Flash runs great on my laptop. I’ve created apps with complex trig, physics, and 3D engines. Never with a crash on a live site. My goal was to determine how much better HTML5 might perform. I didn’t get very far in my attempts to learn HTML5 before realizing that someone else had already done the research! Not just one person but a whole bunch of people.
I naively thought that the increase of Flash bashing was due to the lack of statistical information. Knowing that Flash performs as well or better than HTML5 leaves us with some interesting points.
Flash crashes my computer
First off, Flash has never crashed my browser or computer. Second, if Halo crashed my PC I wouldn’t call Microsoft. Wait, Microsoft made Halo, scratch that. If Left for Dead crashed my PC I wouldn’t call Microsoft. For some reason when a browser crashes due to a Flash app, Apple is responsible? No wait, Adobe is responsible? We aren’t attacking the root problem: Bad Development. Bad code will crash anything. Look at half the OS’s that Microsoft made. Wait, I have a solution! We could all adopt the approval system. It only makes sense the government should do that. I think the government should censor all of the Internet and remove the stuff that crashes anybodies computer. YES!
Flash has viruses
Really… really? I don’t even have virus scan software on my PC. Four years with no viruses (I install it and scan my system once a year for kicks). I’m sorry but viruses are caused by users. Let’s see… Flash is used heavily on gaming sites and adult sites. Which sites have the most likely hood for virus attack? Hmm… Switching the content provider to HTML5 isn’t going to stop them. It’s like telling a monkey not to eat a poisonous banana. Walking away. And being pissed the monkey is dead when you get back. Monkey! I told you not to eat the damn banana!
HTML5 is the future, don’t try and stop it!
Wow. That’s depressing. Sounds like a religious cult. HTML5 is the future and no body is trying to stop it. I for one, want options. PC vs MAC. Coffee vs Tea. Blackberry vs iPhone. I want both HTML5 and Flash. Both of them on all devices. Scratch that. It’s a free world. Anybody has the right to ban Flash or HTML5 on any device. 9 of the top 10 cell manufacturers will be supporting Flash 10.1. I have choices. We can all buy the device that supports the technologies that we prefer to use. Just don’t complain when the entire internet doesn’t conform to your little touchy thing.
Silverlight is obviously the future. HTML5 and Flash are long dead.
Wow, has anyone actually tried to claim that Flash has / causes viruses – or did you make that one up? 😉
That one was in response to the paper published by McAfee:
http://it.slashdot.org/story/09/12/29/1435259/Adobe-Flash-To-Be-Top-Hacker-Target-In-2010
They also list HTML5 as a new outlet for attacks but since Adobe products are more widely used, the threat is bigger. While I agree hackers target the highest volume of users, they will find a way to exploit any technology. Changing the target will not slow them down.
Nice post, and I’m probably one of the people whom you’re ranting at.
I’m often frustrated when I have to pick up a piece of Flash code. I do not think that the languages or its interpreters are to blame. Flash is simply one of the tools which enable people who aren’t very skilled as developers to add “just a bit” of programing to their website. It’s painful to have to work with the code that they write, and a simple guilt-by-association fallacy leaves me with an aversion to Flash.
Perhaps if I were to pick up one of your apps I’d see how it feels to dive into well-written flash? I imagine so.
Speaking of the government protecting us from security issues:
A search on the US-CERT’s security advisories for ‘adobe flash’ brings back about 1000 results.
A search for HTML5 brings back…you guessed it…0 results.
http://search.us-cert.gov/
Sensationalist arguments are fun when things are taken out of context and bogus statistics are used
I, for one, welcome our new HTML5 overlords
Interesting. I would like to point out that all of the results I clicked on said to upgrade to the latest version of Flash to fix the security concern. Sorted by date the top result is a security hole listed in Flash 7 (which is obviously inaccurate). Without the ability to sort by date and filter by active tickets it is hard accurately analyze the data.
Do people in the government even know what HTML5 is? Would they differentiate it from HTML? Searching for HTML vulnerabilities brings back 15,300 results. 15x the number that Flash brings back. To say HTML is more secure than Flash based on the information on the website provided would be inaccurate. Doing a search for “Flash 10″ brings back one irrelevant result. That would be a more accurate comparison of keywords 😉
Cheers Chris, great post.
Thanks for keepin it real, too many macJunkies/flashHaters these days flinging shit with no hard data.
Use whatever tool is right for the job, and boy do i love my flash toolbox !
Thanks Shane. I have enjoyed many of the conversations I have had offline with people (from both sides) on the topic. While this post was more for entertainment purposes, there have been many good discussions. Each side has it’s pros and cons. Having educational debates will only further improve all of our understanding. As the web meshes more closely with the desktop we will see many more new technologies available.
Let’s face it, Flash – actually AS2/3 is a programming language and HTML5 is a markup language two HTML5 tags that are supposedly abolishing flash (audio/video) give us ugly looking players anyways.
That being said I agree with the main content of your post. Also what is your Steam ID we need to play some L4D2.
Bad Monkey, heh, nice article. Made me laugh, nice blog. Do you actually code in Silverlight?
How does silverlite run on the iphone……ha…..good article.