Flash, along with Acrobat / Reader are the biggest security holes in any OS at the moment! They seem to getting more attacks of late and their security is pretty poor. Adobe's attitude to patching is also pretty poor - they use a quarterly update cycle...

Being cross-platform, they are also a more enticing object for potential attackers.

In addition, if you turn off cookies, only use session cookies or use the "private" browsing mode in modern browsers, most sites still have no problems tracking you, because they use Flash cookies instead, which don't obey the session or "private" browsing settings of the browser.

Add in that it ins't available in Internet Explorer 7/8 64-bit, which is a complete pain, opening a page, getting a "missing" add-in, finding out it is Flash and having to start the 32-bit compatibility version of IE...

Edit: I use FlashBlocker in Firefox and Chrome and "ClickToFlash" in Safari. I use NoScript as well, which blocks JavaScript on a site by site basis as well. I haven't found an equivalent for Safari or Chrome yet, which is why Firefox is still my main browser.

More examples of horrible flash sites. But these are not small companies' websites:

http://www.adidas.com/uk/homepage.asp
http://www.nike.com/nikefootball/bootroom/?locale=en_GB

Flash is [LIFTED] awful. Perhaps what annoys me most is that it's laughably insecure (and Adobe's patching process is beyond crap) and there's no x64 plugin.

Flashblock FTW.

Mark

Loaded on my laptop in <5 seconds... because I went in on Firefox with Flashblock set to Kill, backed up by a very aggressive NoScript!

I always have it blocked. I have yet to go to a website and feel the need to unblock it.

Also... mmmmm PIE! Dinner on the way

took about 30 seconds to load and cpu usage never goes above 65% (stays around 35% or less for most of the site) this is on my laptop W7 64 bit home premium, T5800 core 2 duo,3gb mem, 9300M GS using Safari 4.0.3

I just won't use websites like that unless I really have to, and I would be angry.

It should never be used ever.

If you can't make your site attractive without it, you'll have no chance with it.

Failing that, it should be used sparingly and appropriately

have just noticed they have introduced a non-flash version of the site, no doubt due to excessive customer complaints. Still loads very slowly though, even on my 6meg, 45ms ping broadband

fortunately for me, the product i had to use that site to get drivers for went EOL about 6 months ago, so i no longer have to go anywhere near it, except for making an example of it

Exactly what I was thinking.

I voted blocking - clicktoflash to be exact. I can't say I really miss it TBH.


Jon

Apringly and appropriately. It certainly should not be the thing to rely on for getting your message across.

I did spend some time looking at SiFR (a way of using Flash to embed fonts on a web site), but found it cumbersome and awkward. Yes, it did the job, but implementing it was tricky as the embedded font was not always easy to control. I then found that modern browsers can embed fonts using a number of files and some simple CSS. Job done: Flash not required, and you have a system which degrades gracefully. Unlike SiFR, embedded fonts can be used for the bulk of text on a site, not just headlines.

It doesn't seem to do anything that you couldn't achieve without Flash...

Edit: My last employer spent about 8 months writing an Intranet system (telephone book, timekeeping, appointments, holiday etc.) using Flash. After 3 months, they scrapped it and replaced it with an HTML system...

I would like to know how that site loads on a handheld device like a Nokia N95 or a G1 or a Windows mobile phone? Anyone here got such a device to try it on? Flash hell

I really want to know if Apple are wise to not enable it or not.

Out of interest it took 15 seconds to fully load the page on my iPhone. Here is the screen shot.

I prefer JS to Flash, assuming it degrades well.