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Comment by RyanMcGreal | Hacker News Reader

The author makes a compelling case for Flash as a vector of innovation, but he really misses the case against Flash. I haven't seen any critiques of Flash based around the idea that it's "conformist". Rather, the critiques focus on one or more of the following issues:

* It breaks web standards like persistent URLs and the back button (granted, there are some workarounds) and eschews native UI elements.

* It is inaccessible to visually impaired users.

* It is built on closed, proprietary technology, which raises both principled and pragmatic concerns (one pragmatic concern is the poor security framework, which might be ameliorated by more eyeballs on the source code).

* It tends to emphasize superfluous visuals over meaningful content (this isn't a requirement of Flash but it's a common result arising from Flash's dominant motifs).

And finally, a posterior observation:

* An awful lot of Flash applications just suck.

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Just want to add:

* You can't easily save an object for personal use, such as a photo or video.

* No mute button, it's up to the content creator to do that. Is anything on the web more annoying?

* Overuse. Purely a matter of taste, but every time I see a flash site animating content than really should be static I flash back to the days of <blink> and <marquee>. As a web developer I've encountered clients who consider flash the apex of website technology. They don't care how the site works or how it responds as long as it's "on flash".

* A Flash app is trying to be an app so sometimes persistent URLs are useless. That said there are time you want one and Flash can do that, it's up to the programmer, don't blame the technology, the feature is there.

* Adobe have a whole section on how to make your application accessible http://www.adobe.com/accessibility/

* Flash the format is an open standard, In June 2009, Adobe launched the Open Screen Project, which made the SWF specification available without restrictions. What is closed is their player. That said they have released open source actionscript libraries.

* As for emphasizing visuals, that is due to the designer driving the project. Flash and Flex offer a rich programming environment so it's really up to each project to choose what they want.

* Yes there are sucky flash apps, but there are also sucky webpages. There is sucky everything. There are also good flash apps and good websites.

People who say that Flash is accessible aren't visually impaired. I am. I have not once seen a Flash application that works well enough to be useful in any screenreader I've used. I have been following Adobe's accessibility efforts for years.

HTML5 + JS + ARIA works better now than Flash ever has.

It's fine to make Flash games that don't work with screenreaders. But not websites.

And it's not fine to claim that something is accessible just because the vendor says it is.

Yes I agree, a whole website should not be done in flash. Web applications on the other hand are a different story.

Very succinct. Concur completely. Flash has its place (video, games; both of which HTML5 are catching quickly up to). Its place isn't in making an entire, un-navigable, un-deep-linkable, animation-heavy site that takes me ten minutes to figure out how to use.

One of the comments on there said, "but check out thewfa! You can't make THOSE websites in html5!"

And my immediate, lizard brain response was: "Why would I want to? I bet their bounce rates are through the roof, and their return traffic approaches nil."

Maybe YOUR lizard brain, but we ALL have to remember - we're geeks. One of my son's favorite sites is http://www.pigeonpresents.com/ (don't bother looking at the source if you prefer your sanity). It's a simple site for kids, but doing many of the things the site does with HTML5,etc would be quite painful if they were possible at all.

Why would I want to? I bet their bounce rates are through the roof, and their return traffic approaches nil.

And because you wouldn't want to, nobody should?

There's a reason why Flash, and Flash websites, exist. Think about it pretty hard. You'll eventually figure it out.

And no, their bounce rates are not through the roof. I've monitored plenty of Flash websites, including FWA ones. Unless 3% is "through the roof" (and this is for a website we've published just a couple of weeks ago, running on the latest Flash Player version), you've just lost your bet.

> * It breaks web standards like persistent URLs and the back button (granted, there are some workarounds) and eschews native UI elements.

No more or less than AJAX-driven apps and the "work-around" is the same: anchors.

Persistant URLs are possible. What Native UI elements are you talking about? Form elements? The same form elements that so many websites change anyways?

My understanding is it has features for people with handicaps. Granted, what accessibility features do recent HTML5 games offer to someone visually impaired? Probably nothing.

Closed, proprietary technology; something neither Windows or Mac users can really complain about. =)

As for superfluous visuals, that's debatable. Blame the designer, not the tool.

As for Flash applications sucking: Trust me, there are probably more sucky HTML/JS/CSS websites out there. =)

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