So…Flash. It’s been with us for quite a few years in fact, and it really started traveling toward its claim to fame beginning in 1996. Originally created a sort of drawing/animation program by a team of just two people, it’s now present on more than 90% of web-browsing computers in one way or another. Quite extraordinary, no?
While its ability to power creative site designs is unquestioned, its practicality is far from assured. Â This stems from multiple complaints from both the engineering and user side of the equation. I personally worked with Flash in a multimedia course I took about six to seven years ago, and I could tell that while it had some serious animation capabilities, the program was never really optimized for the web.
Other Complaints
- Usability
- Security Issues
- Incompatibility
- Its SEO is a joke
Usability has a DIRECT impact on your traffic and sales. If your site is hard to use, almost no one will want to go there ever again. Flash-based intros seriously slow down your guests’ access to the content they seek and add little to no additional value. The platform also encourages bad design practices. Sure, animation can be nice, but it can also be very distracting and detract from overall usability.
Insecurity
Security is a hard thing to come by anymore online, and Flash makes it all the worse. In fact, both Microsoft and Apple agree that it’s insecure. Even though the software and its variations are present on the vast majority of Internet-enabled computers, Adobe (Flash’s current owner) has a poor history of data safety with the program. In fact, a Symantec report written in 2009 documented 23 vulnerabilities in the Flash Player alone. Yikes. And it’s not even compatible with popular devices such the iPad and iPhone. That’s a huge market to miss out on!
SEO Unfriendly
Plus, most search engines have trouble even finding Flash sites. This originates from the differences in data management between the two…they just don’t speak the same language. Even the text found in Flash files isn’t easily found by Web crawlers tied to Google and Bing. If you can’t get found on a search engine these days, you’re fairly dead in the water.
I would recommend avoiding Flash unless you have a highly specific application for it that can’t be implemented another way. Your visitors’ browser will crash less, your site won’t be as slow, and everything will be safer.
P.S. Adobe no longer supports it on mobile devices either!
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