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Flash Developers Fear Spectre of Spyware
SomeGuyNamedMike writes "I realize the thought of using Flash and Actionscript is considered beneath many Slashdotters, but here's this piece, anyway: Macromedia is receiving (and answering) a a lot of flack from several blogs over its decision to package Yahoo! Toolbar with its Flash player. Will your company develop Flash content knowing Macromedia is using its runtime as its own marketing piece?"
In case it's needed.
= 53
http://www.turdhead.com.nyud.net:8090/index.php?p
http://www.hyperology.com.nyud.net:8090/?p=90
In case of Slashdotting, break mirror.
See here.
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
"A spectre is haunting slashdot - the spectre of spyware." Cowboy Marx
Ok... somebody get Google on the case to get us an alternative... QUICK!
Everyone today is worried about the 'Spectre of Spyware' - it's not just Flash Developers or any one group. Just about any network enabled software developed today suffers that problem. The real question is do you need to question the security of any/all software that you use/develop? And the quick answer is: Yes
Man that was a great game... played that in my high school's 386 computer lab all day!!!
Removed Flash years ago and don't miss it even slightest. It great that Firefox handles absence of Flash very nicely, much better than IE.
But what will replace it? My little boy likes to play flash games all the time. In theory Java is better all around, but in practice it doesn't seem to run as well.
There's not much you can do about the way people use your tools. You can't program a hammer to only pound nails.
Berto
Hopefully this will allow more open technologies, like SVG to get a better hold.
It is more than time for an open source Flash player...
Anyone know of any?
http://www.diaperdevil.com/
I looked at flash and was happy to see that a flash *.swf file saved and run localy, can't do anything more then when its on the web... unless it's saved to a folder with a 'command' subfolder and batch/scripts in it for each command. Much better then an java applet saved and run locally, which can do anything.
Thanks for putting on the feedbag. Thanks for going all out. Thanks for showing me your Swiss Army knife.
Yes.
Bottles.
If it makes less people willing to use flash then less "developers" will want to use the thing and perhaps it can start dying a well deserved death.
Considering the dreamweaver install jams flash down my throat with no prompting. If the future promises more crap infesting that flash install, I might reconsider future upgrades.
flashblock is great!
http://flashblock.mozdev.org/
flash is a big player in elearning, and there aren't a lot of tools that can be used at the skillset that many content developers have. We'll just continue, and have our clients use a specific non-ad based version. Macromedia has done a lot to extend the web for a lot of good reasons. They've had some tough times lately, and I think that they really must have struggled with this before selling out.
guess i'll just have to deal without flash. actually it wont be so hard considering that idk, probalby 80% of my dealings with flash (as a user), are for ads anyway.
WHY do companies do this?
I KUT J00 M4NG!!!
Flash is successful. There is no real need for Macromedia to bundle the Yahoo toolbar with it, at least not from a technical viewpoint.
Probably some Macromedia executives don't like that they just give Flash away for free. When approached by Yahoo executives who would like their toolbar installed on more computers, these Macromedia executives were happy to learn that they could generate extra revenue from Yahoo by bundling the toolbar.
Unfortunately the executives of neither company had enough insight to predict that the whole thing would blow up in their faces.
I worked for a multi-media house where to used Action Scripting to report user statistics invisibly to the user. IMHO, that's considered the first type of Spyware - it just looks are reports anonymously. Macromedia in bed with Yahoo!? I don't trust ANY of Yahoo!'s downloads, toolbars, messengers, nor SBC bundles. They're just so invasive and overwhelming for users.
I guess we'll be seeing more of this as time goes on. I wonder if Sun will follow suit and install the Yahoo toolbar when you download the java runtime installation.
The man who trades freedom for security does not deserve nor will he ever receive either. - Benjamin Franklin
Some guy saw that Yahoo toolbar is now being bundled with Flash by default and exploded about how that might be spyware.
Yahoo toolbar isn't a spyware application. I don't like it, but it's just an add-on app from a respectable company to help fix Microsoft's broken browser.
Spyware is a very specific word. It means software that reports back to the author with data about you.
I think a more appropriate term here would be "shovelware"... software you may not care about that gets installed just for kicks. It used to mean software that was shoveled onto a CD along with the main package, just because CDs had so much space free.
What's going on here? Clearly Yahoo paid a bunch of cash to Macromedia. What's the matter, Yahoo? Can't get enough people to install your software on its own merits? Have to resort to tricking people into installing your software? That's the mark of a bad product. A good product people will seek out. A bad product has to be foisted upon an unsuspecting public.
I pretty much stopped using IE because of FLASH - at least on Firefox I can turn it off. I can't stand the invasive advertising that FLASH makes possible.
Frankly I hope FLASH gets caught up in legal problems and disappears forever. Fingers crossed!
... but here's this piece, anyway
Strongbad: "but here's this piece... superfluous comma... anyway"
what kind of comment is that? and why is it modded a +3 funny? flash is in many ways a useful tool, and a creative outlet for those who aren't as 'skilled' as the majority of slashdotter... why must people continue to make computing such an esoteric excersise?
You're jerking my chain right? Did Macromedia really do that? Damn, i tolerate decent Flash movies, but won't go out of my way to sit through a shitty one no matter what the content following it is. Now, i guess i'll not be seeing any more Flashplayer anytime soon (been too lazy to install yet ... and now sure as hell won't).
i guess an important question i'm forgetting to ask is this: do you get the option to *not* intall that crap toolbar?
most flash you see nowadays is ads anyways, like the "[verb] the [obscure noun] and get a free ipod" ads you see, and the ones at the top of slashdot. i haven't actually used a real flash app in a long time, except homestar runner and some musicians' websites. so i guess its good to keep around for those, but this is really low of macromedia. i knew i was ahead of the game when i dropped flash a few years back.
By that I mean an open-source flash redering plugin that is bundled with Firefox?
Seriously. mplayer can decode a variety of closed formats. What's the difference?
Mongrel News all the news that fits and froths
Flash still has life. There may be a thousand horrible uses of Flash, but there are a thousand horrible uses of text, too.
Homestarrunner proves that flash is important, at least until there's a fully integrated open source animation equivalent that cannot be used to create advertising content.
That is, approximately the twelfth of never.
why must people continue to make computing such an esoteric excersise?
Because you're stupid.
I thought we all knew that.
What is your penile percentile?
Macromedia Flash continues to not have a 64-bit linux version.
I make sure to leave a note to all websites that use flash heavily for ads, that they did not even have a chance at getting any money due to my visit.
badness 10000
Isn't that like asking: "Will your company develop content for Firefox knowing that the Mozilla Foundation is using it as its own marketing piece?"
I don't care that Mozilla includes various related links with the browser, nor do I care that Macromedia includes other stuff either. If there's a business case for using Flash, my company will use it. Man, if people objected because of co-marketing deals, then nobody would ever develop for Windows based upon the desktop shortcuts that come with it.
Want to improve your Karma? Instead of "Post Anonymously", try the "Post Humously" option.
It seems Flash is going in three directions:
- Flex -- Enterprise Flash based on XML
- Central -- A way for them to use Flash to develop consumer apps
- Classic Flash
Classic Flash is completely hamstrung to prevent it from doing things like writing to your HD, communicating outside the basic arena of your own web site, etc. They are really paranoid about it becoming used for *other people's* spyware/malware.
Now, as far as Flash being spyware itself, they will go as far as the market lets them. If they, like any company, can make money through software add-ons like Yahoo!! toolbar, they will. But it seems unlikely that they will damage their reputation by overstepping, especially when the big money is potentially in Flex, etc.
OK, I know this is /., the home of open source zealots etc. etc., but I'm curious:
Why the Flash hatred?
Was there a court battle that hurt open source involving Flash somewhere? Or is it just because it's not an open source standard?
This is a legit question, not a troll. Thus I posted with my username, not as an AC.
And for the record, I do use WinXP, MS Office and other closed source products. I do however support open source in some ways. Example: I use Firefox, and will never look back to MSIE.
your witty attack has left me useless and gasping for breath.... i shall never show my face on slashdot again....
Flash is really annoying, but there are times I don't mind it. Most band sites I visit are in Flash, and usually the site's style corresponds closely to the band's most recent album's style which is kinda cool. Green Day's site is a good example of Flash I don't hate.
But Flash ads? Flash nav-bars? Entirely Flash-based sites for products and companies? I don't think I'm alone when I say the web should stay HYPERTEXT based because that's what it is designed for. The web can be as dynamic as it wants to, and languages like php and asp are one of the best examples of the direction the web should be heading, but they're also a good example of where the web should not be heading: flashing lights, obnoxious sounds that play when you visit a site, dynamic and processor-intense media which displays over the page you want to view. So Flash is kind of on thin ice with me right now...
And now they're pulling this stunt? Sorry, but no. Good thing I never paid Macromedia for my copy of Dreamweaver...Hopefully Mozilla doesn't make me eat my words, though. I gave them money (donated) and now they're getting awfully touchy feely with Google...
www.kiwilyrics.com - a wiki for lyrics
I didn't realize that anything called "Turd Head" or a couple other bloggers constituted "a lot" or anything credible for that matter. Is there another news source for the "issue" the parent raised?
no yuo!
As an ex Flash using developer, the advantage Flash has over Java is the IDE. (Not that the Flash Producing program is really an IDE)
With flash you can rapidly develop graphics and then plug in a small amount of code to make it do "clever things". This means a designer (of the graphic type) can build games etc.
On the flip side with Java you have to actually know how to code, so most applets are made by coders not designers.
What does this lead to? Well most of the stuff flash is used for is pretty with not too much coding, like most of the Web. While the Java stuff may have lots of features, but is kinda ugly.
Basically Java could replace Flash, but it would need someone to build an IDE for designers to use before it was popular and started to generate content to match that of Flashes.
As it stands Flash is a graphics format with scripting, while Java is a fully fledged programming language with the ability to do graphics in a web browser. If someone came up with the JavaFlash graphic tool / ide then we would be onto a winner.
The one thing that makes this palatable is you don't actually have to install the Y! toolbar -- you're given an option and can decline the toolbar install. Problem solved.
Macromedia's been doing this for a while with the Shockwave plug-in, and while developers HATE it (including me), the revenue from yahoo's been a godsend for the Director team. (No, Director's not dead, despite what the Flash team at MACR wants you to think...)
Still, I think most of Macromedia's top-level management are pinheads, and this is more proof of it...
It is very common to see, at the top of a slashdot story, a score:5 comment which responds in some insightful manner to the blurb but very clearly did not read the linked story.
However, a score:5 comment which makes an insightful response to the title but very clearly did not read the blurb?
Sir you have reached new heights of efficiency, I commend you!!!
Man one of our doze admins just about blew a blood vessel yesteday when he installed flash on a machine and it installed that thing...He went in and immediately banned the site so yes it is gonna cause problems and it already has.
Got Code?
But what will replace it?
SVG for vector-based animations and Java for the few minigames out there.
So are they including both the IE and the Firefox toolbar? If they dont distribute it with the FireFox plugin, whats the big deal?
If we hadn't all let Macromedia get a monopoly on pretty animated graphics on the Internet, they would never have pulled such a move.
I think it stinks, they sell Flash to developers on the understanding that people can download the flash player and run there content, and that most people can view it.
If I setup Chris's Animated Web Graphics tomorrow and built a better system, no one would buy it because people don't like using random plugin dependant content.
Macromedia should be sued by all of the people who have purchased there products for creating Flash content.
and when will all the browsers support it.. i hate flash but SVG ain't going to help before 2010
Flash is a platform. If you develop for that platform, you must convince users to download that platform.
Part of convincing your users to download that platform is being able to let them feel like there's no ill effects. This is why web plugins have essentially disappeared, people are afraid or too lazy to install all that shit.
Now Macromedia is selling the ability to get your app bundled with their platform. And if you're a developer for their platform, you now run the risk of getting upset emails from people who don't quite understand what a software installation process entails and just hitting "ok" over and over while installing going "I INSTALLED THE FLASHY THINGY YOU WANTED AND NOW THERE'S THIS WIERD TOOLBAR THING ON MY BROWSER!! WHAT DID YOU DO TO MY COMPUTER??"
This is not so good from the developer's perspective, and it raises valid questions about the future reliability of Macromedia; if they're bundling Yahoo now, what will they be bundling in 4 years?
Anyone else remember when the Flash player was so tiny that it could fit in a java applet, and if you loaded most Flash pages without having the plugin installed, it did?
I recently installed a new Flash player and when I had to fire up IE for a compatibility test - there was the dang Yahoo Toolbar. I was pretty distracted when I did the install and Macromedia had, I repeat HAD, a very high trust factor with me. I don't use IE very often so I didn't notice it for a while. I thought to myself "that's very short sighted thinking Macromedia." They then moved from the high trust level to the do not trust level.
Thalasar
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
I was trying to download Adobe Acrobat Reader yesterday and during the download it was preset to:
Total download file size: 26.8MB
Adobe Reader version: Adobe Reader 7.0
[x] Download the full version of Adobe Reader (recommended)
[x] Download the Adobe Yahoo! Toolbar
[x] Also download free Photoshop Album 2.0 Starter Edition software
All 3 boxes were checked by default. All I wanted was Adobe Reader and if I was lazy and didn't bother reading, I would've downloaded and installed Yahoo! Toolbar and Photoshop Album 2.0 SE
Companies these days...
HD Trailers
Microsoft has notibly been trying to create a 'flash killer' for some time now, but until Longhorn, it's vaporware (plus, I don't think it'll do the job). Adobe's SVG is practically non-existant at this time. It's a shame, really. Competition is what spawned Macromedia, and now it's just not there.
Macromedia's biggest bragging right with the Flash Player was its quick download speed...bundling the Yahoo! toolbar with it (even though you can opt out) removes that benefit from the table.
That's ok, I'll just publish to Flash 5 so that XP users don't have to update their plugin, and Macromedia can take their components and proprietary FLV format and shove it.
I'll buy 3rd party packages that enable things that you give up and add features that you never dreamed of, and let you play catchup.
I'll let your practically non-existant tech support (aka glorified script readers) erode your user base until it's a shadow. *BTW, they also just cancelled their DevNet Program (developer's resources) as well*
And lastly, I'll let you go against everything you stood for in the beginning...going against Adobe, trying to offer a choice, and ending up just as bad as they are.
Someone will come along and pick up the cup...and when it happens, my wallet will follow.
Rule number one: don't piss on your developers.
So how do I know that they are not going to install
anything else on the system. It does not matter much we banned macromedia's web site at the company as soon as we noticed it started installing yahoo toolbar. 100% loss of all trust, they just got placed in the same ranks as Real and Kazzaa
Got Code?
Most Slashdotters may well disdain Flash, but I really like the ability to integrate Flash with web services. The Flash provides an interface unatainable in regular HTML + javascript and it will run in many environments, including Linux.
What would I like to see next? Flash compile directly to Java Applet!
BTM
That was the turning point of my life--I went from negative zero to positive zero.
"I realize the thought of using Flash and Actionscript is considered beneath many Slashdotters." 'nuf said.
I like suggestions, but I don't like contributing towards them.
I recall trying to disable flash in Safari. The only way I could really find was to remove the plugin. (I have yet to find a way to mod a style sheet to block flash) Unfortunately this causes Safari to belch up an error message every time it runs into a flash object. I'd rather have it skip rendering silently. Does anyone have a "pacifier" flash plugin for Safari that will just do nothing? Or another solution?
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
and when will all the browsers support it..
http://www.adobe.com/svg/viewer/install/main.html
the simple stuff already works with:
http://www.mozilla.org/projects/svg/
samples
I just installed it. It asked me if I wanted the toolbar. I said no. End of story.
Paranoia.
vk.
This isn't spyware at all... The Yahoo! toolbar doesn't do any spying or hijacking, and Flash doesn't require you to install it. You might install it by mistake if you're clicking through the install menu, but then you can just uninstall it right away.
If it were spyware, installing it would be mandatory, Flash might not disclose that it exists, it would interfere with your use of the browser and you couldn't just go to add/remove programs and take it off.
Fuck you all and if you got a problem with me. call me.id like to argue. 707-363-4452
I work for a US government agency. We will not use flash under any circumstances because it is not ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act) compliant. No big whoop, you might think, until you start to imagine what it really would be like to be blind. As a blind person, the internet holds great potential to expand the information blind people can expose themselves to, but everytime their parsers hit crazy crap like a flash site, it's basically a brick wall.
So, for their sake, let's abandon Flash, once and for all. If not, let's use intelligent coding that routes blind people's browsers around Flash and to the ASCII content they seek.
$5 / month hosted VPS on linux = awesome!
As someone has already mentioned Flash is used extensively on educational websites. I realize that the average geek guy does not find flash extremely useful in daily life unless your into Homestar Runner, but it is incredibly useful in the educational arena, making websites for children much more interactive and useful. (This is my biggest issue with Linux: very few useful, well-designed children's applications.)
I am disappointed to find that Macromedia is taking this route now that they have become a big name. I prefer to download only what I request without having to deal with "extras", spyware or not. I personally won't mind as long as they tell you before hand and give an chance to opt out.
My other concern is that this may make my job harder when it comes to cleaning up other people's computers. Its bad enough trying to convince people that they shouldn't go downloading every free screensaver they like but to have to explain to them where even more random bits of software come from, sigh.
In the end I don't hold it against Macromedia, they do have the right to make their money somewhere (yes, I realize that the prices for the developement software is pretty high.) I just wish they would be more straight forward about things, advertising it on their site like Download.com does instead of just bundling it with their software.
I think the easiest way to express what we want is to say that there be no payload in the Flash Player download. When we ask people to download Flash to view our sites, we do not want to open the door to unrelated advertising or marketing activity. It makes owners of Flash based sites unwilling and unpaid partners in Macromedia's 3rd party marketing efforts.
More pragmatically, you can see where there might be a problem if we are competing with whatever the payload is.
ed
The Web without Flash is a much nicer place. Far fewer flashing things and beeping noises to irritate. Join me today, comrades!
Flash seems currently the best way to deliver sound, movies and vector graphics on the web. But the slightest inclusion of spyware would kill the technololgy in a flash.
>decision to package Yahoo! Toolbar with its Flash player.
Its not packaged with the player. The Yahoo! Toolbar is offered from the download center of Macromedia.com.
The Flash Player does not install or contain the toolbar.
I get paid $40US/hr to prototype apps and I've been too busy writing code to even hear about this.
Anyone have a problem with this, too? I downloaded the latest DIVX codec, and I saw that it installed the Google toolbar for IE. What the heck? Is this right? Why would they do this?
I don't get it.
People seems to be taking such risks to incorporate unpopular featuers in their software.
What do they gain from it?
For a proper survey, 1000 pops, carried on the street, with 1 to 1 interviews, reliable statistics, and proper image cards/multi choice papers, costs about £2800.
The results will generally be useful.
These guys, they might get ten, twenty thou pops a day from browsing habits, but what use is that data?
They know nothing about how a product will sell, they just have a load of people's browsing habits.
You can't sell that information to any company, as it has nothing to do with their product, you have not shown the customer anything, or asked them to fill in a question sheet about a specific product, it's just browser habits.
So, if no one will buy the data, where is the money?
Because Macromedia would not do this for free.
Adobe is doing something similar. To the gallows!
. ht ml
http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep2
If they embedded the current flash player in the Yahoo toolbar, I don't think there would be a problem. Heck, they could even make the Yahoo toolbar a fancy flash app.
Strong Mad - 2008: "I PRESIDENT!"
Didn't Real learn a valuable lesson similar to this one when they had one of their media encoding tools stamp "RealNetworks" on all of its output? Companies will pay lots of money for production tools, but they won't stand for someone else piggybacking their advertising on their content.
Or maybe they will now, since the content itself isn't branded. What a crock. Sad thing is, Flash can be a really useful tool, but it's seldom used as such. (Unlike, say, the BLINK tag, which was a useless and pointless idea the second it rolled off the line.)
--grendel drago
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
Flash is a great web design tool. All of these geeks (yes, YOU!) just say it sucks because that's the "geek" thing to say. It would be uncool in the computer geek world to actually like technology that non-geek people like.
I think the question is more like "will your company develop content for Mozilla knowing that the Mozilla Foundation will bundle with it Chatzilla, an email client, a calendar application, and lots of other weird stuff?"
And the answer is NO! Nobody used Mozilla for years, and all the bundled crap was a big part of the reason why. Support on public websites for Mozilla was crappy for years, and the crappy adoption rates were the reason why.
The process that ended this was that Firefox came along, and they dropped all that funky bundled crap. And-- interestingly-- suddenly adoption for Firefox has skyrocketed, and support on public websites for the Mozilla rendering engine has become a necessity.
It appears that Macromedia is starting this process now, only in reverse.
It's hard enough trying to convince management that we shouldn't be using the companies which advertise through adware, and that, no, I cannot get you a free IPod just because you left a print-out of the "FREE IPOD" website on my desk.
Try explaining to them that they cannot have the all singing all dancing website of their dreams because the software installs a harmless little toolbar.
Man, I didn't expect all the positive reaction to my Dreamweaver comment! Sadly, I don't code commericially or for fun in Dreamweaver...I code in vim and kate. Linux, of course. I haven't paid for ANY software in a long time, with the exception of all the default bundled stuff like WindowsXP Dell sells you with a new PC. I work for an open source-based company and try to keep my entire computing experience as open source/free software-based as possible. And about that Windows I paid for...I dual boot that particular machine, as it's handy to now and then load up Windows and see what the industry buzz is about. Dreamweaver was one such industry buzz, and it didn't really grab me. Seems to be focused more towards web designers than coders, so I'll stick with my free open source tools. Thanks, though.
www.kiwilyrics.com - a wiki for lyrics
I thought we all knew that..
Anyways. I love flash, because there's a ton of artistic crap made with it out there for me to waste my time with: cartoons, silly games, etc. I really like having it around for those times that I want to be distracted with these toys. I don't like the idea of not being able to enjoy them if I wish, of being left out/behind.
The main point, is I don't want the Yahoo toolbar. I don't care if it spyware or not. If I want it, I'll go to Yahoo and get it.
Why can't I just have flash if I want to get flash? This is ridiculous. I don't require flash, I don't _need_ flash. But it is a nice peice of fluff to have around. I'd probably see fewer ads if I didn't use flash. This new development makes that really tempting now. I primarily use my net connection to access information, books, text, essays, news, etc. None of the content that is really important to me requires flash. I see this as a move in bad faith by Macromedia and I'm willing to abandon flash in protest.
By your own definition, Yahoo Toolbar is spyware. See the Yahoo Toolbar's Privacy Page: http://privacy.yahoo.com/privacy/us/toolbar/detail s.html
Some choice quotes:
etc.Now if you knowingly download and install the Toolbar yourself, you clearly are ok with this (you did read the privacy notice right?). But for someone to have this installed on their computer without their consent is definitely just plain wrong.
Why would slashdotters not like flash/actionscript? What am I missing?
ogg
Black cat, searing pain, flames...? I must be in Heaven! - Homer Simpson
If anyone else said this before me, I'm not aware of it, and I take credit for it as "dgould's First Law":
David Gould
main(i){putchar(340056100>>(i-1)*5&31|!!(i<6)<< 6)&&main(++i);}
Flash lets people talk back to a server that it was not loaded from? That's not a good idea at all.
- sigs are for wimps.
What site should your firewall block to prevent a drive-by Yahoo toolbar install?
Good points. Also interesting to note that Adobe now do the same thing for those downloading Acrobat Reader. Ticked checkbox for the Adobe Yahoo Toolbar, etc.
Can't wait for all of my clients to start passing on their confused customers wondering where the extra toolbar on the browser came from.
'Thats they exact same thing a banana wrench monkey.'
The yahoo toolbar isn't just "shovelware". It may or may not report anon statistics (haven't bothered checking).
But BHO and plugins installed on my PC annoy me, especially if bundled or even worse - installed w/o my consent. They get in the way and are very annoying.
Further, yahoo is annoying (a bit like msn is, but without being Bill's). Ever visit there? It's *WAY* filled with ads and such things to sell! sell! sell! NO I do NOT want anything to do with them, much less of some intrusion on my PC (even though I don't use IE). Just another way to get people to use their annoying site. So installing this unwanted junk on my PC for some site I can't stand? No thanks.
The only reason I ever go to yahoo is to check some old email account (since you can't exactly transfer them). Otherwise, forget it.
I find it strange that /.ers aren't clamoring more for SVG growth and development. I understand that SVG is under the radar because development tools are rare. I can't see how we can tout standards in many other aspects of the internet but not this.
Linux at home
In theory Java is better for flexibility, however it lacks several things:
1. A robust, hand-optimized-assembly, variable quality vector drawing system. Java can do 2D anti-alised graphics now, but at nowhere near the speed that flash can.
2. An IDE that marries artwork creation, layout, and scripting. This is simply from the lack of anyone doing it.
3. Startup times comparable to image loading or JPEG decompression. This is inherent to the nature of the Java runtime environment.
4. Web Service support. Java applets can only talk to the originating server, preventing you from using web services.
Recently Macromedia actually experimented with the player, to see what effect increasing the size of the plugin would have on downloads. They found that once it got past a certain size (which wasn't revealed), downloads dropped off dramatically.
So I'm really surprised that they're bundling other software in the download now. I've no doubt that the total size is still below that threshold they found. But there's always a constant battle at MM to add features to Flash whilst keeping the player small. This ain't gonna make that easier and any bundling that alienates the user base is pretty self defeating IMHO.
One of these days I'm moving to Theory - everything works there
I realize the thought of using Flash and Actionscript is considered beneath many Slashdotters I see all flash ads...
at least not on gentoo. so I really hope this dies as a standard mechanism---the sooner, the better. i hope that whatever replaces it will be open source and therefore bundled into firefox, too.
A lot of people here are saying Flash is replaceable by Java. This isn't really the case. Flash uses vector graphics to make things really small. Redoing in Java would lose the vector graphics support. Not to mention Java loads a lot more slowly.
What's the deal with all the IE 'Toolbars'? Yahoo, iSearch, yadda, yadda, yadda ... one spyware scumware toolbar after another.
... "Gee, I'd really like another stupid pointless toolbar".
Why is everyone so hot to install another 'Toolbar'? My web browser displays web pages. That's all I need it to do. Never once have I thought to myself
"I realize the thought of using Flash and Actionscript is considered beneath many Slashdotters..."
Okay, after six or seven years of checking this site daily, I'd consider myself a slashdotter. And I'm also a Flash developer who knows that any application platform (such as Flash) is only as wholesome as the person developing with it.
But to deride Flash in general just because (1) there's no IDE for Linux, or (2) you read somewhere that some subversive script kiddies use it to create spyware (people use C++ to create nasty shit all the time, so I guess we should do away with that, too?) is a bit ridiculous.
Opting for open-source over commercial stuff may make you more open-minded to alternatives, but it certainly doesn't make you superior.
Please remember your comment next time you spend hours of company time at homestarrunner.com
GET FREE APPLE STUFF!
A developer's concern about MM's move could be equally that of "brand promotion" in addition to concerns about spyware. What if the developer doesn't like Yahoo? What if it had been an MSN search bar? And what if the developer thinks that MS is a sick company? Again, the benefits of FOSS are clear because you can't be taken along with incompatible agenda... It's much more than an issue of spyware at stake.
Always do right. This will gratify some people and astonish the rest. -- Mark Twain
Not only are the blind not seeing your flash site, (well, hearing via screen reader, and yes, there are some workarounds) but search engine bots are skipping it too. Text in a webpage automatically gets included, Flash content and everything it links to is a black hole, the spidering stops. This means your site is irrelevent in search engine results, and you don't contribute to the web in a meaningful way. Add a 10% chance your viewer needs the plugin and will never return, a higher development cost, and a "broken" back button (last html page, not last flash screen) and I rarely recommend the use of Flash, and never for textual information sites.
Rule of the open mind
People who are resistant to change cannot resist change for the worst.
Seems like every time there's a new version, they force you to download the player *AGAIN* though the site probably can view it just fine with the old version.
Though I was glad when comcast's start page came up yesterday with http://www.comcast.net/flashUpgrade.html instead of the *BLOATED* flash comcast page.
As someone has already mentioned Flash is used extensively on educational websites. I realize that the average geek guy does not find flash extremely useful in daily life unless your into Homestar Runner, but it is incredibly useful in the educational arena, making websites for children much more interactive and useful. (This is my biggest issue with Linux: very few useful, well-designed children's applications.)
Sites like this should be using Java. It's just like putting an MS Word file on your website vs a PDF file.
Sure most people have both Acrobat and MS word, but PDFs are both more portable, and less of a security risk.
Flash is no less of a hassle for the end user, but Java is less of a security risk, more "open" in every sense of the word, AND has much better support on a wider variety of platforms.
It should be almost a non-question.
How many companies make Flash players?
How many companies make Java VM's?
How much does Sun's JDK cost?
How much does Macromedia's stuff cost?
Life is too short to proofread.
flack? what the heck is a flack?
The right word is flak, ab abbreviation of the German word "Flug Abwehr Kanone". Translated: Anti Aircraft Gun.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flak
That still doesn't explain why it is so leet to say "received a lot of flak by" instead of just saying "was met with resistance from" or "was opposed by"...
--- Eat my sig.
I realize the thought of using Flash and Actionscript is considered beneath many Slashdot articles...
Fixed.
...not "flack".
Look it up.
More evidence of the decline of civilization.
This is just another idiotic MM marketing move.
..."Hey, I haven't screwed up this section of the company yet!"
.NET applications. Switch to MM development, and then you can gradually switch your OS...
If MM ever goes down the tubes its going to be because whomever "comes up with" or "says yes to" their idiotic marketing ideas drove the company there.
My two favorites thus far have the trying to sell Flash Remoting separate from Flash; and the "almost" separation of their ColdFusion Reporting from the ColdFusion Server product.
Oh yeah, then there's the $10000+ Flex product... geared only toward "enterprise" development.
So obviously this "employee" who comes up with these ideas got involved with the marketing of the Flash Player...
Flash, Actionscript, Flash Remoting, ColdFusion, ColdFusion Reporting... all run on Windows AND Linux.
You could do some cool apps with these products to free companies from the tyranny of being stuck with Windows clients because of developing VB or
But they can't seem to market THAT idea.
No instead, let's help Yahoo Toolbar by letting them piggyback on our Flash Player's success.
Actually I'm beginning to wonder if MM is hurting for "cashflow"; and this was just an easy way of generating some. But from a "reputation" point of view, it was just plain stupid!
SVG is ready to replace flash, and is an open standard. Those sites should switch. (Come to think of it, if they switch MS would be forced to make SVG work right in IE because customers will demand it)
The mistake that everyone always makes in thinking about flash is in confusing what it can do with what they see done with it.
What can flash do?
It's an extremely flexible scripting language, that enables extreme rapid-development of GUIs, graphics, audio, and other multimedia applications.
And the resulting files are fairly small, (or at least can be, if they're not chock-full of sounds).
And the graphics are both very small, and scalable, since it's all vector-based.
And it streams, so if set up correctly, even modem users can join in the fun.
In short, Flash is a pretty cool development environment for creating web apps.
That being said...
what do people see flash used for?
pop up adds. And web sites with too much flash and not enough content.
Is this the fault of flash? I don't think so. The only thing flash is guilty of is making it TOO easy to create things, so everyone and their kid brother tries to. And 95% of it sucks. But ease of user-interface is usually a goal, and not a crime...
I think that flash, in and of itself, is an extremely powerful tool, that fills a needed (or at least highly useful) niche in web and multimedia development.
Don't hate the product, hate the dorks who think that a web site built entirely out of flash is cool, with looping audio, and annoying animations.
(Am I the only one who remembers all the annoying java-apps that people added to web pages for a while, with weird cursors with tails, snow, and other strangeness?)
Did any of the alarmists actually go to the download page?
The Yahoo bar option shows up in IE, not the other browsers.
And if people are concerned about this, why not take some positive action? Sure as Macromedia is checking blogs, they'll be looking at how many people download the Yahoo version vs. the regular version.
Instead of sulking, go and download the regular version if this upsets you. To MM, that will be one more person who doesn't want the Yahoo bar.
Collective Type Project
I just recently attempted to get approval for Flash development at my company. This would have been for distribution, not just the player download from Macromedia.
The Lawyers had a look at the license agreement Macromedia was wanting and said "no thanks." The main sticking point was the uncertainty introduced by my company investing lot of time and money into a Flash enabled application and not having the certainty that they could expect to be able to continue developing and shipping new versions of our product.
The distribution license is for one year and it was completely unclear as to whether Macromedia might change it's mind and do something completely different in a year (such as charge for the player).
Flash is the best technology for our app, but unfortunately we cannot use it without clearer definitions of our future rights to sell our own product (and newer versions of it, even if it were on an older player).
This recent move my Macromedia, unfortunately, proves the lawyers right for saying no.
Flash is a much higher level language than java. Yes, they both (can) run in a browser, but you might as well compare Visual Basic and assembly. Flash, being higher level, is more suited to rapid application development for a fairly limited set of solutions.
While java allows you much more power and flexibility, when it comes to browser based apps there are few if any things java can do that flash can't. Java performs poorly when it comes to GUI-based applications, and requires far more code to get the same result. When it comes down to it, there are only two things Java really does well, portability and reliability, and as a result, it's a great server programming language.
they bundle this with acrobat reader now. apparently yahoo has shopped the idea around a bit.
i can't wait until the next time my half-life client updates and asks me to install yahoo!!!!1!!one toolbar.
Please provide links to good Flash websites.
I agree that there are some interesting uses of Flash, but Flash sites discourage visiting the same web site many times, because even interesting moving pictures become boring after someone has watched them maybe 3 times.
That's why Google is so successful. The company has a policy of not annoying people.
Funny, I never would have known this, had I not read it here.
1. as a developer, who uses flash at times to do a project, this is absolutly insane on macromedia's part. for them to include this in their plugin, which is supposed to be a transparent part of the browser experiance, and force that upon the end user, who may, or may not know what their getting in to is... I'm at a loss for words.
Corporate environments that lock down their browsers better, and prevent such tool bars are going to stop allowing flash to be installed on their systems. which actually BACKFIRES for macromedia, as they are desperatly trying to get people to use flash / cold fusion / flex / breeze etc... Corporate entities will not allow flash to be installed on office computers if they're going to get some unintended software like the yahoo tool bar on it.
I'm dissapointed, and will start voicing such to macromedia.
Flash is loved by ignorant managers who only look at their new web site once, and then link deep inside it.
Correct its the full-version of the google toolbar that is spyware. I just visited the google toolbar page and clicked 'download' and was not given an option to get the page-rank free, thus spyware free toolbar. Not to mention their non-expiring tracking cookie.
Looks like google, again, can do some evil. Reminds me of MS in the bad old days. Because they werent IBM anything they did was golden. Now look where we are.
ActiveX you aint got a chance of hell in selling it to our company. If it cannot run on any standard browser we don't buy it period.
Got Code?
Do you know what's holier than God?
The clients of my clients. That's what's holier than God.
Personally I don't much care whether the Yahoo toolbar is offered with the Flash player so long as I can opt out. But there is no way in hell I can develop a gizmo for a client when its deployment is going to cause any single one of his clients to question his faith in my client's trustworthiness.
I'll roll my own javascript animations before it comes to that.
I hope you read this, Macromedia. I've worked off and on with DW and Flash for about 6 years, but you've just fixed it so your Flash is unusable to me. And I will be looking more closely at ALL the implications of using your other products, too.
My last two jobs have been customer service jobs for websites. I remember dealing with people who had the Yahoo toolbar on their browsers. They can't get to the website, they call, I instruct them to type the address into the address bar and they will be at the site. They get confused because all they see is a bunch of search results then I have to go through 5 minutes explaining to them why that happened and where their address bar is then get them to the site. Not many people had this problem because not many of the people who would have this problem had the desire/knowledge of the yahoo toolbar. however, many sites necessitate having flash and many people with a comparable level of internet skill will download flash and then inadvertantly download the yahoo toolbar which will cause them and those of us who have to deal with them an enormous headache.
This is neither insightful nor informative. It is a rehash of the same ignorant statements about Flash, constantly brought up in any discussion here about Flash, HTML, the web, or pretty much anything.
Get some perspective and step out of your little egg.
Does this mean that by getting to many of those crappy annoying e-cards your computer will go blind?
www.macromedia.com. Didn't you RTFA? :-)
John
It's still interesting and evil, of course. :-) Don't get me wrong!
I don't think even having a process to 'disable' the toolbar in an the interface is remotely acceptable, let alone having to decide to disable it when people install the player themselves.
As developers and corporate end-users, we can not accept something integrated with a web site to suddenly acquire an unnecessary UI element to join the browser screen, especially in something where the UI was supposed to be clean and clear. You will have single handedly broken a look, feel and usability factor that was designed for a client, and the client might just well come to me asking why it's broken. I'll have to spend time and money to fix it. In my mind and possibly reality Macromedia's going to get the bill for any hours of work I spend doing that, as well as the time spend calming down my client.
This opens up the door for advertising to be sent, interrupting or preceding what is supposed to be a design, presentation, logo or splash...Why? Simply because I (or my client) was told to trust something Macromedia decided to add on for those unsuspecting souls who download the new player.
The moment a board member of an organization I'm helping decides to call me in a rage over the Yahoo toolbar showing up in something that's NOT supposed to have any other UI add-ons, I will heavily consider finding a way to sue Macromedia for damages. This is a 'design and programming environment', not Macromedia's or Yahoo's excuse (or their advertising clients excuse) for a billboard. I don't want Yahoo's garbage interrupting my work, or putting it at risk in any way, which is a huge possibility considering a newly-downloaded component of the previously installed toolbar (even it it doesnt contain anything harmful right away) could contain yet another add-on from yet another company I didn't expect to have to deal with before.
They need to change this path before this gets exponentially worse. Take the Yahoo toolbar out permanently, and let Yahoo develop an alternative Flash player if they want one of their own with a toolbar in it so badly.
"Love is like pi - natural, irrational, and very important." (Lisa Hoffman)
I am a slashdot reader who uses both, and let me tell you something; from my experience, it's not that it's beneath you, it's beyond you. 90% of the slashdot readers couldn't build an interesting interface if you lives depended on it, and I'm willing to put money on that. I know lots of other slashdot readers in my region, and guess what? They know this too. I could code in something other than actionscript, but I choose not to. I like design, I like graphics, and I'd appreciate not getting chastised for this choice, just as you (the rest of the slashdot world who believes Flash is "beneath" you) wouldn't appreciate unfounded criticism of your choice of profession. You, just as I, realize your place and your importance, and without your efforts and work, there would be a lot of people scrambling to get shit done. I make things easy, VERY easy for idiots; the rest of you make it work. We know the world we live in, and we know that without the effort we put into quality work and quality code, this world could be brought to it's knees, and you know as well as the next /.er that you've thought those same words. I would appreciate seeing a little less of this sort of sentiment from the readership here, and just a bit more appreciation for the world beyond C98 code, or whatever the hell you chose to be your weapon of choice.
Mod me down, do what you will, but I had to rant.
Hades, PoD: Official Advocate
I find it hard to accept the level of Fascist Ignorance present in this community with respect to the most powerful, flexible, and progressive web technology present today. I believe it is the result of a fear amongst 'traditional' web developers who are seeing their customers abandon them in droves for the new way - the way of the rich internet application. In fact, I'd say the level of festering hatred in this 'discussion' clearly points to the same.
However, as a developer who has spent the last 8 years making a very comfortable living from Flash development, I cannot accurately describe in words how utterly furious I am about this most incredibly short sighted and greed driven decision to fetter this innocent and bright star to the fscking dregs of the web. Sh1t on a stick. What manner of infantile executive-itis could possibly have led to this spectacularly stupid decision? It almost defies belief.
I hope somebody at Macromedia comes to their senses before it is too late.
I hope Flash doesn't die. While the way it is used annoys the living crap out of me, I can easily block flash in Firefox and only run it when I actually want it. Who knows how difficult Flash's replacement could be to do the same.
So they're packaging them together? Sounds like a simple marketing strategy by two companies trying like mad to keep up with the Joneses.
I really don't see the problem, it's not like you can't uninstall Y! Toolbar if you don't want it (or not install it in the 1st place).
-S
Representative Goat-see?
Last time i checked that was an IRC bot on your channel, moron.
I very much like the graphic design in the first link: http://www.fordvehicles.com/trucks/f150/index.asp
However, there were five shortcomings:
On my high-speed DSL connection, I got only the word "loading..." for only a few seconds, but it seemed like a long time. Ford must be very arrogant indeed to believe that this does not annoy people with dial-up connections.
Second, you get the option "Low Speed Non-Flash" only after you have loaded the Flash page. That makes me realize why I don't like the average Flash enthusiasts web designer. They aren't very intelligent, and they assume I'm not very intelligent.
Third, Flash breaks tabbled browsers!!! When I right click on a Flash ad, I don't get the normal menu. My normal way of shopping is to load several pages and flip between them on demand. Macromedia thinks I should not be able to do this.
Fourth, the site uses blind links. I don't know what will happen until I click.
Fifth, after something is clicked on the main page, the connection is kept alive, as is shown by the message "Transferring data from www.fordvehicles.com..." which remains there forever and can't be made to go away by hitting the Escape key.
If there is something that cannot be done in standard HTML, standard HTML should be improved. Flash has had perhaps 38 serious security vulnerabilities. It is not good to introduce an entirely new, essentially proprietary technology.
I've developed a flash application on a mac. This application had a little over 20,000 lines of AS2.0. It was a terrible experience. Everyone at Macromedia should be ashamed of themselves for having released such a slow, buggy, and horribly designed piece of software.
The only satisfaction I received from the experience was solving two problems that everyone on the actionscript forums claimed to be impossible. Well, half of the satisfaction came from solving them and the other half from not sharing the solutions with anyone. Never again.
Adobe are bundling the Yahoo Toolbar with the new Acrobat Reader 7 for Windows, along with Photoshop Album SE and 7.2 MB of extra plugins. The Yahoo Toolbar then installs not only to IE, but also to the Reader itself. To hide it in Adobe Reader, you need to right-click its toolbar and untick "Search the Internet".
:)
But they do at least offer you a choice: you can choose not to download any or all of these extras, by unticking a few boxes on the download page, which appear after you've chose Windows as the target OS. And they're not pushing this junk with their SVG viewer. Yet.
As noted above, this only affects users of MS Underpants Exploder for now. But I wonder if Adobe, Macromedia or other vendors will start offering Yahoo Toolbar for Firefox soon, and on other OSes? Linux and Mac versions of the Firefox Toolbar are reportedly on the way.
It's just one more good reason to use Free and OSS software whenever possible, like GPLFlash, Ghostscript and PDFcreator: no clueless marketing droids "adding value" unasked.
I don't want an interesting interface, I want one that works. That's exactly the distinction 90% of Flash developers don't understand. If you do then good, Flash can be used well, but don't kid yourself that you're the norm.
TWW
"Encyclopedia" is to "Wikipedia" what "Library" is to "Some people at a bus stop"
SVG might have solved some of the problems that Flash is solving now, except for the fact that Mozilla/Firefox support for SVG is quite bad..especially on Linux.
The Adobe SVG plugin has a whole range of problems running on Linux.
But even if SVG for Mozilla/Linux was fully supported on Linux, it still does not solve all the issues that Flash solves - for instance, SVG has no support for audio (at least not now).
You can let Macromedia know you don't want the Yahoo! Toolbar bundled with the Flash Player:w ishform/m ain.cgi
http://www.macromedia.com/support/email/
Regards.
the adobe svg viewer for linux does not seem to be maintained any more, as there is only an older version available, which adobe themselves admit is both older and buggier.
the windows version isn't great, and doesn't work with many browsers.
i hope that someone else does a better job than adobe--whether it's built in to my browser, or installed as a plugin. just as long as the damn things works with out crashing my browser/etc.
I would hardly call it useless just because there are lots of cheesey adds.
That's like calling spray paint useless because there is so much grafiti or that medicine is useless because there are so many drug addicts.
I could easily say that JavaScript is useless because there are so many pop-up adds.
Just because you don't like how someone applied something, doesn't make the entire technology useless.
Because they think that Flash == annoying ads/intros.
While there's content like this - this will probably be true for every technology, like the annoying java menus - the fact is, slashdot people can't accept that flash isn't SVG, it isn't Java, it isn't HTML, and there are good sites and good uses for Flash. So they'll jump at any chance to spit on Flash because "those annoying intros" aren't needed and the content should be replaced by something on svg/java/html.
Flash has been ADA compliant since version 6.
i ty /features/flash/faq.html
http://www.macromedia.com/macromedia/accessibil
Jakob Nielson (http://www.useit.com) helped them make it that way.
(If you've never heard of Jakob Nielson and you're concerned about ADA (aka section 508) compliance, you really need to be more informed.)
Does that mean that every flash site is accessable? No. It is up to the designer to make it that way. I can easily say that HTML is not ADA compliant because of the millions of sites without alt tags in their images.
Yea! Let's stop all Technical development That does not cater to the Blind, or the deaf, or the handicapped. If it can't serve their purpose too, then damn it, everyone should have to do without it.
After receiving complaints that our site's (Turdhead.com comment section wasn't working, I discovered that some may be trying to enter comments using the mirror sites above. The mirrored site won't except comments, as they don't update our spam-filtering "captchas."
I do not want your friggin toolbar. If i wanted it, i would have downloaded & installed it. If I ever change my mind, I know where to find it.
Please do not get yourself thrown into the "scum of the earth spyware vendor" category.
Youre getting closer every day.
Oh, & Macromedia, we're watching you!
Flash sucks cos of all those adds.
.....
The web sucks cos of all the flash
My PC sucks cos I can get the web on it
I suck cos I own my PC
My parents suck cos they created me
Darn that flash! Life would be just dandy without it.
So this is where Comic Book Guy hangs out....
The problem for Macromedia is that they have locked themself into a situation that change to their codebase will mean breaking their bundled software contract...
This tells me that for coming years the platform will step out of it's own evolution and wont improve anymore but will be patched to keep their bundled stuff from breaking.
Guess how Netscape came to it's end, and no it is too much honor for MS to think that they are fully responsible for that, Netscape just got stuck into it's own contracts, like Macromedia will...
Its *way* overused.
I'll put it this way - if your site cannot be mostly viewed and navigated *without* requiring flash, you are using too much flash. If a browser must have flash in order to contact you, get basic information about your company/organization/etc, get your email address or phone number, send a message via webform, then you are using too much flash. I would proffer an exception for portions of sites which are entirely entertainment (Eg, animations, etc) - but there still should be a non-flash main page, as well as basic info contact/etc.
This is nothing new...Adobe Acrobat Reader 7 includes this piece of crap as well.
Posting anonymously due to having mod points vested in this discussion.
If Flash were being used primarily for these applications you speak of, then I'd wholeheartedly agree. Heck, I'm very fond of some of the games and applications out there done with Flash. Problem is, most people use it for menus and opening screens, places where it really isn't necessary. Yes, there's generally a low-speed version eventually offered, but not until the Flash animation is loaded whether or not the user has Flash installed. I've had to cruise along at low browser speeds before and sites that use Flash and sites which replace text with graphics without giving proper alt tags are pretty much unreadable at low speeds.
But, for an accurate analogy, the Flash hammer with Yahoo installed wouuld be annoying to some users, by having unnecessary and unwanted graphic features (ugly toolbar = flashing red and blue LEDs). It would also, by its' nature, create an unnecessary impediment to your work (CPU drain = sponge hammer). It would also be difficult to get rid of (assumably difficuult uninstall = recycling limitations in most states).
So, you can't do muuch about the way people use your tools, but people will probably like them less if they're flashing spongy hazardous hammers, like the Yahoo! toolbar.
I am the tech guy for a small private school, and one of our Art teachers uses Flash to teach animation. I really don't want to have the sttuupid Y!bar on every PC, so I can see trhis being an issue pretty soon.
I think you'll find that's flak, sometimes written FlaK, or Flugabwehrkanone, a German WWII acronym:
Flug - Flight, i.e., Aircraft
abwehr - defense
kanone - cannon
In other words, anti-aircraft cannon
I've also come across Fliegerabwehrkanone - 'flyer' - aircraft (in other contexts, airman) defense canon.
C.f. FlaRak, Flugabwehrrakete anti-aircaft rocket
Here's a resonable summary of the differences between flash and director. I asked the people here in the office (one uses flash and another uses director) and they were unsure too. Flash is apparently better suited for the web, Director for things like multimedia CDs...
You know it's weird - we completely disagree yet you demonstrate practically every point I have against Flash.
1) Flash is proprietary, and hence you're willingly putting yourself at the mercy of one (now proven clueless) company. If Microsoft owned Flash everyone would be shitting themselves about vendor lock-in - what's different about Macromedia? Especially after this debacle?
2) We already have solutions for things like GUIs. Ever hear of HTML? Javascript? DHTML? AJaX? These are all open standards, accessible to all, gracefully degrading back to plain ASCII text, uncontrolled by any one corporation or entity. As one poster already indicated, if there's something you can't do with AJaX/DHTML, the answer is to improve AJaX/DHTML - don't replace them with a closed, proprietary, inaccessible, non-degrading (at all!) format that wasn't even originally designed to do what it does now.
3) Flash fans are primarily designers, not people with good/varied development experience: "Most of us have moved away from plain ASCII stuff a while ago and moved into the wide-world of GUIs". HTML/AJaX are likely all the GUI you'll ever need (and see point 2 if not). In fact, in my experience Flash is one of the worst languages to develop a GUI in, certainly in the set "languages any vaguely sane person would ever consider using".
3) Flash fans tend not to "get" the web - the idea of the WWW is to make information available. Not pretty, not animated, but accessible. Prettiness is a bonus, but only once you can see the content. Flash started as an animated movie format, and as that it excells. The problem was when someone decided it should get all interactive, because it does that very, very badly, certainly in the context of a web browser. Flash is a binary, compiled, proprietary and closed format. It is the antithesis of practically everything the web is supposed to be - textual, human-readable, uncontrolled by a single entity and open to all.
Don't get me wrong - Flash has its place, but that place is the same as "images" - a discrete, minimally-interactive (play controls and nothing else) role where it can convey information that's hard or impossible to convey another way (an animated diagram, web cartoon - hell, even a rotating company logo if you want). The second flash starts encroaching into "text" or "browser" territory it should be beaten back with a stick, since it can't do them as well as the solutions we already have. It can do them prettier, but that only sucks in the naive, emotive magpie-users who confuse "shiny things" with The Right Way To Do It.
4) Tied-in with the above is the complaint that Flash breaks almost all the most important functionality of web browsers - back/forward, bookmarks, cut-and-paste links, statelessness, non-blind navigation... (I can't even be bothered to complete the list it's so long). Practically the only thing that Flash doesn't break is the point-and-click link selection. Oh yes, and what's another major reason everything seems to be given a web-interface these days? Consistency of interface. Flash comes in and forces designers to re-invent the interface practically from scratch any time they want interactivity, throwing out X decades of refinement and evolution. How is that in any way a good idea?
5) And finally, look at the two "Flash is good" examples you offer: web cartoons and five-minute throwaway games. How in any way are these representative of the vast majority of the web? They're not - they're silly useless glittery things that can't be done any other way, and that's where Flash should stay.
Everything in moderation, including moderation itself
http://www.beautifully-webdesign.net/
Pages upon pages of good flash or HTML based design (some not so great, some FANTASTIC.) Most of these sites also have links to other great sites. You'll get your 4+ hours worth out of it.
Hades, PoD: Official Advocate
I'm with you on this one. I could go on, but i'd just be repeating what you've said.
Collective Type Project
My web developer for my record label's website is primarily a flash programmer, but one of my questions to him when we first started working together was "What happens when they don't have flash installed?" His answer: "I've wrote a script to check to see if flash is installed and then just display a flat jpg image instead if it is not." That and he keeps his flash word really small so I'm happy with it. Music related content sites tend to have lots of multimedia as it is consirding that is what we are selling.
"I am the king of the Romans, and am superior to rules of grammar!"
-Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor (1368-1437)
it seems a lot of you view flash as a picture and movie player. im not a flash developer, and i personally would not use flash on a site i was developing...but...
;)
;)
go check out the demos for macromedia flex on the macromedia site. you couple that with cfmx 7 cfc's or web services, and you really can start whipping out some nice apps very quickly.
they even did a version of thinkgeek using that product where you drag and drop your items onto the order form. hehehe...
its all interesting anyway...macromedia really could go a long way if people would just give them half a chance.
this yahoo thing though, scares the bajeezus out of me. usually you start seeing things like this happen when a company just isnt making the revenue they expected to make on a product.
Check this out: http://www.demicron.com/wirefusion/
This could replace Flash soon. Key points:
* Visual programming based on blocks(objects) and wires that connect them which are used to send events like counters and mouse over.
* High quality real time 3D rendering with reflections, morph targets, shadows, animation.
* Host SWF(Flash 2.0) within scene.
* MP3 playback(with add-on)
* Based on Java 1.1 which works everywhere.
* Stable Dev environment itself based on Java.
* Light weight player which bundles with your app.
* Stream resources.
* Mix 2D, 3D, Real-time photoshop-like image filters.
* Extend functionality with Java programming itself.
* Java penetration is 87% according to Macromedia.Next best to Flash itself.
* Really easy to test and debug.
Cons:
* High price... for now. I'm sure they'll lower it once more people start using it. Right now its $1K for the professional and $2K for enterprise. $99 for standard.
I have a lot of fun using it and don't like flash's frame based approach. WF is all event based. How it works for large scale apps remains to be seen.
Kon
Flash is FUCKING GARBAGE.
Apple does something similar; the latest QuickTime forces you to install iTunes. What's worse is when you uninstall QuickTime iTunes is still there. I don't see any easy way to get rid of it.
You may be able to write decent interfaces, or at least you think they are.
But the vast majority of flash-based sites that I have encountered make life harder. Several examples are:
- Tiny 6 point miniscule fixed fonts that I can't resize, contrary to what I've told my browser to use.
- Scrollbars that don't obey the mouse scroll whell and often times are not even real scrollbars (i.e. you HAVE to use the up/down buttons, you can't even drag the elevator - sometimes you can't even CLICK on the up/down buttons, you have to hover over them and WAIT for the text to scroll)
- Packing the text into a miniscule text area so that the presentation will work on granny's 640x480 display, meaning that to read more than a sentence or two I have to use some godawful nonstandard scrollbar, while the vast majority of my screen space is blank.
- Breaking the ability to easily bookmark a section of a page.
- Breaking the ability to use the back-button or open-link-in-new-tab features, which I use extensively.
If you call that better than what stock html gives me, then I'm afraid we disagree on what a user interface should be.
If you are one of the flash developers out there that have a clue and don't foister the above nonsense on your web visitors, then all the more power to you. But realize that this "hatred for flash" that you seem to have noticed is because the vast majority of people making flash DO violate one or all of the above annoyances. If that's the case then your beef is with these incompetants soiling the reputation of flash, and not for the rest of us that have been burned by it too many times and have dismissed it.