Posted by Poot Rootbeer on 01/20/59 11:37

Jose <teacherjh@aol.nojunk.com> wrote:
> Bald Pup asks..
>> Are there any cogent arguments against the use of Flash?

Now that Homestarrunner.com has gone dormant, there's no good reason TO
use Flash.

> 2: Flash cannot be turned off at the browser preferences level,
> like animations, graphics, sound, java, scripts, and other stuff
> can be. True, there are workarounds with additional software, but
> that's not the point.

So you can't do it unless you have software that can do it?

> 3: Flash is free to the user - Macromedia makes its money from
> flash content creators, which are largely the advertisers
> mentioned above. Therefore it will probably always be the case
> that flash is not defeatable, since that's the way advertisers
> want it.

Unless you have software that can defeat it.

> 4: Flash content is large. Large content is discouraged on home
> pages and anywhere small content would suffice.

Wuh? Flash animation is typically a tiny fraction of the size of an
animated GIF or movie file of the same size and quality.

> 5: Flash doesn't resize gracefully.

Raw .SWF files scale effortlessly, especially if they favor vector
objects over bitmaps. The fixed-size behavior one often encounters on
websites is a limitation of browsers' implementations of the OBJECT tag
used to embed Flash within an HTML layout.

> Flash movies and slide shows play at their own pace, not at the
> user's pace, unlike text which is read at the user's pace.

Unless the Flash author puts in navigational elements allowing the user
to adjust the pace to their liking.

> 6: Flash is powerful; it can take over (for example) the user's
> microphone.

Only if the user permits it to access (aka "take over") the microphone.

> Flash will be upgraded and there may be illicit uses
> for this ability.

Same is true of any computer code written ever.

> I am not all that confident that other such abilities will be
> introduced, should advertisers want it. Can you say "Sony"?

"A - do - be".

Nope, guess not.

> In Windows, For IE, rename the flash.ocx file everywher it appears
> (earlier versions used swflash.ocx). To re-enable it, re-rename
> one instance of the file back to its original name. For Netscape
> the file is less obvious - it's npswf32.dll (in the plugins
> folder).

What is this "Netscape" you speak of?

> (a.r.kibology, r.s.pro-wrestling removed)

NO THEY AREN'T. I'M STILL HERE.

-Poot
HELLOOOOO

[Back to original message]