There is a divided opinion on Flash animations amongst webmasters. From what I’ve noticed since I first started working for an IT company, that was also an Internet service provider in 1996, websites have changed an awful lot.

I think it started with animated GIFs and JavaScript effects. Of course, PCs were quite expensive and slow back then and anything moving on a website was taking a lot of your computer’s computing power. Also, the almighty JavaScript posed, and still does, a serious security risk. But wouldn’t it be a shame if because of that the Internet became just an online catalogue or newspaper? Fortunately, other people were thinking the same and along came Flash.

What I really want to know is why do some people find Flash so annoying or even useless? I believe it isn’t Flash as such that you have a problem with. It is because of what is it being used for in most cases. Advertising. ActionScript within Flash apps is just as powerful as JavaScript. It can use CSS as well as cooperate with PHP and it is FUN to learn and work with. In my opinion one day FLASH (or a similar interactive standard in the future) is going to Rule the Internet.

Just think of Hollywood and their movie dedicated websites. They are all Flash. And let’s be honest, those guys know all about marketing and how to get peoples attention. If Flash wasn’t the right tool, they would be using XHTML, DHTML, CSS pseudo-interactivity (Pardon my language, I find CSS cool as well)


Please, give your opinion.

I personally don't like the use of Flash, but I do agree it has its place and time it can be used appropriately.

IMHO, flash should never be used for navigation or content, as it is on so many movie sites. This is true for several reasons. First and foremost, not all browsers render flash. Not everyone has that plugin, and what about people on text-based browsers or blind people on screen readers? They can't properly view flash apps either, so you've knocked out a (albeit small) part of your audience right there. The second, and nearly as important, reason as to why you should not use flash for navigation or content is it makes SEO much harder. That search engine spider can't scan the flash app, and provide good meta data to the engine.

Now, I do think flash can be used as supplemental material, such as a "View a video about what you just read" kind of thing, but that's it.

Just my 0.02USD

Search engines exist because of websites, not the other way around. With a little bit of ingenuity from both Macromedia and search engines, this problem could be resolved. Or do you really expect the current state of things to stay unchanged forever? All that changed in 10 years is search logarithms.

As for disabled people, I believe, the problem is even easier to resolve. Just like today HTML sites carry embedded Flash as it’s secondary or less relevant part, in future, the textual content could be “embedded” into fully interactive sites for blind people to access with a simple key stroke or a voice command.

Accessibility is NOT just about the blind. There are many people who use assistive technology that are not blind but have other disabilities or impairments. Screen readers render TEXT, they cannot render Flash or anything where actual text does not exist and most of the flash sites you see today have zero 'real' text in them.

As of now, the search engines do not and cannot 'read' anything in Flash, so to create a complete site ONLY in Flash is SEO suicide. It's my understanding that the technology may exist for the SEO spiders to actually get data out of Flash, but it goes to their bottom line.. they would have to spend actual $$$ to implement it and there's probably not enough pressure from the public for them to do so.

Flash is ok in small doses, for small adverts, animation/movies etc. I totally agree is should NEVER be the ONLY navigation on any site.

I don't think Flash is going to 'take over' the web. I think it may be a piece of the wider technology and user experience, but hardly a 'take over'. Flash has it's uses, I use it at work on our intranet and on some of my sites in a very limited role as an enhancement - like jazzing up a logo or something. We do use it on a few sites as slide shows/intros that accompany REAL content on a page - basically eyecandy, and a few have 'play movie' to see a voluntary presentation.

I'm sorry, but I still can't accept that. It sounds like saying, before there were airplanes, that flight was impossible without wings that can flap. Yet today we use airplanes without flapping wings and helicopters with no wings at all.

I'm not saying that Flash as it exists today will take over the internet. All I'm saying is that it has a HUGE POTENTIAL and that all objections posted here are based on what you know today. And if such attitude gets passed on to new generation of webmasters, soon Flash will disappear because there will be no point developing it any further in order just to jazz up logos and silly banners. And so in 10 years time, we will still be using GIF animated smilies, argue about what programming language is the best for this and that and we'll be discussing bugs in browsers.

I seriously doubt that flash will disappear, provided Adobe keeps developing it. There is always 'the next killer app', it's been that way for 20 years in the IT world, so I'm most definitely NOT limiting my opinion based on only whats available and what I know today.

No one is discouraging the use of flash, but people MUST be aware that full-flash sites ARE a problem for accessibility NOW. With the organizations for the blind suing large companies because people can't access or use their websites, AND suing the Federal gov't because they can't determine monetary denominations on paper money (a suit the feds LOST btw), it is foolish to believe that people with disabilities don't use the web and so we can ignore them. In the UK, laws went into effect that REQUIRE public sites to be accessible, and we have Section 508 here in the US though it's not aggressively enforced -- yet.

There are so many directions the web can take, flash is a possibility, but I don't think it's the ONLY one nor do I think it's THE 'killer app'.

frofi I don't think Flash will disappear and I think in time many of the current problems will be overcome. But at the moment there are issues with it, which have already been mentioned here, and those issues can significantly affect the success of a site and the experience a user gets from a Flash site.

I've seen some good examples of Flash, though most that I've seen have been poor. Flash sites typically load very very slow even over a dsl or cable connection.

They present difficulties for being spidered, indexed, rendered, etc.

Does that mean they always will have those issues? I can't say. Keep in mind though that it's going to take time and money to work these issues out. Personally I find it easier to build a site in html than try to make Flash work better. I'd suggest since it's Adobe that will profit by making Flash more accessible and seo friendly that they should be the ones who spend both the time and money.

Flash does have potential for more than it is. I agree, but at the moment it presents too many issues for me to want to use it for a complete site.

I just though of an analogy using airplanes since you mentioned them. I think it's more appropriate to look at Flash during the time when the Wright brothers were first inventing the airplane.

They had certainly proven one could be built and that there was huge potential for improving their early designs.

But they hadn't quite built airplanes that were capable of carrying passengers from one side of the country to the other reliably or in a cost efficient way. So there were no immediate commercial airlines.

Obviously we have them now. People worked on ways to make airplanes bigger and better and more efficient.

That's where Flash is. It works and has potential for greater things, but it's not mature enough to be used practically yet for many things. If people are so inclined they can work on those issues to make it more practical.

If you see the potential then you can work on making the potential of Flash a reality, but it's not fair to think others should do this for you or that we should all start using Flash more so that someone will.

Of course at the same time people are working on other things that will probably be able to do much of the same things that Flash can do. I'd say that's already happening through Ajax technologies.

Thanks for your opinions. I guess I'll have to wait what the future brings. I thought creating Flash+ActionScript interactive apps was way better and easier than hand-code with whatever other language, because of Flash's GUI. And there would also be no compatibility issues with browsers or drop-down menus.
It is true that not everyone has Flash plugin installed, but it is also true that not everyone is JavaScript enabled, especially mid-size or larger companies. Not even the unobtrusive JavAJAX gets through.

I'll stick with XHTML for the time being then.

Flash has a very deep user base penetration. About 98%. But aside from the issues mentioned so far, I don't think Flash is ready or suitable for professional web sites. One big reason I think, is because many people are so used to looking for any serious kind of information at non-animated prints. Not to mention how the animations have been abused for useless adverts for surfers.

frofi I don't think there's anything wrong with using Flash per se. Like most everything it has its pros and cons. With the movie studios they probably aren't looking for search traffic. They're more likely marketing in other ways and so the spiderablitly of Flash isn't a concern for them.

A typical site for a small business though will probably be hoping for traffic from search engines and so using Flash wouldn't be the best option.

I think of Flash more as a tool, which is very much appropriate in some circumstances and inappropriate in other circumstances.

Same thing with Ajax. Search engines will have problems indexed a lot of the content in an Ajax application since much of it will be within the JavaScript. But both a Flash or Ajax application can still be so useful and have so many people linking to it that it can still rank #1 for a variety of terms.

I think it's really just how LadynRed described it. Flash has limitations now with things that are of concern to site owners. That doesn't make it bad it just means you should be aware of those limitations.