The more I read attacks on Flash, the more I end up shaking my head in confusion. Honestly, I am a little surprised this is still being debated. People, we need to get over this. Before I elaborate further, I want to make clear my support for web standards, usability and accessibility. Additionally, I understand the concern with Flash – it is not as easy to make accessible compared to HTML/CSS, it has, and continues, to be used for some really stupid things, etc., etc., etc. We have all been down that road, we have heard the arguments. That being said, standardistas: you are fighting a losing battle, and on top of it, a battle not worth fighting. Flash is about as standards-friendly as any media plug-in there is. For each bad use of Flash, there are hundreds being used well. Lastly, and more importantly, it is changing what we can do on a browser and how our generation accesses media. Please, for everyone’s sake, stop griping about Flash and start educating people on how it can be used more effectively with standards and accessibility in mind.

I have been developing with Flash for the last four years. Nonetheless, my philosophy is that if something can be done outside of Flash, it should. In fact, I have written on ways to minimize the amount of Flash used in certain areas. However, due to the fact that HTML was never designed to handle rich media (video, audio, vector-base imagery, motion, etc.), the overwhelming majority of rich media delivery cannot be done on the HTML layer. This becomes abundantly obvious due to the plethora of length tutorials on how to round corners or put a drop-shadow on a rectangle. In fact, I would argue that Flash is the ONLY way to deliver rich media – all other technologies (Windows Media Player, Quicktime, Real, etc.) are not only less pervasive on the internet, they are infinitely less flexible. The whole UGC (user-generated content) revolution would not have happened without Flash technologies pushing the content to viewers. Flash made this happen. Not standards (have you taken a look at YouTube’s HTML?), not AJAX, but Flash. I am not trying to diminish the necessity for web standards or AJAX, but many of the standards-manics seem to have their heads in the sand as to what Flash-enabled sites are achieving. In my opinion, the people that are still clenching onto the archaic notion that Flash is not necessary are diluting the discussion on web standards. Rather than deny its merits and accomplishments, why not work to push it further into the circle of accessibility and standards? No one wants technology and progress to be stifled in the name of standardization.

With Flash you have a plugin in which nearly 100% of users have at least some version of the player on their system. The makers have been working to make the technology much more accessible (can you say the same for Windows Media Player or Quicktime?). In addition, Flash allows things to be done that HTML/CSS/Javascript will NEVER be able to do barring some paradigm shift in the technologies. We hear quite a bit about how Flash is not as accessible as HTML/CSS/Javascript – ironically, the same people that are trying to replace Flash with extremely complex AJAX applications are nearly 200Kb of Javascript for the libraries alone (scriptaculous and prototype are roughly 190Kb combined). I developed the Current TV video player which stands at roughly 54Kb. A more basic and generic version of the same application could easily be under 20Kb. I am the first person to suggest keeping as much in HTML as possible. I am also one of the largest proponents of well-used AJAX. That being said, it is simply obtuse to attempt certain things outside of Flash – here are a few examples:

• Advanced visualizations
• Advanced motion treatment
• Physics engines
• Projects where visual typographic control is paramount
• Video or audio playback
• Video or audio recording through a webcam
• Rich-media browser based games
• All of the above occurring simultaneously

Ironcially, when you add up all the traffic from fringe browsers which are incompatible with the highly used Javascript libraries, it comes very close to the amount of users without the Flash player…

I would highly suggest giving Flash a serious second look. There are many new features that offer more accessible-centric options for development and design. Flash 8 and above offers new features for talking with Javascript – giving the potential for all interactive elements to be in standard HTML with Flash simply being the display. The express-install feature allows viewers to upgrade their version of Flash from the SWF on your own site – making upgrading much easier and much less cumbersome of a task. You are most likely going to find a lot of features you did not know existed which open the door to accessibility on the web.

I have no doubt the anti-flash standards folks mean well. That being said, should we not be devoting our energy towards making this technology more seamless throughout the browsing experience rather than pretend that it will just go away? And honestly, if it did somehow go away, would the web be a better place because of it?