Comments on: Can Your Browser Do This? Adaptive Layout

By: John Chaytor

John Chaytor — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 18:54:22 +0000

To David Wright.

I use the best blocker that has ever been invented – my brain.

I can go to a site and easily ignore all those adverts flashing at me. When a popup does appear I just cancel it and never know what it was about.

No need to consciously make decisions – filter using your own brain!!!

By: disque dur externe

disque dur externe — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 04:41:21 +0000

The only problem with player-based approach is that it takes more time in loading the web page.

By: Jens Ayton

Jens Ayton — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 08:49:24 +0000

When I think of Flash, I don’t think of ad banners. I think of a CPU-hogging, inefficient piece of junk which crashes more than all other software I use put together. Not only that, but its text and graphics rendering quality are inferior to that provided by my platform and, thus, my web browser.

(Incidentally, this form claims my name will not be published. I believe it’s lying to my face.)

By: Mike Walton

Mike Walton — Sun, 20 Sep 2009 17:33:28 +0000

@Neolander – It’s true that Adobe’s Flash products do cost $ where there are plenty of free products for HTML and CSS but Flash is capable of much more than these. And much like a lot of other development tools for more capable languages such as the full version of Visual Studio, they do cost $. However, on a tight budget, there are lots of free tools. For example, there is Flash Develop for application development or haXe for compiling swfs, both open source products.

Solutions exist for allowing browser base functionalities to work seamlessly with Flash. SWFAddress takes care of this for basic Flash apps and Flex has the same kind of technology built into it. Handling browser functions within a Flash app can even make transitions between “pages” completely seamless and do it without requiring a page reload.

Having said all that, I don’t see Flash replacing the need for traditional browsers. Browsers are the standard for web viewing and aren’t going away anytime soon. I see Flash much more likely to become more and more like a desktop application platform. With the release of AIR, more and more companies are releasing products for desktop usage. This technology is making it easier to write applications that don’t need net connections, which browsers by nature will likely never overcome.

By: Neolander

Neolander — Sun, 20 Sep 2009 09:06:51 +0000

-thousands +hundreds ^^ Flash is painfully expensive, but not up to THAT point !

By: Neolander

Neolander — Sun, 20 Sep 2009 08:40:57 +0000

“And, as you highlight, a fundamental problem with multiple browsers as opposed to a single tightly controlled cross-platform cross-browser player is support. There would be no point in one browser trying to implement serious adaptive layout, they would all have to and in exactly the same way. That just isn’t going to happen. CSS has done brilliantly to get us where we are but I don’t think it can realistically take us forward.

As for SVG I was a major fan when it first arrived but, again being realistic, it’s a technology whose time has come and gone.”

=> So you think that the way to go for the internet is a technology owned by one company, requiring software that costs thousands of dollars for web devs ? A technology that kills normally-powered computers when used together with tabbed browsing ? That doesn’t work properly on most mobile hardware and linux (because of extreme performance flaws and very bad interactions with site contents like javascript&CSS menus) ? That produces extremely inconsistent ergonomy by not working together with the browser’s base functionalities (previous/next page, reload, favs…) ? That does not permits anyone interested in checking how websites works in order to make his own website to do so ?

This is quite an interesting point of view…

By: Tom Robinson

Tom Robinson — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 11:30:48 +0000

Tom,
With your background in DTP, and interest in RIA’s, you might be want to take a look at Prinkk, which offers users a simple DTP tool, using the text handling functionality in Flash Player 10.
Tom, Prinkk

By: David Wright

David Wright — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 09:21:48 +0000

Tom,

My point was more that Flash gets abused much more than it gets used these days.

Mix in heavy processing Flash objects with tabbed browsers and it can quickly grind a machine to a halt – and the majority of that is adverts and animated menus!

With FlashBlock, the flash doesn’t load until I actually need it. If I have 20 tabs open with embedded video, they don’t start loading or streaming. I can read the surrounding text and decide whether I want to load the video.

The same for Flash game sites, the game gets loaded, the half a dozen flash adverts and the flash chat console don’t get loaded, meaning the machine stays more responsive.

Like I said, Flash does have its uses, but it is getting a bad reputation for security and being used where it isn’t needed that people are getting fed up with it!

I tend to avoid sites with Flash, if I can, which is a sad situation for Adobe and serious Flash developers.

By: infernoz

infernoz — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 07:13:13 +0000

Flash maybe cleaner for some stuff, but:
* It is far less secure than HTML and other plugins, and can seriously compromise browser, OS, and Real-World security.
* It is a pain to keep up-to-date
* It is less usable for common browser tasks, like moving sub content/references to other bowser tabs, saving stuff, etc.
* It can easily bog-down, hang, or crash browsers.
* There is still no native 64-bit version, for 64-bit OS/Browsers.

Stable 64-bit Firefox builds already exist and 64-bit Java works fine in them, unlike Flash, so it is about time Adobe got their finger out!

By: infernoz

infernoz — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 07:11:57 +0000

Flash maybe cleaner for some stuff, but:
* It is far less secure than HTML and other plugins, and can seriously compromise browser, OS, and Real-World security.
* It is a pain to keep up-to-date
* It is less usable for common browser tasks, like moving sub content/references to other bowser tabs, saving stuff, etc.
* It can easily hang or crash browsers.
* There is still no native 64-bit version, for 64-bit OS/Browsers.

Stable 64-bit Firefox builds already exist and 64-bit Java works fine in them, unlike Flash, so it is about time Adobe got their finger out!