flash content I've seen is lame, and not worth the time,
bandwidth, or effort. Ask yourself very critically whether your message
or information is really =really= enhanced by being presented in this
manner.

There are other reasons, this is just a start.

There are occasionally good reasons for a flash presentation, but it
should NEVER NEVER be on the home page, and the user should be warned
that it is a flash presentation before they click the link.

Alan J. Flavell says...

If there was a way of getting a prompt and being able to say "no
thanks" to the browser when unsolicited flash content was offered, I
might be willing to re-enable it. I haven't found an option like that
yet.

In Windows, For IE, rename the flash.ocx file everywher it appears
(earlier versions used swflash.ocx). To re-enable it, re-rename one
instance of the file back to its original name. For Netscape the file
is less obvious - it's npswf32.dll (in the plugins folder).

Jose
(a.r.kibology, r.s.pro-wrestling removed)

 

[Otto Bahn]

1: Flash is used primarily by advertisers to steal your attention away from the content the user came to see.

2: Flash cannot be turned off at the browser preferences level, like animations, graphics, sound, java, scripts, and
other stuff can be. True, there are workarounds with additional software, but that's not the point.

Which one of you morons installed Flash in the first place?

--oTTo--

Not me

 

[Krusty]

Bald Pup asks..

1: Flash is used primarily by advertisers to steal your attention away
from the content the user came to see.

Wrong. Opinion, and a bad one.

2: Flash cannot be turned off at the browser preferences level, like
animations, graphics, sound, java, scripts, and other stuff can be. True,
there are workarounds with additional software, but that's not the point.

Conceded. But again, it's only bad if it's designed and executed poorly. Not
Flash's fault. The designer's fault. So the only reason you'd want to turn
it off is if it's for some reason "bad". Which in my opinion reflects more
on the developer than the product.

3: Flash is free to the user - Macromedia makes its money from flash
content creators, which are largely the advertisers mentioned above.
Therefore it will probably always be the case that flash is not
defeatable, since that's the way advertisers want it.

Again, flash isn't used by "advertisers". It's used by Universities, large
institutions creating complex interfaces, etc. This again smacks of opinion
and not fact. Just look at Flex, which IS Flash.

4: Flash content is large. Large content is discouraged on home pages
and anywhere small content would suffice.

Wrong. Flash content is large if the moron creating the Flash piece doesn't
know what they're doing. I've seen entire complex shopping carts executed
COMPLETELY in Flash that are less than 150k.

Again, bad design, not bad Flash.

5: Flash doesn't resize gracefully. Flash movies and slide shows play at
their own pace, not at the user's pace, unlike text which is read at the
user's pace.

Wrong. It's a simple exercise for the *developer* to allow the user to do
whatever the user wants to do. Just because the Flash *you've* seen played
at its own pace doesn't mean that this isn't a feature of Flash. It means
the piss poor developer who developed the Flash app didn't know what he was
doing.

6: Flash is powerful; it can take over (for example) the user's
microphone. Flash will be upgraded and there may be illicit uses for this
ability. I am not all that confident that other such abilities will be
introduced, should advertisers want it. Can you say "Sony"?

lmao..."illicit uses"? Only if you *allow* it. Flash *asks* you if it can
use your microphone.

7: Flash is ubiquitous and getting more so. This is a very bad trend
which should be impeded, mainly because of (1) and (2) above.

Which you are completely wrong about. You're drawing a bad conclusion based
on a foundation of opinion and incorrect assumptions.

8: Most flash content I've seen is lame, and not worth the time,
bandwidth, or effort. Ask yourself very critically whether your message
or information is really =really= enhanced by being presented in this
manner.

Aha, so this is REALLY what's it's about isn't it? The Flash *you've seen*
was bad, so all of Flash is bad? What about all those horrible photoshop
buttons with every filter on earth dumped into it and horribly overused drop
shadows? Should we get rid of Photoshop because people use it incorrectly or
"badly"?

Again, I hate to keep beating the same drum, but the more this thread
progresses, the more it becomes apparent that there is a LARGE percentage of
the newsgroup that really has no idea what Flash is or how to use it. As a
result there is a LOT of misinformation and opinion being passed off as
fact.

Just because people see bad Flash design doesn't mean the product is in any
way faulty. Should we get rid of Dreamweaver, Front Page, and Go Live
because sometimes morons get their hands on them and create atrocious pages?
Should I draw conclusions about how bad Front Page is because I saw a
handful of bad pages "designed" in Front Page?

Come on people, it's a product. Use it well, and the results are
outstanding. Use it poorly and the results are predictable.

 

[Krusty]

Which one of you morons installed Flash in the first place?

I pity people like this. While technology passes them by, they're going to
hold out, blaming EVERYONE for a handful of bad uses. Meanwhile, content
like that available on the Flashforward site goes on right past them, and
cutting edge application development sails right by them.

Most of the time, when you dig, these responses basically boil down to "I
don't know how to use Flash, so I'll bash it".

 

[Blinky the Shark]

Krusty wrote:

[about Flash]

I pity people like this. While technology passes them by, they're going to
hold out, blaming EVERYONE for a handful of bad uses.

IOW, in Charles' terms, they're "racist".

 

[Krusty]

Krusty wrote:

[about Flash]

I pity people like this. While technology passes them by, they're going
to
hold out, blaming EVERYONE for a handful of bad uses.

IOW, in Charles' terms, they're "racist".

lol...I hadn't thought about it THAT way.

I mean, if Flash is a "race".

 

[Rob McAninch]

Krusty>:

Wrong. Opinion, and a bad one.

What WWW are you looking at? Indeed it is an opinion but it is not
unfounded. I'd say in the mainstream sites, not really the most
popular sites e.g.
http://www.alexa.com/site/ds/top_sites?ts_mode=global
but the ones right below these that many users still go to have more
bad use of Flash than good. I get Flash advertisements forced at me
quite frequently.

But again, it's only bad if it's designed and executed poorly. Not
Flash's fault. The designer's fault.

I still need to look at current levels of Flash but I'll agree that
executed properly it is a good thing. However, Macromedia could do
something about the poor use of Flash. E.g. giving a browser option
to only display Flash on request, similar to a popupblocker that
lets you create approved lists. Somehow encourage a skip button on
animations that often get used as splash screens.

It's the bad experiences that stick with us.

Again, flash isn't used by "advertisers".

Opinion. And I would say this one is a flawed one.

It's used by Universities, large
institutions creating complex interfaces, etc.

Indeed it is used by these groups _too_. I've seen nice Flash
applications. I use some on a frequent basis. I'll even say that
some web based applications that would benefit from being done in
Flash instead of the "friendlier" DHTML. But these complex
applications are likely among the minority of what the average web
user interacts with.

It remains that advertisements are being created with Flash with
increasing frequency. As advertising drove design methods in the
past, e.g. popup and pop under windows, reopening and moving
windows, and so forth, methods of forcing ads on users continues to
be a driving force of design.

Just because the Flash *you've* seen played
at its own pace doesn't mean that this isn't a feature of Flash. It means
the piss poor developer who developed the Flash app didn't know what he was
doing.

Just like shoddy Java implementation takes time to get over, so will
Flash; if the abuse is filtered out by _good_ Flash design. But as
mentioned earlier, it is the bad experiences that get remembered and
passed on.

lmao..."illicit uses"? Only if you *allow* it. Flash *asks* you if it can
use your microphone.

I do recall getting that request once from a default install of
Flash. Hm, Macromedia could've made it more obvious how to get to
the control panel though.

I think it is a good trend as it provides a common platform for web
applications so it should not be impeded. A user level control to
"prompt for Flash display" would be a good idea. But I do agree
(with point 1) that bad design is a serious issue with Flash.

Aha, so this is REALLY what's it's about isn't it? The Flash *you've seen*
was bad, so all of Flash is bad? What about all those horrible photoshop
buttons with every filter on earth dumped into it and horribly overused drop
shadows? Should we get rid of Photoshop because people use it incorrectly or
"badly"?

Not really a good comparison. Images are easily disabled and
typically not the resource hog that the typical Flash is. Not to
mention, I'd say the 'horrible buttons' are a hold over of *yours*
from bad experiences (If your asking your reader to be objective you
should try as well).

I haven't seen many of these in the past few years. And, LOL, I
_have_ seen some Flash that seems to have every effect dumped into a
four link navigation bar that could be easily done in text or simple
graphics. When the novelty of Photoshop dwindled so did the horrible
buttons, as the novelty of Flash is still on the rise (at least in
areas where broadband usage is increasing) we'll likely continue
seeing poor Flash design.

Again, I hate to keep beating the same drum, but the more this thread
progresses, the more it becomes apparent that there is a LARGE percentage of
the newsgroup that really has no idea what Flash is or how to use it. As a
result there is a LOT of misinformation and opinion being passed off as
fact.

Q: "Any good reason not to use Flash?"
A: Bad reputation.

That is a valid, and with the current state of affairs, reasonable
answer. I might substitute "Flash" with popup windows, Java applets,
window resizing, or frames. They all have good uses when done
correctly, but the number of poor uses leave a bad taste in my mouth
when discussing them.

Should we get rid of Dreamweaver, Front Page, and Go Live
because sometimes morons get their hands on them and create atrocious pages?

<sarcasm>Do you *really* want me to answer that?</sarcasm>

There is a touch of seriousness to that sarcasm. However, in this
case I'm not saying get rid of HTML, CSS, JS, etc. but that the
applications you mention have been known to spew forth rubbish and
could stand some redesigning.

In the same light I'm not saying get rid of Flash technology, rather
the developer application and the plugin could use some redesigning
to alleviate the bad reputation.

Should I draw conclusions about how bad Front Page is because I saw a
handful of bad pages "designed" in Front Page?

Yes, feel free to draw conclusions on FP. It stinks.

 

[Blinky the Shark]

Krusty wrote:

[about Flash]

I pity people like this. While technology passes them by, they're going
to
hold out, blaming EVERYONE for a handful of bad uses.

IOW, in Charles' terms, they're "racist".

lol...I hadn't thought about it THAT way.

I mean, if Flash is a "race".

It's as much of a race as other things he uses the term about.

 

[barbara]

Bald Pup asks..

1: Flash is used primarily by advertisers to steal your attention away
from the content the user came to see.

2: Flash cannot be turned off at the browser preferences level, like
animations, graphics, sound, java, scripts, and other stuff can be.

It can with Firefox, using a little plug-in. I've got that installed
on bothe my computers, and I never see Flash if I don't want to.

True, there are workarounds with additional software, but that's not the
point.

If by "additional software" you mean a tiny, easily installed Firefox
plug-in, and that one can stop Flash by installing it, what's the big
deal?

3: Flash is free to the user - Macromedia makes its money from flash
content creators, which are largely the advertisers mentioned above.
Therefore it will probably always be the case that flash is not
defeatable, since that's the way advertisers want it.

I never see Flash stuff unless I choose to. So yes, it is easily
defeatable.

I agree that most of it is a waste of time and bandwidth, but it's
hardly worth getting bent out of shape about. It's not some evil
plot, it's just another ooo, shiny. Lots of people like pretty shiny
empty-headed things, and people.

Jose
(a.r.kibology, r.s.pro-wrestling removed)

Not hardly. Check your headers. Maybe you meant to add a Follow-up
To.

BW

 

[Andy Dingley]

If there was a way of getting a prompt and being able to say "no
thanks" to the browser when unsolicited flash content was offered, I
might be willing to re-enable it. I haven't found an option like that
yet.

Try the Flashblock extension for Firefox - very convenient to use.

There's also AniDisable, which is similar for GIF files. It's
particularly good in that it can allow them to run once, then halt,
rather than looping. Don't read LiveJournal (custom user icons) without
it!

 

[=?ISO-8859-1?Q?=BBQ=AB?=]

Which one of you morons installed Flash in the first place?

--oTTo--

Not me

That was me, Senator. The staff were complaining about not being able
to see Weebl.

 

[Andy Dingley]

There are a lot of other reasons, I have an artticle on my site which
is on the particular subject.

Man, that's some ugly design you have there! Neat spelling too.

So why should anyone listen to _that_ site's opinions? It's like Jakob
Nielsen - sometimes he's actually right, but his own site is such a
shambles it devalues any credibility he might have had.

 

[David DeLaney]

I never bothered to install any Flash plugin, hoping year after year
that it would eventually just go away.

Are there any cogent arguments against the use of Flash?

Just that nearly everyone who does use it on their webbages doesn't know what
they're doing. It's hardly restricted to Flash of course, but Flash makes it so
_apparent_...

Dave

 

[the Bede]

IAWTP.

Bald Pup asks..

1: Flash is used primarily by advertisers to steal your attention away
from the content the user came to see.

2: Flash cannot be turned off at the browser preferences level, like
animations, graphics, sound, java, scripts, and other stuff can be.
True, there are workarounds with additional software, but that's not the
point.

3: Flash is free to the user - Macromedia makes its money from flash
content creators, which are largely the advertisers mentioned above.
Therefore it will probably always be the case that flash is not
defeatable, since that's the way advertisers want it.

4: Flash content is large. Large content is discouraged on home pages
and anywhere small content would suffice.

5: Flash doesn't resize gracefully. Flash movies and slide shows play
at their own pace, not at the user's pace, unlike text which is read at
the user's pace.

6: Flash is powerful; it can take over (for example) the user's
microphone. Flash will be upgraded and there may be illicit uses for
this ability. I am not all that confident that other such abilities
will be introduced, should advertisers want it. Can you say "Sony"?

7: Flash is ubiquitous and getting more so. This is a very bad trend
which should be impeded, mainly because of (1) and (2) above.

8: Most flash content I've seen is lame, and not worth the time,
bandwidth, or effort. Ask yourself very critically whether your message
or information is really =really= enhanced by being presented in this
manner.

There are other reasons, this is just a start.

There are occasionally good reasons for a flash presentation, but it
should NEVER NEVER be on the home page, and the user should be warned
that it is a flash presentation before they click the link.

Alan J. Flavell says...

In Windows, For IE, rename the flash.ocx file everywher it appears
(earlier versions used swflash.ocx). To re-enable it, re-rename one
instance of the file back to its original name. For Netscape the file
is less obvious - it's npswf32.dll (in the plugins folder).

Jose
(a.r.kibology, r.s.pro-wrestling removed NOT)

 

[Alan J. Flavell]

Try the Flashblock extension for Firefox - very convenient to use.

Thanks Andy - I've already received and taken that advice (in relation
to Mozilla, which I prefer to Firefox), earlier today, and it's
looking good so far.

There's also AniDisable, which is similar for GIF files. It's
particularly good in that it can allow them to run once, then halt,
rather than looping.

Mozilla has that option already, though it's secreted in a rather
unexpected place under Preferences> Privacy and Security. And it's
one of the options on the Pederick toolbar, too.

cheers

 

[cwdjrxyz]

I never bothered to install any Flash plugin, hoping year after year
that it would eventually just go away.

Are there any cogent arguments against the use of Flash?

As with any media presentation method, flash can be used well or
abused. Since flash is so much more popular for ads than many other
multi-media presention methods, it gets abused more than many other
methods. It is quite possible to design a flash movie so that it will
only start if you right click it and select to play, or you can use a
start button. Of course for many ads, this is the last option that they
would want to give you. If the code for flash is properly written, you
will not even know that there was flash there if the browser does not
support flash. But much flash code apparently is written and tested on
IE6 only, and such code sometimes produces unexpected results on other
browsers.

For simple animations, an animated gif often will work well, and is not
too difficult to construct on PaintShop which also includes an
animation program. For more movie-like flash presentations, you run
into the fact that the files can become rather large. You must consider
what you are going to do about dialup users that may not want to wait
up to a few minutes for complete download or buffering before
streaming. The logical thing might be to use a bandwidth select button
for the user so that he or she gets a jpg on dialup and the flash movie
on broadband, with the default as the jpg. It also sometimes is
possible to automatically detect the type of connection the browser is
using, and some large media sites appear to be doing this.

 

[Kevin Scholl]

You mean for you as a User? Not that I know. As far as I remember,
there are no serious security issues using the flash plugin (so it's
much better than having active-X, Java or JavaScript enabled).

Erm, just as an aside, Javascript does not have inherent security issues
in and of itself. It's actually remarkably safe. It's when JS is used to
access active-x controls that the problems typically arise.

There are some websites that don't work without flash, but I think
they are not worth installing the plugin ;-)

On the other hand, you will find a lot of nice online games or
interactive thingies that are done in flash, so I believe it's worth
installing the plugin if you are not a purely text-based user.

Games and the like are the area where I believe Flash really shines.
Elsewhere in the thread, there is some good discussion about poor Flash
vs. poor developers -- the problem there is that most of the time, Flash
is poorly used. Hence, it gets more of a bad name that perhaps it
should, when used in areas that it really need not be used..

--

*** Remove the DELETE from my address to reply ***

======================================================
Kevin Scholl http://www.ksscholl.com/
(e-mail address removed)

 

[Poot Rootbeer]

Bald Pup asks..

Now that Homestarrunner.com has gone dormant, there's no good reason TO
use Flash.

2: Flash cannot be turned off at the browser preferences level,
like animations, graphics, sound, java, scripts, and other stuff
can be. True, there are workarounds with additional software, but
that's not the point.

So you can't do it unless you have software that can do it?

3: Flash is free to the user - Macromedia makes its money from
flash content creators, which are largely the advertisers
mentioned above. Therefore it will probably always be the case
that flash is not defeatable, since that's the way advertisers
want it.

Unless you have software that can defeat it.

4: Flash content is large. Large content is discouraged on home
pages and anywhere small content would suffice.

Wuh? Flash animation is typically a tiny fraction of the size of an
animated GIF or movie file of the same size and quality.

5: Flash doesn't resize gracefully.

Raw .SWF files scale effortlessly, especially if they favor vector
objects over bitmaps. The fixed-size behavior one often encounters on
websites is a limitation of browsers' implementations of the OBJECT tag
used to embed Flash within an HTML layout.

Flash movies and slide shows play at their own pace, not at the
user's pace, unlike text which is read at the user's pace.

Unless the Flash author puts in navigational elements allowing the user
to adjust the pace to their liking.

6: Flash is powerful; it can take over (for example) the user's
microphone.

Only if the user permits it to access (aka "take over") the microphone.

Flash will be upgraded and there may be illicit uses
for this ability.

Same is true of any computer code written ever.

I am not all that confident that other such abilities will be
introduced, should advertisers want it. Can you say "Sony"?

"A - do - be".

Nope, guess not.

In Windows, For IE, rename the flash.ocx file everywher it appears
(earlier versions used swflash.ocx). To re-enable it, re-rename
one instance of the file back to its original name. For Netscape
the file is less obvious - it's npswf32.dll (in the plugins
folder).

What is this "Netscape" you speak of?

(a.r.kibology, r.s.pro-wrestling removed)

NO THEY AREN'T. I'M STILL HERE.

-Poot
HELLOOOOO

 

[Poot Rootbeer]

This statement does not make sense. Not everything that is not
totally necessary makes something useless. Otherwise design
wouldn't exist, and we would live in an ugly, grey world like
something out of fatpie.

OH NO, WE'RE OUT OF FATPIE?

SOMEONE POUR SOME MORE LARD INTO A PIE CRUST AND POP IT IN THE OVEN,
STAT!

-Poot
I'm happy when I eat lard.

 

[Night Spirit]

Jose Boldly typed:

Bald Pup asks..

1: Flash is used primarily by advertisers to steal your attention
away from the content the user came to see.

2: Flash cannot be turned off at the browser preferences level, like
animations, graphics, sound, java, scripts, and other stuff can be.
True, there are workarounds with additional software, but that's not
the point.

3: Flash is free to the user - Macromedia makes its money from flash
content creators, which are largely the advertisers mentioned above.
Therefore it will probably always be the case that flash is not
defeatable, since that's the way advertisers want it.

4: Flash content is large. Large content is discouraged on home
pages and anywhere small content would suffice.

5: Flash doesn't resize gracefully. Flash movies and slide shows
play at their own pace, not at the user's pace, unlike text which is
read at the user's pace.

6: Flash is powerful; it can take over (for example) the user's
microphone. Flash will be upgraded and there may be illicit uses for
this ability. I am not all that confident that other such abilities
will be introduced, should advertisers want it. Can you say "Sony"?

7: Flash is ubiquitous and getting more so. This is a very bad trend
which should be impeded, mainly because of (1) and (2) above.

8: Most flash content I've seen is lame, and not worth the time,
bandwidth, or effort. Ask yourself very critically whether your
message or information is really =really= enhanced by being presented
in this manner.

There are other reasons, this is just a start.

There are occasionally good reasons for a flash presentation, but it
should NEVER NEVER be on the home page, and the user should be warned
that it is a flash presentation before they click the link.

Alan J. Flavell says...

In Windows, For IE, rename the flash.ocx file everywher it appears
(earlier versions used swflash.ocx). To re-enable it, re-rename one
instance of the file back to its original name. For Netscape the file
is less obvious - it's npswf32.dll (in the plugins folder).

Jose
(a.r.kibology, r.s.pro-wrestling removed)

The uber geeks love it that is reason enough to hate it.
--
Bless It Be,
Nightspirit

The world wide web at my finger tips and I can't find anything
interesting.

http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/RivertonCommonRecipeBulletinBoard/