I hate Flash

Posted:
in General Discussion edited January 2014
No, I am not referring to the superhero with amazing speed, nor the other comic hero who battles Ming the Mercliless in outer space. Besides, the 1980 movie of the latter with the over-the-top Queen theme song is a great find on Sunday afternoon TV.



I'm talking about the animation format. I hate it. I was hoping that the web animation fad would die, but that doesn't appear to be the case. The worst offenders are small to middle-sized European companies.



Then there are flash ads. These are even worse, but at least the people who make them usually know what they are doing.



I would rather have web-sites be like PDFs: well rendered, static, and the same on all platforms. Ugh.
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Comments

  • Reply 1 of 36
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Splinemodel

    No, I am not referring to the superhero with amazing speed, nor the other comic hero who battles Ming the Mercliless in outer space. Besides, the 1980 movie of the latter with the over-the-top Queen theme song is a great find on Sunday afternoon TV.



    I'm talking about the animation format. I hate it. I was hoping that the web animation fad would die, but that doesn't appear to be the case. The worst offenders are small to middle-sized European companies.



    Then there are flash ads. These are even worse, but at least the people who make them usually know what they are doing.



    I would rather have web-sites be like PDFs: well rendered, static, and the same on all platforms. Ugh.




    i love what flash can do. unfortunately, as with just about every other web technology, there's more poorly executed and designed examples than there are good. that's not a flash problem, it's a design problem. hate the designers and developer, not the tech.
  • Reply 2 of 36
    rokrok Posts: 3,519member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by running with scissors

    i love what flash can do. unfortunately, as with just about every other web technology, there's more poorly executed and designed examples than there are good. that's not a flash problem, it's a design problem. hate the designers and developer, not the tech.



    actually, as i have stated in an old thread, i hate the authoring environment most of all. it's the microsoft word of animation. but it's the only game in town.



    honestly, i am amazed that apple has not taken some of their knowledge with motion, and released a slimmed-down, web-oriented version called Animation, and make macromedia soil themselves. i would buy version 1.0 IMMEDIATELY. even if it sucked. i hate flash's authoring environment that much.
  • Reply 3 of 36
    cooopcooop Posts: 390member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by rok

    honestly, i am amazed that apple has not taken some of their knowledge with motion, and released a slimmed-down, web-oriented version called Animation, and make macromedia soil themselves. i would buy version 1.0 IMMEDIATELY. even if it sucked. i hate flash's authoring environment that much.



    AniMotion? ! You heard it here first, folks.
  • Reply 4 of 36
    frank777frank777 Posts: 5,839member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Splinemodel

    I'm talking about the animation format. I hate it. I was hoping that the web animation fad would die, but that doesn't appear to be the case. The worst offenders are small to middle-sized European companies.



    Then there are flash ads. These are even worse, but at least the people who make them usually know what they are doing.



    I would rather have web-sites be like PDFs: well rendered, static, and the same on all platforms. Ugh.




    Amen.
  • Reply 5 of 36
    giaguaragiaguara Posts: 2,724member
    if i want entertainment, i go to cinema. not to e.g. NASA webpage .. seriously, if i go to NASA webpage i REALLY REALLY dont want to see flash but find the infos i want as fast as i can.



    more reasons flash sucks: 1) accessibility (everybody can not see and hear properly.. ) 2) cant ever find what i am looking for .. i havent seen a functional map or find in any flash site, ever
  • Reply 6 of 36
    buonrottobuonrotto Posts: 6,368member
    I hate Flash too. A lot of architecture and design firms use it all over the friggin place because they can fake the steak with a ton of sizzle. So many Flash websites make you learn some obtuse UI in order to navigate it too, as if they know what a good UI should be.
  • Reply 7 of 36
    rokrok Posts: 3,519member
    well, revisiting my pipe-dream of aniMation/aniMotion, the true STANDARD of online vector graphics is actually SVG. the W3C put their support behind it long ago. Adobe was kind enough to insert it into LiveMotion, but it had so many hold over eccentricities from ImageStyler that it was almost harder to use then flash (if that was possible). except the animation area itself.



    in a blinding wink of wisdom, adobe actually used the after effects method of composing animation in livemotion. that was a good thing...



    and then adobe killed it.



    so, if apple loves touting using stanards so much, and there is still lingering svg-support in adobe's main apps, then animation/aniMotion could push the standard back to where it needs to be.



    and in this mythical authoring tool, the user should be prevented from EVER making a "SHOOT THE COCKROACH AND WIN AN IMAC" ad.
  • Reply 8 of 36
    i don't mind the environment all that much. sure it's far from perfect, but i have yet to find anything out there that comes close the capabilities that flash does in creating rich interactive content and it keeps getting better, for the most part, with each new release. as far as livemotion goes, it was a joke for anything but basic animation. adobe's inability to keep pace with flash player development and a shitty scripting environment was ultimately to blame for it's demise.



    it seems that most of your guy's gripes, though valid, stem from poor execution by the designer. the problem is that many people fail to realize that just because you can do something with flash, or any technology for that matter, doesn't mean you should. used properly, flash is a wonderful and effective tool for communication.
  • Reply 9 of 36
    Fair enough. Flash in and of itself isn't a problem, but IMO it's abused a whole lot more often than it's used well. I've come across very few useful implementations of it, though I can see some benefits to it, just like the effects you get in OS X.
  • Reply 10 of 36
    Quote:

    Originally posted by segovius

    Some of the early ShockwaveFlash sites were really inventive and cool - but somewhere around Flash 4 it all became formulaic and now there's nothing that is really original at all.



    though i agree with you on some levels, the thing you have to remember is that flash has been out there for while now. so of course finding original and inventive sites are going to be harder to find, but they are out there.
  • Reply 11 of 36
    The other thing is that I can disable Flash, skip all the annoying Flash ads, and then also miss the european sites that don't have non-flash options.



    In the RFID industry, I often have to deal with said companies. Hmmm. I wonder if I could write some sort of little behind-the-scenes app that blocks all content from the major ad hosting servers.
  • Reply 12 of 36
    newnew Posts: 3,244member
    I hate the wheel. Stupid thing. If I really want speed I go watch the stampedes on the savanna...



    Here's a clue, flash is capable of showing good quality movies to a hell of a lot of PC users that never heard of quicktime.



    Luckily it uses quicktime.



    Flash is good, mature technology. Some of the developers are... not.
  • Reply 13 of 36
    Quote:

    Originally posted by New

    I hate the wheel. Stupid thing. If I really want speed I go watch the stampedes on the savanna...



    Here's a clue, flash is capable of showing good quality movies to a hell of a lot of PC users that never heard of quicktime.



    Luckily it uses quicktime.



    Flash is good, mature technology. Some of the developers are... not.




    Beyond your clue, Flash is a crappy program. It is bloated, and runs like sludge. It draws a ton of CPU to do very insignificant things. So from an entirely objective point of view, Flash is bad software.



    As far as my opinion is concerned, which is the basis for this thread, animation on the web is just another trivial addition in general. I'd rather have no animation on the web, since I haven't seen it used productively anywhere, aside from when it fills a spot that was supposed to have been filled by Java. Rotating images is one thing, but the constant, in-your-face barrage of text, sound, and needless AV in a document format that wasn't meant for it is a pure annoyance.



    - I blame web developers for being so foolish

    - I blame Flash for running like crap

    - I blame Flash for existing such that Flash developers may use it.



    As far as point 3 is concerned, I agree that there's nothing I can do to stop it, and I wouldn't press for taking action to do so. But I don't like it. This is exactly how I feel about guns & gun control. I don't like the fact that people tote guns around, but I don't think they should be banned or controled by the government.



    Your argument with the wheel was a bit contrived. A better one: Flash is to the internet as guns are to wild-west society. That is, every wants them, there's no way to control them, and a lot of people use them dishonestly. Really, the only way to fix the problem is for Macromedia to clean things up on their end, at least by writing a better plugin.
  • Reply 14 of 36
    Maybe we should start a list of sites which use or overuse 'bad flash'.



    I'll start.



    Disney.com
  • Reply 15 of 36
    newnew Posts: 3,244member
    Here's a real crappy flash site:



    http://www.kdlab.net/
  • Reply 16 of 36
    newnew Posts: 3,244member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Splinemodel

    Beyond your clue, Flash is a crappy program. It is bloated, and runs like sludge. It draws a ton of CPU to do very insignificant things. So from an entirely objective point of view, Flash is bad software.



    As far as my opinion is concerned, which is the basis for this thread, animation on the web is just another trivial addition in general. I'd rather have no animation on the web, since I haven't seen it used productively anywhere, aside from when it fills a spot that was supposed to have been filled by Java. Rotating images is one thing, but the constant, in-your-face barrage of text, sound, and needless AV in a document format that wasn't meant for it is a pure annoyance.



    - I blame web developers for being so foolish

    - I blame Flash for running like crap

    - I blame Flash for existing such that Flash developers may use it.



    As far as point 3 is concerned, I agree that there's nothing I can do to stop it, and I wouldn't press for taking action to do so. But I don't like it. This is exactly how I feel about guns & gun control. I don't like the fact that people tote guns around, but I don't think they should be banned or controled by the government.



    Your argument with the wheel was a bit contrived. A better one: Flash is to the internet as guns are to wild-west society. That is, every wants them, there's no way to control them, and a lot of people use them dishonestly. Really, the only way to fix the problem is for Macromedia to clean things up on their end, at least by writing a better plugin.




    I see your points. It would be nice if every software comapany would release bug-free, fast-running exceptionally well written software.



    Howerver, having worked with flash since the splash days, I don't see how flash is any worse than any of the other technology out there. Nothing really works perfectly anyway. JAVA still sucks, HTML is still rendering different in all the browsers, CSS is still not supported a 100%... If things look bad and don't work, blame the developers.



    Flash should be used where it has a meaning. Like, it could be used to show how gravity and movement is different on mars, on earth and under water... Maps are another good example.

    In a perfect world everybody would by an electric mini-car, but some jerks think SUVs are better for downtown driving...



    The point with the wheel was only that it's technology. Things are invented. If they work, people will use them. Flash made vector graphics work online, years ahead of SVG... It's not bad technonlogy. In no way. Guns are, arguably, bad technology.
  • Reply 17 of 36
    newnew Posts: 3,244member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by tonton

    I'm a fashion whore, and my NUMBER ONE most hated sites on the planet are the Italian labels under the Sixty group:



    Miss Sixty

    Energie

    Killah



    That sucks because I love the clothes. That web designer should be shot, along with the art director who approved those sites. Too bad, as the catalogue and art direction are great otherwise, especially the trademark and corporate identity.




    Those sites REALLY, TRUELY sucks bigtime...
  • Reply 18 of 36
    FLASH is sometimes the nightmare of all my computers, both MACs & PCs. It's hard to control and really I don't where to click often. It always asks Safari or IE itself to download something that I'd like SpeedDownload to do.
  • Reply 19 of 36
    I think that you shouldn´t be so antiquated....

    There are milions and milions of good sites... and there are several types..

    Flash it´s just one more!!!

    Im a web designer, as you can figure i work with flash a lot.... and besides it´s not my favorite aplication, i must confess that was one of the most powerfull tools ever invented, and it has gaven a lot of enfasys to the motion graphics, and open several ports to new creators and new softwares....

    Dont forget that the macromedia flash player is now included in IE....so my friend........

    I think it will take a time to flash desapear...

    Besises... what´s the point of a full static site...
  • Reply 20 of 36
    I gotta chime in with the Flash-hatred! I try to stay clear of sites that utilize it, as best I can.



    My feeling is; Flash is at its worst when used exclusively. As a complement to HTML there are some examples of sites that work well with it. But sites running solely on Flash?
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