Thread: How about abandoning Flash?

Now that Adobe killed mobile Flash Player there seems to be a renewed sense of hope that we can get rid of Flash altogether. There's a campaign against Flash going at Occupy Flash.

Yesterday I disabled Flash in my browser and am trying to go without. YouTube supports HTML5 so it works pretty well. The attitude I'm trying to take is that if a site tells me I need Flash for some piece of content to work it is them who need to upgrade (switch from Flash to HTML5), not me.

Does anyone here still use Flash for their content? If yes, what would you think about abandoning that practice? I think it's about time we got rid of that bloat.

I think that many of us HTML coders never liked flash since it was bad for SEO and required expensive development tools.

HTML5 may be a messy way to code from what I hear as I learn more about coding in OOP languages.

I have never used Flash on my sites. However, when a client insists on using Flash I use JavaScript to deliver it to avoid the search engine issues. I try to move clients away from Flash and use JavaScript slideshows whenever a client wants to do something similar to Flash. Most clients do like the slideshows.

My curiosity is about how you are using HTML 5 to replace Flash.

I have to question the use of HTML 5 as a current replacement solution because most current browsers in use are not very HTML 5 compatible. Most just recognize basic HTML 5 features. The HTML 5 compatibility issue is browser dependent because HTML 5 runs in the browser, not on the server.

Has the HTML 5 approach been working for you? Have you tested it with a range of browsers?

You can check browser compatibility with HTML 5 here:

The HTML5 test - How well does your browser support HTML5?

The current version of FireFox only scores 179 out of 450 compatibility points and it is not MPEG-4 compatible.

Which type of videos are you using to replace Flash?

I would love to see Flash fade away forever.

I never used Flash for my sites as I always despised it (and for the bulk of that time I was a Linux user which hasn't had proper support for a long time). YouTube embedded videos, at least with the new embed code, seem to support HTML5 if the user joins the YouTube HTML5 trial. I've had Soundcloud embeds on my new music site which were in Flash, but just found out they now have an HTML5 embed code as well. As more sites offer options like this (and users demanding Flash-free experiences would help) it will be getting easier to run without Flash.

About compatibility the results page on HTML5 Test actually shows Firefox 7 to be at 313, and I've just tested the latest Firefox 8 I have and got a score of 314. Chrome and Opera fare even better. I think at this rate we can probably expect full or near-full compatibility within 2012 so this issue probably wont be an issue for long.

If all major browsers are already beyond 300 points, meaning they support well over half HTML5 features, there is probably a standard universally supported feature set already which would enable replacing a lot of the less advanced Flash capability, certainly all video playback, simple flashy user interface animations and so on. I think a huge amount of sites currently relying on Flash would probably do just fine with HTML5.

As for video formats I'm not sure... I expect most people upload their videos to YouTube or a similar site, and just embed that. Newly launched The Verge tech site uses a vid.io service (currently only working with The Verge), and their player is apparently in HTML5 since it works flawlessly without Flash. I looked through the source of their player on The Verge and they appear to be using MP4 and WebM:

HTML Code:

<source src="http://assets.theverge.vid.io/aee549799497c6d1bef6de80e00261ba.mp4" type="video/mp4"/>
<source src="http://assets.theverge.vid.io/e9ab90168a83319eea49bc0b8152fe9f.webm" type="video/webm"/>

Keep in mind that there are large groups of people who never upgrade their browser until they buy a new PC. I actively upgrade most software, but after your information about the FireFox scores found that I did not have a current version and FireFox has not given me any reminders about upgrades.

From what I have seen in the past with browser issues, it will take 3 or 4 years for most users to upgrade their browsers to current versions. Unfortunately, we do not have any control over users browsers.

Be careful when getting on the leading edge of technology, because you may find yourself getting cut.

True, but things have been improving on that front too. Chrome auto-updates without even you knowing anything, and it's gained quite a bit of popularity. I'm not sure what's up with Firefox, but it did tend to notify me of new versions when I start it up again.

At least it's clear HTML5 is the direction things are moving in. The rest is only a matter of speed of change.

---------- Post added at 10:44 AM ---------- Previous post was at 10:11 AM ----------

Relevant: YouTube's HTML5 Player Gets Better

I really like HTML 5. Almost all of my site have been converted, but at this point are only taking advantage of the basic HTML 5 features.

I use Javascript and HTML instead of Flash. CSS3 is also a good option for adding some extra spice and animation. All these keeps your website light and decrease your web page loading time.

Hi,
There are still aplications that need flash, especially games.

I don't see Flash being used for creating web templates sticking for much longer! The cons outweigh the pros at this point especially considering SEO in the mix.