What is so evil about a Flash based website?

Question

I have the feeling that Flash-based ( or Silverlight-based) websites are generally frowned upon, except when you are creating games or multimedia-content rich applications.

Answer 1

Many of us have had bad experiences with Flash based websites which has propagated the idea that flash is "evil". I don't really think it's fair to apply the label of evil to any technology or framework, they are each designed to cater to specific scenarios and many of them do well in those scenarios, for example, I have no problem with websites that use flash video.

A few other responses have touched on the fact that the use of flash contradicts many of the standard metaphors we use on the internet (e.g. links and navigation buttons), I hate this as much as the next web user but this doesn't really make flash evil either.

While it has been said that there are mechanisms within Flash/Flex to add support for these things, in my experience these are rarely implemented, which is not directly the fault of Flash per se, but is very annoying for the user.

Perhaps the evil is not Flash/Flex but Adobe for not making many of these things easier or more visible to developers.

For the record I have never developed in Flash

Answer 2

I am a Flash developer. The firm I work for has no difficulty finding clients who want us to build Flash-based products for them. There is a certain set of applications which it is much easier to develop in Flash than in other environments I have used.

But Flash has its problems. Some above have complained that Flash apps do not include keyboard support. Others say it is because the developers are too lazy to implement it. The truth is that many of the components that come standard with Flash are buggy. At my firm we have had to write our own replacements. One feature that is problematic is keyboard support. I implemented my own support for keyboard interaction. It works well, but required effort. If I were writing a Windows VB app, the keyboard navigation would be provided and would work well out of the box.

The same is true for deep-linking, back-button support, etc. A clever developer will be able to make a Flash app behave well. Some open source libraries are indispensable here.

As for flowing layouts, I just completed a proof-of-concept for this (in AS3) as well. It is possible, but requires much effort. Why do I make the effort? Because of the other things that Flash does well.

Answer 3

Does anybody know a site called YouTube? It wouldn't exist without flash. Flash has great video/multimedia capabilities that simply cannot be ignored.

Flash is amazing when used in the proper way, in appropriate circumstances and when the designer/coder has taken care to embed basic accessibility features.

The thing is, like all good things, there's a lot of abusive use (flashturbation). Especially in the beginning, when people just want to slap Flash wherever they can just to show off.

But I strongly disagree that Flash sites are bad: When made properly, and with good UI design and accessibility, they bring a whole new dimension to the web.

Answer 4

1. content weight
2. usability
3. crawlability of search engine bots
4. accessibility
5. ease of use (disputable)
6. technology encumbrance (added software required to access the site)
7. security issues (needing to add software comes with issues involved with installing or running that software/player of the content)

[Edit] Why I place usability and ease of use separate is best explained in this link

Usability:

• a result – software that is usable;
• a process, also called user-centered design, for creating usable software;
• a set of techniques, such as contextual observation and usability testing, used to achieve that result; or
• a philosophy of designing to meet user needs?

Ease of use:

• Effective
• Efficient
• Engaging
• Error Tolerant
• Easy to Learn

I agree with the comments on that site, but this is all debatable...could be a good stackoverflow question: is usability and ease of use the same? IMO part of usability is ease of use and vice versa, but they are not necessarily the same.

I hope I don't enfuriate the more semantical sensitive with this edit :-)

Answer 5

I don't install Flash on my browsers, mainly to escape the nuisance of animated ads, but also for all the security and privacy reasons mentioned by others.

So sites done completely in Flash are nonexistent as far as I'm concerned. (W.r.t. Youtube, I download videos directly into Miro.)

Answer 6

I am a Flash developer.. and I have found that although Flash requires more effort in coding, the potential is enormous. You can create very simple sites with simple transitions, so subtle it would seem to be a normal HTML page, while still being just as light.

At the same time, you can use OOP with ActionScript to create a website that is as complex and as inclusive, as well as feels and acts like a desktop application. WHILE ALSO REMAINING VERY LIGHT! (only the content required is loaded on demand, as apposed to 4 column HTML sites with far too much information.)

Nowadays, and this is still without migrating to ActionScript 3, but still using ActionScript 2, MY flash files contain simply 2 or 3 lines of ActionScript, only one frame, and an empty stage. Everything else is dynamically created or added at runtime.

Flash's problems are not about Flash, but about lazy development.