What % of browsers are Flash enabled?

D

Deryck

Hi,

Does anyone know how many browsers are Flash enabled? Is there a resource
for browser capability (and user preferences) somewhere?

Cheers

Deryck
 
D

Deryck

Hywel said:
Assume zero.

Personally I would agree with you. However I really would like some info on
this for a business case. I really do *not* want to start a holy war on
Flash and its pros and cons.

Thanks

Deryck
 
K

Kris

Assume zero.

Personally I would agree with you. However I really would like some info on
this for a business case. I really do *not* want to start a holy war on
Flash and its pros and cons.[/QUOTE]

I think Macromedia has some extimates on their site. Of course their is
the possibility that it is upped a few dozen percentages by the
marketing department, but it is a start.

What Hywel means to say is not that Flash is bad, but that as with any
optional technology, responsible authors will not make the access to
their information depend on support for Flash. It can be enhanced by it,
providing there is a proper backfall. Then, it hardly matters how many
visitors have Flash enabled.
 
D

Deryck

Kris said:
I think Macromedia has some extimates on their site. Of course their is
the possibility that it is upped a few dozen percentages by the
marketing department, but it is a start.

Thanks for that. It never occured to me to look there!
What Hywel means to say is not that Flash is bad, but that as with any
optional technology, responsible authors will not make the access to
their information depend on support for Flash.

Yes, I know.
It can be enhanced by it,
providing there is a proper backfall. Then, it hardly matters how many
visitors have Flash enabled.

I take your point, but...if the number of visitors with Flash was zero then
it would be an obvious waste of development resource. If it was 100% then it
probably would be worthwhile. I'm just interested in which end of the scale
the number is closer to.

Thanks again Kris.

Deryck
 
K

Kris

Deryck said:
if the number of visitors with Flash was zero then
it would be an obvious waste of development resource. If it was 100% then it
probably would be worthwhile. I'm just interested in which end of the scale
the number is closer to.

For a global audience, my estimate would be that at least 80% have some
sort of Flash plugin enabled. More specific audience make that go all
over the scale. I can imagine that when your target audience is schools
and libraries, network administrators did their homework and the support
for Flash in their browsers is significantly less.

I think Whitecrest, alias Webcastmaker, can enlighten you some more on
this topic, since Flash appears to be one of his niches.
 
T

Toby Inkster

Deryck said:
Does anyone know how many browsers are Flash enabled? Is there a resource
for browser capability (and user preferences) somewhere?

ISTR that it's about 92%. (Remember: shutting out 8% of your audience is
equivalent to powering down your web server for the whole of August!)
 
A

Art Sackett

Deryck said:
I take your point, but...if the number of visitors with Flash was zero then
it would be an obvious waste of development resource. If it was 100% then it
probably would be worthwhile. I'm just interested in which end of the scale
the number is closer to.

It's probably closer to the 100% end, BUT: Flash-enabled web search
engines: zero. The market doesn't count if you cannot reach it, so do
not put flash movies in any role where they can negatively affect your
search engine ranking.

I've inherited a client whose primary site navigation is a flash
movie... and the site was redone by a "search engine optimizer." Egad.
Hucksters abound yet, eh?
 
D

Deryck

Toby Inkster said:
ISTR that it's about 92%. (Remember: shutting out 8% of your audience is
equivalent to powering down your web server for the whole of August!)
Thanks Toby. I appreciate your response.

Deryck
 
D

Deryck

Art Sackett said:
It's probably closer to the 100% end,

I just heard that many corporate users have ActiveX disabled thereby
disabling Flash. If true, then the number drops further away from 100% ....
BUT: Flash-enabled web search
engines: zero. The market doesn't count if you cannot reach it, so do
not put flash movies in any role where they can negatively affect your
search engine ranking.

I've inherited a client whose primary site navigation is a flash
movie... and the site was redone by a "search engine optimizer." Egad.
Hucksters abound yet, eh?
I know a friend who has a site done entirely in Flash. I fired up the Lynx
emulator to give them an idea of what Google sees when it looks at their
site. IIRC it was just:

[EMBED]

Suddenly their wonderful Flash site didnt seem so wonderful to them anymore.

Cheers

Deryck
 
A

Art Sackett

Deryck said:
I just heard that many corporate users have ActiveX disabled thereby
disabling Flash. If true, then the number drops further away from 100% ....

True enough, but I set the breakpoint at 50%, as the question was
binary, "closer to 0% or closer to 100%". Personally, I won't use flash
(or javascript, or any optional client-side dependence) for anything
but trivial coolness.
I know a friend who has a site done entirely in Flash. I fired up the Lynx
emulator to give them an idea of what Google sees when it looks at their
site. IIRC it was just:

[EMBED]

Suddenly their wonderful Flash site didnt seem so wonderful to them anymore.

Yep. I've been down this road I don't know how many times...
 
T

Toby Inkster

Art said:
It's probably closer to the 100% end, BUT: Flash-enabled web search
engines: zero.

Actually, Google now understands SWF. BUT: its interpretation of SWF files
is lightyears behind its interpretation of HTML -- don't expect it to pick
up important keywords for your site from SWF.
 
M

Matrix

Toby said:
ISTR that it's about 92%. (Remember: shutting out 8% of your audience is
equivalent to powering down your web server for the whole of August!)



Not at all! It's a natural elimination of... unwanted customers.

A great filter!

;)
 
W

Webcastmaker

Hi,

Does anyone know how many browsers are Flash enabled? Is there a resource
for browser capability (and user preferences) somewhere?

Check macromedia. They have statistics on it.

But you can assume ALL flavors of IE have it because it is installed
and turned on by default (so that is about 85% of your visitors give
the 15% that dont use javascript probably don't use use flash either)
 
W

Webcastmaker

I just heard that many corporate users have ActiveX disabled thereby
disabling Flash. If true, then the number drops further away from 100% ....

Where did you hear that?
I know a friend who has a site done entirely in Flash. I fired up the Lynx
emulator to give them an idea of what Google sees when it looks at their
site. IIRC it was just:

That's because he did not know how to use flash.
 
W

Webcastmaker

ISTR that it's about 92%. (Remember: shutting out 8% of your audience is
equivalent to powering down your web server for the whole of August!)

What a red herring....
 
D

Deryck

Webcastmaker said:
.....

Where did you hear that?

Friend of a friend....I wouldnt take it as gospel necessarily. I was hoping
someone could corroborate it or refute it.
That's because he did not know how to use flash.

Yes, exactly. The criticism was at my friend who "designed" an entire site
in Flash (and big Flash files too) with no consideration for things like
SEO, bandwidth, browser capabilities, etc. No insult was intended at Flash
nor professional Flash designers.

Deryck.
 
W

Webcastmaker

Yes, exactly. The criticism was at my friend who "designed" an entire site
in Flash (and big Flash files too) with no consideration for things like
SEO, bandwidth, browser capabilities, etc. No insult was intended at Flash
nor professional Flash designers.

The problem with Flash is that so many people have used is badly in
the past. Flash is an awesome tool that is just as accessible as any
other web based medium if done right.

A good guess for you is that the same crowd that turns off Javascript
will turn off flash.
 

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