Why Flash Doesn’t Suck
To my dismay, I quickly learned after entering the web design industry that many web circles, including some obnoxious people who dare dub themselves members of the “web elite”, whatever the hell that’s supposed to mean, look down on Flash. A lot of people don’t view Flash websites as “real” web experiences. And a lot of designers out there will tell you, straight up, you should never create a full Flash website. As an Actionscript enthusiast, I’m inclined to disagree.
[update: first, thanks to everyone who commented on this article. I have to say, I learned a lot from your words, and that's really the point of having a blog. mission accomplished. Second, lately there has been a slew of great articles about Flash, all written by some of my favorite designers. So, if you really want to know what's up with Flash lately, read the following: http://brendandawes.posterous.com/flash-as-an-attitude-not-a-platform ,http://techcrunch.com/2010/04/30/joe-hewitt-web-development/ , http://jessewarden.com/2010/04/steve-jobs-on-flash-correcting-the-lies.html ]
Before continuing on with this article, I would like to point you to the blog post that prompted me to sit down and write this. A post on a blog called Scobleizer titled “Can Flash Be Saved?” dared to say, with some pseudo authority, that Flash was on the verge of disappearing altogether. It was in reading the comments of this post that I was moved to voice my own opinions on Flash, specifically, Why Flash Doesn’t Suck.
It’s Easy and Fun to Learn
Actionscript is probably one of the easier languages to learn in web development. Part of what makes it easier is the fact that you can learn it in somewhat small steps and always acquire a skill that can be utilized in your Flash projects. If you learn about video in Flash, you can go make a video widget. If you learn about Audio you can make a music player. It’s easy to break it down and learn as you go, picking up new skills with every project, whereas with Javascript or PHP, in my experience, you’ve really got to learn a lot before you get to do anything cool. Because of Flash’s duality, having a programming aspect and a graphical user interface aspect, it’s easy to do those “cool” things early on in the learning curve. Then once you’ve built a number of Flash sites or widgets and you feel confident with Actionscript, it’s not too hard to make that leap into the basics of Object Oriented Programming.
Also, as far as programming languages on the web go, you can learn Actionscript in a fairly short amount of time, and once you know it you really can do anything you can come up with, because it’s a very powerful and flexible language.
Innovation
Flash has proven to be a great platform for innovation on the web, mostly because the only thing holding creativity back is programming skills, and as we all know there are a lot of genius programmers out there.
A good example of innovative thinking on the web is Brendan Dawes’ DoodleBuzz, which is really one of my favorite Flash projects out there. DoodleBuzz combines interactivity with information in a seamless and innovative way. It’s easy and fun to use, and it changes the way you traditionally think about browsing news on the Internet. Most importantly, though, is that it works! It works very well at fluidly leading the viewer from one news story to another, and after while you just find yourself drifting through this tangled maze of new articles and headlines, all linked together.
Another good example would be the magneticNorth website, another project associated with Brendan Dawes’, which I really like, although it has a few shortcoming in terms of usability.
Other full Flash website, like this website for Poplar Grove Winery, and this one for designer Miguel Reyes, set a good standard for what a Flash site can and should do: offer more than a traditional HTML site, while still maintaining a high standard of usability.
Projects like DoodleBuzz are what Flash was made for, when interactivity and non-traditional thinking meet. Part of the reason for web developers not liking Flash is because it’s been misused so much in the past.
Flash Bastards
As with any powerful tool in the world, Flash can be used for good and it can be used for evil. And unfortunately, there are probably a great deal more bad Flash sites than good. One of my favorite examples is Flash Past Your Eyes, which pretty much encapsulates everything that is wrong and bad about Flash development, and that is, when you take a powerful tool and put in the hands of an amateur. It’s like giving a bazooka to a teenager: obviously bad things are going to happen.
But the rampant misuse of Flash shouldn’t discourage it’s proper use. Yes, it’s true that a full Flash website probably isn’t the right web solution 99% of the time, but once in a while it is. Once in a while you get an idea that is just so crazy and outside the box that Flash is really the only way to go.
Porn and Games: Why Flash Won’t Disappear
I’ve been shocked at how many people, relatively smart people, forecast that Flash will completely disappear from the web in the next five years. These claims, of course, are probably made mostly by people who have irrational hatreds for Flash, but still, it is surprising how often I hear this.
Two big reasons why Flash won’t disappear any time soon. The first is porn. HTML has video support now, and a lot of developers think that this is going to be the end of Flash, but currently almost the entire free porn industry on the web, sites like PornHub, YouPorn, SpankWire, and many others, all use Flash for video, and I can’t imagine all these companies (and really who knows how many are out there) making the move to the HTML5 video tag.
Another thing that was overlooked in the Scobleizer article was the popularity of Flash games: which is probably the number one pastime for anyone who’s ever worked in a cubicle.
Sound
One thing that never comes into the argument, probably because people hate it when there’s music on websites, is Flash’s ability to work well with sound. Personally, I hate when cheesy songs come up on websites. It doesn’t matter if you’re a designer or a musician, I don’t think you should ever take control of a users computer by playing music when a website loads.
Actionscript has the unique ability to dynamically generate it’s own tones, without having to load a sound file, which is one of those things that I think has been greatly overlooked by developers. StandingWave2 is an open source sound library created by Joe Berkovitz that’s easy to use and grants the developer a simple way of dynamically generating tones in Actionscript. The only time I’ve ever seen it in use was in a small toy I made myself called the ToneScribbler, which is a very primitive use of StandingWave2, but just goes to show what it could do in the hands of a more capable developer.
Another great example of sound in Flash is DarwInstruments by Jer Thorpe.
SEO in Flash
One of the reasons that people hate Flash is because they think Flash content isn’t searchable by Google, or that you can’t achieve good SEO within the Flash environment, both of which simply aren’t true. Todd Perkins wrote a great book called Search Engine Optimization for Flash, which expelled, in very few pages, all the myths surrounding Flash’s shortcomings in SEO.
One of my favorite examples of SEO in Flash is a small website for a company called Raincity Bikes, which operates out of Vancouver, BC. Raincity Bikes is a small bike company that specializes in Dutch Bikes.
Now, you would think the term Dutch Bikes in Google would be taken by a big Dutch bike company, probably out of the Netherlands, but despite being a small bike shop in Vancouver, and despite having a full Flash website, Raincity Bikes is number one in Google for Dutch Bikes. That’s not bad SEO, considering most people think it’s not possible within an all-Flash website.
If you take a look at the source code for Raincity Bikes, you’d see that the Flash content is embedded using SWFObject2, which uses Javascript to detect whether or not a person has Flash enabled. If they do, they see the Flash content. If they don’t, they see alternate HTML. The thing is, Google will see the alternate HTML no matter what. And since SWFObject2 is completely standards compliant, as long as you write solid content (with no need to style it) there’s no reason you can’t have just as good SEO as any old HTML site.
Flash is Fun
As serious web developers, it’s easy to forget that Flash can just be fun. Clients love it, because all their wacky ideas can come to life (rarely a good thing), and that’s probably one of the main reasons it won’t go away. Ultimately, though, we forget that it’s fun to experiment, to try new things, to play around with fresh ideas, or make little discoveries totally by accident, and that’s what Flash is all about. That opportunity to discover something new. Since Flash was first introduced, it’s come such a long way. Some of the sites that people are doing now are absolutely beautiful, and just as easy to navigate as any HTML sites. Any good Flash developer knows how to avoid those pesky load times. And when you introduce elements like Papervision 3D things can really get fun.
One of my favorite examples of the child-like sense of play in a Flash website is for Nick Joore’s online portfolio. It makes sense that a game programmer would have such a playful website.
Don’t fool yourself, though; there are still many shortcomings, the main one, in my opinion, being the inability to use the back button, also the inability to use the browser’s scrollbar, two things that probably won’t be solved any time soon. If those two problems are solved, as well as the issue of getting Flash on the iPhone, there’s no telling what the future holds.
On an ending note: I’m very interested to see how well Flash CS5 will go over with being able to create iPhone apps. There’s a great video tutorial on gotoAndLearn about building iPhone apps in Flash.
How much I love a beautiful animation, a shiny playful colorful bizarre interface with puppets who jump around or a site with a movie-esque intro that blows my head off…
that is NOT what I’m after when surfing the web. If I wanted to see that, I turn on my tv, put in a dvd or go to the movies.
And on my phone, all this crazy wild Mb-heavy, fantastic scripted storyboards, springs etc.. are just 1 blue lego.
Flash doesn’t suck, you just shouldn’t build a whole site in it. Use it well in a hybrid site with degradation and it rocks. Although most of it is possible with html5 and jquery nowadays.
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I used to be a Flash developer, and used it extensively for everything I made.
Over the years, I learned that there were a few things that I didn’t like:
* little bugs in the IDE that made me pull my hair
* I felt like I was creating everything again, and again. It’s most likely my lack of framework creation skills that brought upon this, but I was making my own components because the ones out there couldn’t do what I needed. I was making scrollbars, text areas, image optimization stuff (http://board.flashkit.com/board/showthread.php?t=659163)
* It didn’t run on Linux
* I didn’t like waiting for Macromedia to get off its butt to make better players
I decided that Flash had its place: games? Check. Awesome animations(Ninjai)? Check. Serving a large community? X, mostly for accessibility options (screen readers).
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I think that Flash works for fun and on-site apps, everything that needs high programming capacity and total control over screen. Using Flash to deliver content is wrong for size and usability issues. IMO AS isn’t easy to learn, nor is it “modular”. It requires a broad knowledge to get started. It was FAR easier for me to learn PHP or jQuery.
I think that you missed one of most important advantages of Flash – consistency. No matter what, no matter where, no matter what browser etc. if the user has plugin – the animation will work exactly the same as with the other guy.
To summarize: I think that Flash is both demanding and gives great possibilities, but it should be used only in specific areas.
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Nowdays, most web developers are self taught, and that is the biggest problem with learning flash. They don’t have enough programming skills and it’s hard for them to understand basics of programming, and that is why they choose html and js. It’s easier to learn it. I really don’t like when someone say that something is bad just because it’s hard to learn. And that’s the reason why we have so many blog posts “why flash sucks”. This all looks the same as mac vs pc ( which football team do you like the most? )
AS 3 is very powerful language, you can do anything you want with it, and the new version of flash player is using gpu and multitouch…imagine the possibilities with 3d and tablets. Flash, Flex and Air are great for creating ria and content rich web, and html is great for creating info sites.
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At the end of the day, it’s a tool. Use the right tool for the job. I’m very fluent in both flash (as2 and as3) as well as open web (HTML/JS/CSS, etc). I use both with projects.
I lean more on the open web lately, because the content (regardless of presentation) is universally available. Also, flash needs HTML to live on the web. Not the other way around.
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A recent article about why Apple won’t support Flash is that it has no way of supporting a touch interface. Flash interactivity is built around the mouse and keyboard. How do you “hover” your finger over a selection or tab or flyout in a touch environment? Touch, of course, will become more prevalent. It’s very unlikely that Flash will be able to support the touch APIs for a zillion devices, let alone Apples. That’s what standards are for, and why many people think Flash’s use will be more and more limited. It *can* do entire websites, but in many cases it’s just not the right tool. An all Flash website is useless on a mobile device, touch enabled or not. Or the LOE to make it work on a mobile device is very high. Again, emerging standards will solve this issue over time.
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francisb Reply:
February 24th, 2010 at 7:50 pm
Thanks for you input. very informative. From what I hear CS5 will be able to work with touch screens, but I don’t know in what capacity. Will it only be on iPhones? or all devices? I’m no sure.
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I want to say – I am one of these Flash-blamers, -haters, .. whatever.
Nevertheless I want to be fair. I want to explain what’s wrong: Other Flash-hates (I keep calling ourselves like this to ease this) say Flash is horrible at performance – right, but that is not the point. The point is, that the Flash brought a paradigm into the web which shouldn’t be there: application behavior. The web functions via links, Flash does not. You can’t set an anchor like in HTML, you have to code it. Flash created an application inside of an application which had it’s final definition on how to behave. Web designers always complain about designers giving their Photoshop-webdesign over to them without thinking about “uh, the browser can’t do that layout because it is not fixed-width”. The same thing with Flash. A better experience is on AIR. Why? It’s an application. Not a website. Standards are slow, but when they arrive the rock! And please don’t believe that crap about “oh, with Flash you have endless possibilities”. That’s really bullshit. Sorry. Why? 1. You possibilities are never endless. 2. Now you are with HTML5/CSS3 as free as with Flash AND more performant. 3. Having endless possibilities isn’t good. I – and many designers know and love – think, that having rules, limitations, … are the basis of good design.
I hope I could help. And please don’t be stuck in old technology while the world is moving on.
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francisb Reply:
February 25th, 2010 at 11:46 pm
I totally agree with you on your point about Flash bringing a paradigm that shouldn’t be there. At this point, that’s pretty much an accepted part of the history, but it’s not something we can do anything about. As I mentioned at the end of my article, there are a lot of shortcomings in Flash, and those are core conceptual problems, like those you mentioned.
I also agree with your point on rules and limitations being good for design. Obviously I don’t literally mean endless possibilities. Everything I say in the article is pertaining to the examples I give. The Doodlebuzz example is something that’s just not possible in HTML.
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I recently wrote an article for .NET magazine which helps users make sure their flash site works with the iPhone, google, and the browser back button.. it’s available here: http://otterball.com/about/net_magazine_flash
We consistently make a flash website for desktop users and mobile site for mobile, specifically designed for iphone users.
So in response to Douglas’ comment.. use the right tool for the right device.. Sure flash sites don’t work on my iphone.. and technically html sites “work” but it typically requires me thumbing around to different quadrants of the screen to find the menu or the content I want to find.. specifically designed sites work much better… And sure LOE wise it took a few hours to initially build a system for our sites to include a mobile version.. but now it adds less than an hour of extra work to each project. If only html site designers also spent the effort to build mobile versions…
Unfortunately since their current sites technically “work” I’d bet it doesn’t improve anytime soon… standards or not.
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When used correctly it can be a powerful tool… Think it works great for entertainment site or youth centric projects… agree withyour points on the “Flash Bastards”
Nice article!
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Anytime porn is a deciding factor the tool used to distribute it will reign supreme. *lol*
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You wouldn’t believe what you can do with HTML5+CSS3+JavaScript.Not on every browser, yes, but that’s a matter of time. The power of flash was, that it opened doors. But what we have to learn is, that every technology will have its end in the history – and the end of flash is pretty near. And it’s really sad that some Flash developers at Adobe are not willing to accept that (we saw those lame mockups of FarmVille, some porn site, … with this blue lego).
The blue lego will appear on the iPad – true. But it will go away over the time. Somewhere.. there HAS to be a transition. And Apple speed up that transition quite a bit now I would say.
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One word for ya: Standards.
Go learn what those are and why they are around – on the web and outside of it, and you will understand why Flash should die.
And this has nothing to do with Flash’s capability or awesomeness.
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Flash isn’t going anywhere anytime soon, as it’s still the main option for serving games and media such as videos and audio (at least until HTML5 is supported by the still dominant browser line, and everybody agrees on codecs).
However, the core of flash goes against the concept of an open web. You need an IDE to make changes – which costs money if you obtain a legal copy – it compiles into a non-human readable format, it can access external assets but often packages those inside the binary and so forth.
Load times and bandwidth are still a concern for delivering a good user experience, not to mention there is much less in the way of conventions regarding user-interface as opposed to HTML, which leaves many confused and frustrated.
As others have mentioned, flash is a -useful- tool, however it shouldn’t replace open standards as the primary delivery format for content on a website. Even you have an HTML site built here as opposed to full-flash site.
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I think flash has its purpose, but I think its a dying medium. Many people want to be able to access websites from any of myriad of outlets available to us these days, and flash sometimes can be limiting because of its weight and compatibility. Its all to easy to make a site pop with moving images and sound effects but are we really that dumb that we should always require that every site do a song and dance to garner our attention. Neh. As a business decision I have stopped offering flash.
I have also taken steps on my computer systems to block nearly all flash that may pop up in my browser. I would rather have the option as to whether or not I want to be harassed by some self inflating HP advert or some annoying background music that the designer neglected to add a mute button for. I’ll take it in small does but if the entire site is flash I just move on.
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Surely flash is too much of a memory hog to be a long term technology.
When HTML is able to do the same as flash wont it die then? At least on bigger sites such as youtube.
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As some already pointed out, there is more to websites than just creativity and imagination. Many web developers mistakenly think everyone is as web savvy as they are which is wrong. That’s why standards and common practices came around. So everyone would (hopefully) stick to them and give users information in a way they understand.
Flash basically breaks all those rules. Behavior is no longer standardized so web developer can set his/her creativity free. And once that happens, it’s not freedom anymore, it’s chaos. And that’s why flash sucks.
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Nothing wrong on Flash, per se. But how it’s being used.
By making a site fully in Flash, you’re not even making a site to start with. A site is created by a collection of technologies (HTTP, Hypertext, Links, Media references) that enable information to be distributed in a variety ways, client and media agnostic. But a Flash “site” is just a Flash movie, client and media specific. It doesn’t enable information to be searched, related, mixed. The only things Flash enable you is to do whatever useless eye candy you want, inside a sandbox.
The web is a media for sharing information, and information in a way that both people and machines can understand, parse, transform, and do useful things with. What Flash does is break how the web should be used, and just turn it into a replacement for TV: information is throw away, no one can do nothing useful with it, and end-users just consume. It also breaks how the web works again when people use Flash to try re-implementing desktop applications inside a browser. It just doesn’t work.
There *are* things where Flash shines, because by being a plugin it can support additional technologies faster than the standards. But sadly, most people are using it either to overcome their incompetency at working with the technologies the web provides, or using it to bend the web into something it is not. In both those cases, the natural path is Flash to die as the market will have increasing pressure on mature professionals that can leverage the web as a whole. As happened with many other professions in the past, any tool-specific profession fades away.
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@thomas maier
Love how you started off your posts saying you wanted to be fair only to be completely one sided. In the spirit of things, I will actually attempt to be fair…
Application behavior on the web is bad? Interesting premise. Care to explain that at all?
Your links argument is just silly, I mean come on. Creating a “link” in AS is no harder than creating an event in JS. Learn to program, preferably in multiple languages! HTML is the only language where creating “interactivity” is as simple as typing href=”".
You honestly think that HTML5 & CSS3 (which are still a LONG way from being mainstream usable) give you the same powers as Flash? I’ve been developing websites since 1995. I’ve seen HTML grow, I’ve seen CSS grow, and I’ve watched ActionScript grow. If you really, truly believe that HTML5 & CSS3 are even remotely close to what you can do with AS…you really don’t know much about any of those technologies nor their capabilites. Do they offer great new features for the web… absolutely, that is inarguable. But please don’t try to convince anyone that they’re anywhere near the capabilities of Flash. Old technology… what a joke.
This is also by no means an attack on HTML/CSS. I do far far more work in HTML/CSS/JS than I do in Flash/AS. I’m just not trying to pretend one is greater than the other.
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Quidam Reply:
February 27th, 2010 at 6:16 am
I think what was meant was that a visitor/user can’t link to a particular state of the flash app like the visitor would have been able to link to a particular webpage.
Imagine a clothing store and you find a cute little outfit. In a regular website you are able to send the link to your friends, not so with a flash-only site. It’s just as insane and irritating as those sites that don’t allow deep linking.
Flash is also slow and disruptive to the flow. In nearly all cases flash will take much longer then a proper website to become usable.
I have installed on all my browsers plugins simular to ClickToFlash for Apple’s Safari, so Flash doesn’t load anymore automatically, only when I explicitly request it. This make for a much more pleasant experience, I think it should be standard behavior for browsers.
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Lucas Reply:
February 28th, 2010 at 10:54 pm
My flash sites always have deep linking. If you don’t know what you are talking then don’t speak about it.
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One of my arguments I give to my clients for not having a full flash website is exactly the SEO issue. There is no problem for having one, unless they pay more for it, because this will double my time for having the Flash part of the site and the visible and indexable part. And, again, you give it yourself, it needs the help of SWFObject2 to counterpart its lack of visibility. Flash is fun, for sure. But I would say Flash is better for web apps, ’cause it really sucks for full sites.
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I stopped reading it when I saw the very same arguments Flash apologists post on every blog. You can make games and Web apps with JavaScript and HTML5. As a matter of fact, those apps are supported on every format, including mobile. There’s nothing you can do in Flash today you can’t do on non-proprietary, plugin free formats. ActionScript is as fun to learn as JavaScript. Don’t waste your time with Flash or ActionScript. Support open source.
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francisb Reply:
February 27th, 2010 at 12:13 am
I definitely agree with you on supporting open source. If you want to learn a nice Actionscript-like language that’s open source, try Processing. http://processing.org/
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i just googled ‘dutch bikes’ and rain city bikes was not in the results on page 1 or 2.
there are other issues with flash such as not maintain browser history that I find really annoying. As you pointed out, there are more poorly designed flash sites as opposed to good ones.
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Very well-written and comprehensive article.
I’ve been using Flash for 10-years and taught courses at the local community college so I’m advocate for Flash, but with the advances in CSS, JavaScript and jQuery I do foresee designers implementing Flash-based sites or certain site elements using Flash on a limited basis.
I don’t think it will die, but I do think Flash has seen it’s better days.
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“What if I told you that you can do anything you want. You don’t have to follow convention anymore. You don’t have to do things the way they told you to in school. You can do anything.”
The problem is that 99% of the time it’s not about you, it’s about your users and your customer. For games, personal sites, and some of the examples shown above it might fit the user, but for most of the problems my clients are trying to solve I can’t justify flash. You add in the the extra time and cost to develop and work in flash not to mention the added complexity of modifying it down the road (especially if someone doesn’t have access to the source files) and it just makes it that much harder to see a future in flash beyond just a few small niche applications.
Well written and thought out article though, I just happen to disagree
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francisb Reply:
February 27th, 2010 at 12:08 am
I admit, that intro is pretty cheesy. I think that’s the writer in me trying to emerge. But yeah, I agree with you and a bunch of other people that Flash should be a niche application. In fact, that’s basically the point I try to make, though maybe I wasn’t obvious enough. If Flash were only used by people like Brendan Dawes and Jer Thorpe, there wouldn’t be so much crap on the internet.
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Dude, not to rain on your parade (I liked your article very very much), but Dutch bikes gives me this http://tinyurl.com/ycwnscy.
I’m really interested in the SEO flash issue, and if you could shed some light on it for me, I’d truly appreciate it. Thanks
Nice site
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francisb Reply:
February 27th, 2010 at 12:10 am
Raincity bikes still comes up number one in google when I type in “dutch bikes”. Your Tiny URL didn’t work when I clicked it. As for SEO in Flash, the Todd Perkins book would really be the best resource. It’s a really short and small book, and very well written.
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“…the inability to use the back button”
Uhh, the back button issue in Flash HAS been solved for a while now. It’s called SWFAddress: http://www.asual.com/swfaddress/
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francisb Reply:
February 27th, 2010 at 12:04 am
true, it’s out there, but very seldom do you see anyone use SWFAddress.
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Lucas Reply:
February 28th, 2010 at 11:00 pm
Then don’t blame flash, blame bad use of the technology and people like you who doesn’t know anything about flash yet you yell at it. My question is, if you have to talk about the ’standard’ technologies are you going to be wrong also? there’s lots of people saying, ‘you can’t do this in flash’ and they really don’t know if it can be done, they just love to blackmail it
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I’d like to point out that lots of porn sites _already_ have iPhone versions that use video tag. They just don’t serve these to desktop browsers yet.
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Howdy,
First, let me say that I won’t install Flash. It is not as easy as stated in the friendly words of the Magnetic North website. I can download it, but I can’t install it because I won’t accept their terms of service. They are not reasonable. Adobe finally fixed the most egregious term, which had been there for years. You used to grant Adobe the right to enter your home to audit your use of their free program. There are still many problems, such as that they won’t allow you to properly backup your computer. That, combined with the poor security of Flash show me that I am better off without Flash. Some friends tell me I am pretty extreme about security, but I just try to exercise common sense. I have heard Adobe employees brag about the bad security of Flash. They were proud of the fact that a Flash site designer could do things the computer owner did not or would not approve of. Dancing candy is not enough reason to accept bad security.
Poplar Grove Winery is a good example of a bad Flash site. If you visit it without Flash, you get no information at all. Does the winery have an interest in pushing Flash over selling wine? Shouldn’t they at least give some basic information like products, hours of operation and mailing address? I know you referred to it as a full Flash site, but Flash is not really the winery’s business, is it?
Good day,
Ralph
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I am so on board with this article. It’s amazing to me the difference between designers (the majority of readers here) and say… people that use the web! Flash is so prevalent, average, non-savvy users, like say my girlfriend, my co-workers, my customers (I bartend to pay bills) all think Flash equates to ‘the cool stuff, like Hulu and Mafia Wars’. It’s amazing how many designers get caught up in code and being HTML truebloods, they forget who they’re actually designing FOR. It’s like the difference between a film getting critical acclaim and being a box office smash.
As for standards – it doesn’t get much more standard than an Adobe Flash Player. Everyone that watches the aforementioned Hulu has it installed. Verizon and Toyota don’t advertise on that website because it’s CSS compliant, they really don’t give a flying burrito about CSS compliant, they care about conversion rates. Niether does your client. Find me a client that’s more impressed by your clean, gracefully degradable jQuery coding and pure CSS slider than by the effectiveness of your web design to get traffic and conversion.
As for ‘long term technology’ – oxymoron. It’s programs like Flash that are actively progressing as the world waits literally years for simple upgrades to ‘compliant’ coding practices. Only now are some companies (sic Google) finally getting over IE6! HTML and CSS compliant code is the dinosaur that will someday be obsolete, as tablets, netbooks, and phones start to gain in the market.
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@kiwus … The statement you made …
“I think that you missed one of most important advantages of Flash – consistency. No matter what, no matter where, no matter what browser etc. if the user has plugin – the animation will work exactly the same as with the other guy.”
is semantically inaccurate. There is, I agree, visual consistency. There is not anywhere near performance consistency. Different browsers and OSes run Flash inconsistently between them. A bit of Flash might look the same, but not run anywhere near the same between OSes.
And as others have pointed out, Flash is fine in context. As long as you realize that it is not a standard. Standards are set to ensure that everyone has equal access to information on the web, regardless of technology or physical limitations. These are the underlying goals of the web, according to W3C. Flash does not live up to these democratic standards and, as such, has no place anywhere on the web where people should expect limitless access to information equally.
And for games? I prefer using Unity and making full 3D games in a browser with a 3MB plugin. Flash games? Passe. Take a look at the tropical island demo or EA’s new Tiger Woods Online and then get back to me when Flash can do that … http://unity3d.com/gallery/
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I detest flash on sites I need to use. Often, if I’m looking at a company’s website, it’s because I want to go there and spend money.
If I go to your site, I want to see links to vital stats immediately. Where are you? When are you open? I want to cut and paste your address, drop that into google, and get a map. I don’t want to see an intro. I don’t want to mouse around. I don’t want a link to some map you drew.
Cut. Paste. Directions. Go. Spend money.
If you made an all-flash site, you just made my life more difficult. Why?
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Your SEO example “Rain City Bikes” is a prime example of why you should never build a standard web site using Flash.
1. If I want to send my friend a link to one of their bikes, I can’t. I’d have to tell them to: go to this site, then click this, then click that, etc, etc.
2. If I want to send someone a picture of one of their bikes, I can’t. I’d have to take a screenshot of the page and crop it out.
3. If I want to copy and paste their address into Google Maps to get directions, I can’t. None of the text on the site is selectable.
Now, being a former Flash developer myself, I know that these obstacles can be overcome using Flash. However the fact that you have to do extra work to get Flash movie to act more like a typical web page shows how little Adobe understands, or even cares about the web and usability.
As for your SEO argument, of course you can do what they did and basically create 2 versions of the site – one hidden HTML version for Google, and one flash version for visitors. But why? Why take the time to create and maintain 2 versions of a site? What do you get in return for that extra work besides a little animation?
Typically a client or agencies motivation for creating a Flash site is to impress their visitors. But in the end you end up frustrating your visitors with non-standard behaviors – not to mention less device compatibility (iPhone) and less accessibility (screen readers).
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francisb Reply:
February 27th, 2010 at 12:21 am
Nick W, great points. Non-standard behavior seems to be the theme of many of these rebuttals.
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Re: Rolando Petit
“I think flash has its purpose, but I think its a dying medium”
Anyone who thinks Flash is a dying medium is making a big assumptive mistake. First of all, the web designer types that hate Flash are likely the same people who couldn’t cut the code-mustard to be Flash developers to begin with. Second, Flash Player 10.x is about to hit millions of cell phones and alternative tablets this year starting with the Motorola Droid. This mobile event in itself will propel Flash usage to massive levels and the market is already getting prepared for it. By 2012 the indisputable fact will be… that sadly the iPhone and iPad will be the only devices without a Flash Player.
It will take 2-3 years for the HTML 5 spec. to even be finalized and it will also take several years before everyone upgrades to an HTML 5 compatible browser, especially IE folks who represent 49% of the global browser group. The IE people will need to have IE 9 at that point. And IE 9 isn’t even scheduled to be out until sometime in 2011. It will likely take until 2013-14 before a significant portion of the IE group updates to IE 9. The pattern stats show that people are very slow to upgrade their browsers. While the HTML 5 hopefuls are tapping their fingers waiting around for the next few years, Flash will have evolved in leaps and bounds.
The best time to be a Flash developer will be 2010 and beyond. Flash (in reality) is just now getting ready to hit BIG time and web developers, like never before, will now have an exploding opportunity to code for mobile sites, tablets, and regular web sites.
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whatever the technical arguments are – they’re boring. flash noise i no worse than animated gifs were or whatever the jerks will try to do with the technology at hand.
i once was the biggest flash evangelist out there. fighting with my company to adopt it in the old days. i love the way it renders. it’s beautiful.
but i think flash has lost it’s way. pandering to an almost fundementalist group of techies, it is no longer a design oriented platform. AS3 is ugly, verbose, right wing. it is 2010. not 1978. it is like programming has gone backwards, what i could do with 10 lines on basic on a commodore in 1985, now takes 20 lines of code in AS3. Computers should be helping us get smarter, not more pedantic. AS3 should have followed Processing-type thinking. which essentially what was AS2. a friendly language but then added as with processing the ability in Java to drill down. and all the who haa about video and flash – it’s crap for XXX’s sakes. this is 2010. you should at least be able to FFD through a movie – like you did in 1982.
on a design side, flash was a beautiful, intelligent piece of software, which has now become annoying to use. the UI sucks. it’s beauty and grace has been lost.the smartness of doing things no more, i used to love working in it. now i just get annoyed. there are so many bad things in the software that makes your life working in it daily unpleasant.
i, personally, look forward to the next piece of forward thinking amazing animation software. developed for designers, by one dude in a room with a vision
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francisb Reply:
February 27th, 2010 at 12:42 am
geo, I really like your site, you’ve got some great processing work on there.
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Re: francisb “but very seldom do you see anyone use SWFAddress”
I think you need to open your Flash eyes brotha, because what you just said is not true at all. You can see that 2Advanced, firstborn, Group94, Gooby Silverstein, B-Reel all use SWFAddress. The five I just named are part of the top 10 best web agencies in the world. I can name about 20 more if you like…
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francisb Reply:
February 27th, 2010 at 12:48 am
you got me there. I was more referring to smaller developers. If everyone worked like 2Advanced I think fewer people would be complaining.
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Lucas Reply:
February 28th, 2010 at 11:02 pm
yeah, i know smaller developers who do total shits in html + css
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I would agree that it has its place. My feeling is that any time a design or a type of interaction can be carried out with html + css + js, it should be. When Flash is the only option, of course it should be used.
I think there are a lot of designers/developers out there who really, really like Flash, and their own bias can sway the client.
I’m thinking of a scenario where some exec, with little or no technical knowledge on the matter, immediately “knows” that their company’s new website needs Flash. He or she starts the hunt for an agency or individual who prominently places “Flash” in their areas of expertise.
After hearing the exec describe the objectives of the new site, the Flash expert assures them that Flash is the best tool for the job. The exec feels relieved that his/her original assumption was not challenged by an expert.
It’s not often pleasant to disagree with a client, but it’s very important to correctly assess the project.
Flash will sure enjoy a better reputation if fewer people misuse it.
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RazorX Reply:
February 27th, 2010 at 8:57 pm
Re: Tom Something
“Flash will sure enjoy a better reputation…”
I’m so tired of this nonsense talk about Flash with a bad reputation. I’ve been a web developer since 1999 and I can tell you that the millions of BAD HTML sites far exceeds any bad Flash sites. We all know that any technology can be abused.
I’ve seen far more poorly designed and annoying HTML sites than I have ever seen in Flash. The majority of web designers gravitate toward HTML because it’s easier to code in and Flash is harder to code in (although Flash Catalyst may change that some).
Look at the millions a junky Wordpress sites we now have. People post up an ugly blog site with auto plug and play HTML and they suddenly think they’re a web designer. HTML is the number one leader for having a bad reputation in horrible design and bad coding… I see it everywhere, all of the time!
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You should use the technology that is suited for the job.
If you can’t get the user experience you want when using Flash. Don’t use it.
The main focus should lie by the end users, they are the ones you are making all the effort for.
The argument that you can’t get the same user experience in Flash just don’t cut it for me. In Flash you can place anything pixel perfect on the screen. So you can make a site identical to a HTML based site.
The problem lies, in my opinion, by the developers. If a developer is not able to cut down it’s loading time, or doesn’t gets its interaction model right, it’s not a good developer.
Because you have to create everything yourself in Flash, even the components, you have to do it right. To quote a personal hero: “With great power, comes great responsibility”.
The argument that it doesn’t run great on mobile phones isn’t doing it for me neither.
A mobile phone is a different device compared to a desktop. So naturally it need a different approach. If Flash isn’t good enough for the mobile device, make a different mobile site. The original one usually isn’t suited either…
I don’t say Flash is the only thing that’s good, it is just another tool for the web developer. So use it when needed and don’t use it when it’s not.
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I do agree. Flash does not suck. In fact, it’s pretty damn awesome.
Still, starting off with a full-flash website is not the best practice. The “right” way is dearer and takes more time, but it will also satisfy the elite.
This was a great read; thank you!
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You don’t have threaded comments, so things are a bit convoluted.
Anyway, you can in fact generate sound with javascript, though the original site that was linked to by ajaxian is down.
http://ajaxian.com/archives/generating-and-playing-sound-in-javascript
Turning this into an example like yours could be a fun project.
Needless to say, that won’t work on all browsers yet, but I thought you might find it neat… considering that you took the time to write ToneScribbler.
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francisb Reply:
February 27th, 2010 at 1:50 am
Thanks for the heads up. I did not know that.
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So, you have to do a double job to optimize flash for search engine results: flash and html web sites, plus javascript implementations to switch… what a discovery!!
This is the confirm that flash is not suitable for SEO.
It should be a possibility if the project requires a lot of interactive items, a huge dose of graphical stuff and if the customer pay enought to develop 2 web sites. But in reality so few web sites are like that and really requires flash to be used.
In most case traditional ways are more common and preferred, because it’s simpler, quicker and last but not least it’s cheaper.
Personally i think that flash adds noise to a project and web sites design trends are going on the opposite direction: contents quality, simplicity, usability, standards. Nowadays it is essential to pay attention to the core aspect of informations we want to convey and this is the number one priority. in my personal opinion all the rest is mere decoration.
I know there are 2 opposite philosophies about that, but the web is definitely a mass media and i think it should be used to communicate firstly.
Anyway, in despite of our different opinions, this is a great article, man!
p.s. you should fix the add comment form, that not renders well in firefox (in linux at least). if you need some screenshots don’t hesitate to send me an e-mail.
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Flash is dying technology. Browser plugins were hot someday, now they’re superfluous and regressive.
I used to do flash sites back in 2001. Right around the time CSS Zen Garden rolled around I abandoned it and started coding with standards. There are maybe 50 things wrong with flash, but one of the most annoying ones is the closed nature of your data. Your client cannot fire up their FTP and quickly make couple of changes to their site when it’s in flash. They need access to IDE and not everyone has that. Storing your data in XML files is a workaround but all that just adds to the TCO and makes things messy as hell.
I’m sorry you wasted your time learning ActionScript. Consider cutting your losses, learn CSS and code like a real developer.
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francisb Reply:
February 27th, 2010 at 6:22 pm
Vic, thanks for the comments. Obviously I know CSS.
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RazorX Reply:
February 27th, 2010 at 9:07 pm
“learn CSS and code like a real developer”
…he he. Yeah right.
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Nice article.
Flash hating is getting a bit old these days. I certainly welcome all those whose clients are demanding certain types of interactivity to go for it with HTML 5 and jquery etc. I just hope you don’t go horribly over budget and don’t have to deal with your client demanding why it doesn’t work in browser X or browser y.
By the way, the working group for HTML5 anticipates a final fully ratified spec for HTML5 to be ready in 2022. That’s 12 years people. Sure more browsers will support parts of it along the way, but this smacks of the bad old days were inordinate amounts of time were spent cross-browser fixing. And who knows where Flash will be by 2022.
That said there’s plenty of awesome non-Flash sites out there. It is just a bit galling to be told byself-appointed experts that fun, exciting interactive experiements are NOT what the web is for. Sure there’s plenty of bad Flash out there. But surpise! There’s plenty of terrible non-Flash websites out there.
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RazorX Reply:
February 27th, 2010 at 9:03 pm
“There’s plenty of terrible non-Flash websites out there.”
YES! Exactly.
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Speaking of the ‘best tool for the job’ my employer (a major bank) decided to implement all of their product application forms in Flash… I mean, that’s just crazy. A few techies got the red carpet sell job from Adobe on their LiveCycle product and implemented this only to realize all of the shortcomings later on.
They threw LiveCycle out but forgot about the baby, just got rid of the bath water. Now we are left with Flash forms. The developers now push the party line that we have Flash forms for “user experience” reasons. Others say it is “faster to develop with”. I say, “Covering rear end for bad mistake”.
It’s got to be the worst case of fitting a tool for a job that I have ever seen.
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swfAddress is also used in a lot of new html/css/JS sites that use vertical/horizontal scrollers or load content inside divs and iFrames within a single page.
Isn’t it ironic that these sites and the introduction of the canvas in html5 have the same shortcomings that made people look down on Flash site?. I see people putting more and more content in images, canvas & dynamic elements that are not SEO friendly.
Ignorance and polarization are the main issues. If people understood how much you can squeeze into the footprint of a simple jpg using Flash they would think it’s voodoo! Also don’t forget performance
Here’s one under 50kb, using free open source Flash frameworks: http://www.wemakedotcoms.com/_exp/hype/900Cubes/main.html
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That’s a good page for ya to read (just posted by the @smashingmag Twitter):
http://tomayko.com/writings/rest-to-my-wife
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The more I learn about PHP, JavaScript, HTML5 and CSS3 (even CSS2) the less I care about flash and flex. The things that are possible with CSS what I’m stoked on personally.
Let’s not forget that Flash runs on a plugin that happens to be installed on the majority of computers.
I agree with everyone who has made comments about standards and the reality that you never really have endless possibilities. I think it’s all about user interaction. There are tons of flash websites and things that are cool that are outside of the box, but for the average user I think they are confusing because they don’t follow convention and standards. So true how rules are basis of good design. I’m not saying don’t bend the rules and curb your creativity – it’s just flash’s strong point is not full websites. There are plenty of great HTML sites that are outside the box, original ect. …
On the topic of SEO don’t forget that Google is looking at pages and not sites. So if you’re site has many pages with great content ect. it will rank better that one SWF with some HTML and JS that make up your site. (That’s in general) There’s a lot more to SEO than that.
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totally agree with this page…
actionscript is best language (comparing with c, c++,perl or python) and got a great compiler (mxmlc)… it is running even under solaris (yeah, you need only OS with java to run compiler) so i am able to code in FLEX anywhere, only with vim if i want to… Adobe got prices up, but FLEX SDK is free and open source… i dont think this can be wiped out of market. just look at linux and what was said about it in early years….
FLASH will never die… it’s same crap like when people feared of Oracle killin java (despite most of oracle not-only-frontend is made in java)….
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What I see very soon in the near future on the Flash/HTML5 debate will seem as familiar to those of the Radio/TV era or the BlackWhite/Color era or the TV/Internet era.
HTML5/CSS3 has liberated Flash from having to do the small special effects best used with it’s programming language tool. What we’ll see is a coming era where Flash will be freed much like photography freed painting from the dictates of portraits painting.
Twitter: @MATSNL65
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I wish i could see your faces in the next years as flash is still here and you are looking for the next html to see if it solves your problems…
if the world had more of you probably we would have black and white movies
oh, i am the master of the web, please i don’t want flash, i don’t want unity3d, i don’t want anything different to WHAT I WANT THE WEB TO BE! you should be using linx
several years ago i was talking with a friend about an app we were programming in an amiga computer, and we were talking about some peculiarities of the GUI and then someone who wasn’t invited to the talk said to us, ‘it is incredible that you prefer a graphical user interface to msdos!!’ yep! you all are exactly to that guy, mmm and you look also like many dictators…
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