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Will Flash Be Taken Off The Shelf?
bugninja writes "According to an article at News.com, Adobe wins 2.8M from Macromedia today for using some patented interface stuff in Flash. But this isn't the end, further legal battles could require that Flash be removed from Macromedia's list of "products for sale". We may not all be Flash lovers, but is it right to take a good product away from so many people who really do like it just because another company's product isn't taking over the market like they hoped it would?"
Update: 05/03 13:29 GMT by J : Speaking of Flash, yesterday eEye discovered
a very serious security hole
in the version of Flash distributed with most copies of Windows. Go
download
the fixed release.
Flash has long been the scourge of the internet. People use it to make large, annoying, ugly, flashy, and noisy animations instead of just making webpages. And now it's being used for obtrusive banner ads that even take up entire pages!
But Flash has a number of positive uses - it can be used to create complex animations for presentations, or to create simple amateur animated movies in a fraction of the time taken using other tools. It can be used to create simple database applications. It has a powerful variant of javascript, which allows you to do many complex scripting tasks using only flash. It has powerful XML support for exchanging data with servers, making it possible to use it for e-commerce and data-transaction applications. It has a light memory and disk footprint, doesn't use too much unnecessary bandwidth, and has great multimedia capabilities.
If Flash dissapears, I will sorely miss it.
using namespace slashdot;
troll::post();
Finally, a smart post in this discussion. Mod it up.
I don't think this is a very fair comment, although I did find it amusing. Flash is an excellent format for the web, it is just the implementation of it that provides the problem.
There are a great number of fantastic flash movies available on the WWW, and some excellent flash designers out there. The problem isn't with the technology or the design, but the way it is embedded into most sites. Web masters ought to provide alternatives to Flash movies, but most seem to be too lazy to do just that, and therefore risk alienating their audience.