Future of Flash Websites?

I never understood this snobbery about Flash websites and saying "I don't go to flash based websites" is like saying "I don't talk to ugly people". Sure, there are some pretty bad flash websites but there are also many great ones and I'd not want to exclude them as I might be missing out on a lot of great stuff. I have a folder with bookmarks to good, simple and uncluttered photographers websites which I want to use as a reference when I build my own. 90% of them are Flash based.
 
You can do so much with just html/css/js that flash is mostly unnecessary there days.

Flash has so many problems anyway (resource hungry, full of security problems, runs pretty badly outside windows (macosx?)...for example youtube movies are still basically unplayable on fullscreen under linux even on pretty modern hardware not mentioning that it sometimes stops working at all until I restart browser etc.)

So I would recommend to stay away from flash unless you REALLY need some functionality it provides.

And take a look at some javascript frameworks like jQuery...it lets you do cool stuff so easily you might forget about flash 🙂
 
erik said:
Each to their own. I think Flash rocks. For the OP check out this: slideshowpro Simple to use, very customizable. You can make great looking stuff pretty easily.
Click to expand...

I've looked at slideshowpro before but for my taste it's already a bit too flashy (pun intended). I did, however, just stumble upon http://cargocollective.com which looks promising for an html site.

Side question: What's a good domain name service (just the domain, not the host)? What should I look out for when choosing one?
 
you can do almost anything with css, streaming video compressed w/ the new codecs like h.264, and javascript that you can with flash. flash does suck and it will be going away. i don't think anyone every really liked it. they liked what it could do for them. now that there are easier (more standards compliant) ways to handle motion/video/etc...there's no need to use a plugin based program (that is a buggy processor hog).
 
I had a flash site and there were issues where non tech savvy people had trouble viewing it. Not having a recent version of flash or even never having installed it.

So I just ended up ditching flash. It ends up looking gimmicky after awhile.
 
A lot of people tell me the reason they use flash is to prevent theft of their images......Yea right!!!!

You can't stop image theft from any website unless you don't post anything..
 
enochRoot said:
you can do almost anything with css, streaming video compressed w/ the new codecs like h.264, and javascript that you can with flash. flash does suck and it will be going away. i don't think anyone every really liked it. they liked what it could do for them. now that there are easier (more standards compliant) ways to handle motion/video/etc...there's no need to use a plugin based program (that is a buggy processor hog).
Click to expand...

Couldn't have said it better.
If you're starting from scratch, I'd stay away from Flash.
 
In general, Adobe and Apple seem to have a long standing love/hate relationship.. Flash support for the Mac has always been far behind the updates for the PC or even Linux world.

If i look at the crash reports on Safari on my Mac, guess what --> a good portion are due to flash being the culprit of the crash.

Flash web sites that have a lot of fancy flash seem to take forever to load in any browser i use (Safari, FIrefox or Chrome).

As others have said, people have been able to create some very good websites without flash. Personally I hate flash. I have iStat running on my Mac, every time flash content is running, I can see the CPU utilization go way up.

I really wish the web would move away from flash based work.

Gary
 
The problem, Jim, with H.264 is not open source. It is proprietary and belongs to Mpeg LA, who has agreed to extend the royalty free period for usage until 2015. Should it become the defacto standard on the web, and the licensing fees kick in, they'll be able to charge whatever they want. And Ogg Theora, bandied about by some pushing it as an HTML 5 codec, is outdated and not powerful enough for mobil devices. There ain't no such thing as a free lunch.
 
Last edited:
so maybe h.264 will suck in 2016, but flash surely sucks now! 😉

and in any case, there could be countless innovations in that time that render h.264 obsolete.
 
The flash vs HTML5 argument sounds like the DOS vs linux argument. People are like "HTML5 is vastly superior, why oh why would someone use flash?"

Well, flash was around in 1996, HTML5 appeared in 2008. Flash had a 12 year head start. What's that in "internet years," a century?

Sorta like DOS, which appeared in 1981, vs linux which was announced in 1991. 10 year head start. Linux may have been better, but DOS already had a huge base.

Personally I give Adobe credit for "seeing the future" that the html standards people never had a clue of, until flash was everywhere.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTML5

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adobe_Flash
 
What most photographers who insist on using flash don't get is that a flash site is 100% INVISIBLE to search engines. That means if you sell images, as I do, then users looking for them using Goggle Image Search CAN NOT FIND THEM if you use flash. Fine for wedding photographers who hand out cards at bridals shows to get business...crap for those doing fine art and stock work.
 
Chris, you are talking about a site that is 100 percent flash. That's not what I'm talking about. Using Slideshow Pro on your website won't make your website invisible to search engines.
 
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