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HTML5 vs. Flash — the Case For Flash
snydeq writes "InfoWorld's Peter Wayner offers seven reasons why web designers will remain loyal to Flash for rich web content, despite 'seductive' new capabilities offered by HTML5. Sure, HTML5 aims to duplicate many of the features that were once the sole province of plugins (local disk storage, video display, better rendering, algorithmic drawing, and more) and has high-profile backers in Google and Apple, but as Wayner sees it, this fight is more about designers than it is about technocrats and programmers. And from its sub-pixel resolution, to its developer tools, to its 'write once, play everywhere' functionality, Flash has too much going for it to fall by the wayside. 'The designers will make the final determination. As long as Flash and its cousins Flex and Shockwave remain the simplest tools for producing drop-dead gorgeous websites, they'll keep their place on the Internet.'"
"As long as Flash and its cousins Flex and Shockwave remain the simplest tools for producing drop-dead gorgeous Websites, they'll keep their place on the Internet."
Okay, now you're just trolling.
This one has multiple fronts. Don't let anyone kid you, this isn't A vs. B, it is at least ABC vs. XYZ where each factor is independently weighed and measured.
Remember to maintain your supply of
I already block Flash automatically, as it drags down performance and rarely adds any content.
There are a few cases in which useful content has been designed in Flash, but most of the time it is useless eye candy - and more often than not, just pure advertising. A great way to block most advertising that you do not want is to block Flash. Why would you not want to do that?
No website on this planet is "drop-dead gorgeous"... a woman (or man if you prefer) in real 3D right in front of you and that you can touch and communicate with is infinitely much more "drop-dead gorgeous" even if they are butt ugly.
The whole point of flash was that the standards were so ignored that designers were glomping onto something, anything, that would show consistently across the browsers. But at this point with Firefox having the market share that it does and the other minor browsers taking on as many installs as they do by being more or less standards compliant, I fail to see why any designer in their right mind would be using Flash where alternatives exist.
As long as it isn't a real standard you're going to be giving up a portion of the potential market by using a proprietary plug in that isn't universally supported. Not to mention the people that block it because of the problems it causes and the abuses of technology over the years.
My Counterpoint: The same article, with only 1 flash ad. Otherwise it's 28 Flash ads...
http://infoworld.com/print/125721
But at this point with Firefox having the market share that it does and the other minor browsers taking on as many installs as they do by being more or less standards compliant, I fail to see why any designer in their right mind would be using Flash where alternatives exist.
Because Firefox itself is a minor browser. More than half of web users (and likely more than half of your site's customers) use Internet Explorer 8 or earlier, whose DOM doesn't support all features needed to replace SWF. For example, where's SVG? Where's the 2D canvas? Where's procedural audio?
I think the number one reason for not going to HTML5 is MSIE. Microsoft has no intention of creating a fully standards compliant browser. If they did that, they would likely also need to make their web based applications standards compliant and that would end their lock-in for Windows on the desktop and server where web applications are concerned. And MSIE is still the major browser out there.
Web developers don't like creating sites for MSIE and sites for others. It's lots of work. Just doing it in flash will assure that the flashy parts of the page will display well on all devices where HTML5 will not.
Now if by some miracle, Microsoft decides to change its selfish ways and gets compliant, that would be another thing entirely. But before anyone moves forward, something has to be done about the Microsoft problem.
I started to pray that Flash would die as soon as they took away the user controls that let me stop the idiotic flickering, bouncing, annoying ads.
Yes, I spit coffee at my screen when I read that quote from Adobe. Apparently their Flash engineers haven't tried to go to Vimeo while running Linux. It's mind-numbingly slow on my 2.8ghz P4 system running Ubuntu 10.04 and Chrome 6 (with integrated Flash 10.1). Contrarily, HTML5 YouTube plays content using 20% of my CPU. Adobe engineers even admit that Flash is not designed to be a video player -- so perhaps there is room for both technologies going forward.
The wheel is turning, but the hamster is dead.
To wit, you can watch youtube in HTML5 for those who don't know already.
Linky: http://www.youtube.com/html5
I would like to see someone run a comparative benchmark on that puppy...
Seven Days with Ubuntu Unity
How about flash sucks because it doesn't include a volume controls by default?
That's all it takes to trump that idiotic article.
Don't get me wrong, there are many other reasons to hate flash, (Including some of the reasons identified in the article as reasons to use flash: Flash's sub-pixel resolution and anti-aliasing and Flash's supercool fonts ) and that's not even the biggest one. But its more than adequate to just beg for that POS to die.
If someone is passing you on the right, you are an asshole for driving in the wrong lane.
Reason No. 5: Flash is write once, play everywhere. Flash 10 support on Wii? Nope. Flash support on Nintendo DS? Nope? Flash 10 support on Android 1.6? Nope. Flash support on iPhone/iPad? Nope. There's everything from Flash 7 to Flash 10 out there in the field; saying you can write something for Flash ten and have it "play everywhere" is blatant bullshit. Plus, some devices simply don't have enough memory to run bloated Flash apps! Flash apps takes a long time to load because they are BIG. Sure, embedding fonts in the app is a great idea -- if you don't care how big the app is.
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
is because it's only as good as Adobe implementation on your platform, and they and they alone decide whether your platform is worth sticking money/time into to make a better flash player. It's not a standard. Unlike a browser, no one else can go out and decide to make a better flash player (gnash ignored).
My 1.67Ghz G4 Powerbook to this day can only play flash videos extremely choppy and games hardly at all. It can play downloaded video or DVDs just fine.
But it is not so much about HTML5 capabilities, but the tools to leverage these capabilities. You can make 'easily' gorgeous flash website with the tools of the adobe suite. But there is no equivalent suite of tools for HTML5. And HTML5 will have a very hard time to take off as long as a website designer will not be able to do what they do with flash without the need to know jack about CSS, Javascript and HTML. Now I could see that adobe will buy out any company that will try to make these tools to compete against them.
Flash itself is really very clever. The player packs an incredible amount of functionality into a very tiny executable. It's only 1.83MB. There's an animation engine, a JIT compiler, a video player, an audio system, and a multichannel download manager.
The problem is what people use it for. Which is mostly either ads or lame web sites.
Nobody really bothers doing Flash animations as entertainment much. If you've never seen one, check out Thugs on Film. Flash games remain popular, although Shockwave, which has full 3D capability, is a far better game platform. Many console games use Flash for 2D interface elements, typically using Adobe's authoring tools but a non-Adobe player. (Yes, there are non-Adobe Flash players.)
But it's not Adobe's fault that the content sucks.