Comments on: 99% Flash Player Penetration – Too Good to be True?

By: Henry Gilbert

Henry Gilbert — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 07:16:16 +0000

Flash stats will plummet. I have just installed Windows 7 (OEM) and much to my surprise Flash is not included. Then I downloaded Google Chrome and again Flash is not present. My ‘guess’ is that 95% of computers have flash installed and enabled – whereas the rest have Flash blocked, broken or running an older version.
I try my best to included a Flash alternative to my website. And when using Flash try my best to go for the earlier version possible.
Most simple animations can be rendered under Flash 5 even 3! So why annoy users with : ‘You need to upgrade your Flash’ unnecessarily?
I am not against Flash, much like I am not against say Ajax. But these technologies should be complimentary but never intrusive or worse: mandatory.

By: Chipmaker

Chipmaker — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 13:40:32 +0000

Chipmaker…

An interesting post by a bloger made me ……

By: UI advocate

UI advocate — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 19:36:27 +0000

I agree that flashy buttons are not needed. What I need however is a way to make the user interface as intuitive as possible. Small animations in the right places keeps all the negatives away, like all the ridiculous orange and red flaming blinking buttons (a point I have been fighting with marketing), and makes the experience fast and efficient for my users and, a huge plus, keeps the call to user support at a minimum.

the web is changing, and the ways users use the web is changing. A great example is http://a.viary.com – could that ever be done that well with HTML 5 and Javascript? and could I ever download that application to my desktop and use it off line?

Flash is great! and though the figures may have a +/- involved I don’t care. what I care about is the fact that flash has what I need to develop a better product.

By: Not Amused

Not Amused — Sat, 28 Feb 2009 15:16:22 +0000

Why must every Web Site be a mulitmedia event with lots of little animations
going on?
Does anyone think these are clever ?
Are you really tempted to click on the the pretty FLASHY button ?
I could see it for kids, easy distractions, but for adults?
Dus um wanna lolly pop ?

What a waste of bandwidth .

By: Flash Penetration: The Truth | PC Pro blog

Flash Penetration: The Truth | PC Pro blog — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 14:30:11 +0000

[...] that “Flash content reaches 99.0% of Internet viewers”. I made the argument on a number of grounds but the bottom line was that the figure just seemed unbelievable when you factor in the number of [...]

By: Hawk

Hawk — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 18:05:47 +0000

I wouldn’t know, my flash blocker hides all of it! The more flash you use, the more flash I block!!

By: anon

anon — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 17:04:47 +0000

beta.services:

Is the best criticism you can come up really just sarcastically calling me paranoid?

I take my privacy seriously, and so avoid giving away unnecessary (in my view) information to anyone that tries to gather it. I will often take the easiest route to do that, as I am a lazy git, but if the easiest route means that I also don’t get bombarded with gaudy noisy advert then it is a double-win. So what if I miss a few flash games – I’ve played some in the past, and whilst fun there are much better ways to spend time. Videos can be gotten from Youtube etc. without flash too – I tend to use keepvid.com, though there are desktop apps and browser extensions that do the same.

Identity fraud wouldn’t be so widespread if it weren’t for organisations’ insistence on whoring lots of data on us, and most peoples’ keenness to give away info about themselves. I just default to not giving any data, as no one knows what will be happening in the future. And if somewhere is really insistent, I’ll lie, or use the data protection act to force them to delete my data.

I am certainly no luddite, but like to see the simplest and best tool used for the job. Flash developers^W designers are 10 a penny these days, so organisations employ them to make websites because they are cheap. They also produce products that make stupid management types swoon at the new website, but in the real world aren’t actually any better at divulging information than straight up HTML.

By: Sean

Sean — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 15:23:30 +0000

According to the stats on the major site I run, we are at 100% in terms of Flash installation.

By: M3

M3 — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 06:28:54 +0000

As James mentioned, any organization will simply look in to understand who they are targeting instead of vaguely choosing one. When a lot of enterprises choose Flash Platform, it clearly shows it is serving their purpose. And end of the day, no site will be ever seen by all the 100% percent of internet users, so i would be happy if my Flash website is seen by whom I am targeting, those 40% or 50%!

However, Adobe do mentions the latest Flash players (v10) are only about 55% and players of previous versions are at 95% – 97% range. Considering the backward compatibility I really feel 99% is not a false claim!!

By: beta.services

beta.services — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 00:21:15 +0000

anon: This is the Internet calling: Please unplug your ethernet cable and remove any wireless access devices form your PC. A copy of windows 3.1 has already been dispatched to your address. The lead lined glass bubble will arrive shortly after. Don’t worry my paranoid friend, all your base are now returned to you.