Some hate it while some love it! This tool is used in banners and online videos to give users a richer experience. Yes I'm referring to Flash of course. In the past it has been used significantly among the web designers who engage in creating animations and working with the media. But recently Flash has started to face its demise since Apple has taken over the online world with its new features, products and applications using html5 instead of Adobe's Flash.
Before I start off enlightening you with the reasons that has laid Flash in this continuous slumping position, I would like you all to know that I have nothing personal against Flash or Adobe for that matter. Let us now discuss the reasons why Flash is losing its popularity day-by-day and its use is waning with time.
The ability of Flash to handle text is not up to the mark. The World Wide Web commonly known as the web heavily depends on the text it contains. Internet users go on the web to read about a variety of stuff whether it is an article like the one you are reading right now, or if it is just news about the world, the economy, entertainment etc., or the latest basketball stats, it is all text. In a flash based website searching text content does not work in many major web browsers. The users are not able to scale the size of the text or the whole page as it can be easily done on html based websites.
Flash is not search engine friendly. Search engines are designed to read and scan flash files and the text content in a website. However there are still many restraints in the process of the search such as what links can the search engines can index. This basically means that search engines are not able to scan the text that is within the flash itself, thus preventing the search engines to find related content and websites, and present or list them to the customers or users. This is the reason why popular search engines such as Google and Yahoo advise web developers to use Flash slimly.
Flash is immobile. We are living in an era where technology drives everything and mobility is greatly valued as time has become a wanting resource. The web is not only colligated to the PCs anymore, as now there are new portable devices such as iPhone, iPad and various other cell phones/devices etc. Users who use such devices are not able to browse websites that are Flash based. This is a major drawback as these devices are gaining popularity day by day and Flash is designed to operate only with desktops computers or laptops.
Another drawback is the lack of consistency for cross-platform support. You may face difficulty loading pages where Flash animation is involved due to various requisites such as javascript is required. Flash animations and many videos can be viewed only after downloading the Adobe Flash player. If users refuse to download any such plugin or player they may not be able to access certain valuable content on a webpage.
The Flash software is pretty expensive. A price of $700 is very costly and unaffordable for small business owners and web developers. In contrast, it is reasonable for the web developers to use HTML instead which is highly affordable.
The usefulness of Flash technology is incontestable but when developing a website, one has to consider all the pros and cons of using Flash as a web design software.
Before I start off enlightening you with the reasons that has laid Flash in this continuous slumping position, I would like you all to know that I have nothing personal against Flash or Adobe for that matter. Let us now discuss the reasons why Flash is losing its popularity day-by-day and its use is waning with time.
The ability of Flash to handle text is not up to the mark. The World Wide Web commonly known as the web heavily depends on the text it contains. Internet users go on the web to read about a variety of stuff whether it is an article like the one you are reading right now, or if it is just news about the world, the economy, entertainment etc., or the latest basketball stats, it is all text. In a flash based website searching text content does not work in many major web browsers. The users are not able to scale the size of the text or the whole page as it can be easily done on html based websites.
Flash is not search engine friendly. Search engines are designed to read and scan flash files and the text content in a website. However there are still many restraints in the process of the search such as what links can the search engines can index. This basically means that search engines are not able to scan the text that is within the flash itself, thus preventing the search engines to find related content and websites, and present or list them to the customers or users. This is the reason why popular search engines such as Google and Yahoo advise web developers to use Flash slimly.
Flash is immobile. We are living in an era where technology drives everything and mobility is greatly valued as time has become a wanting resource. The web is not only colligated to the PCs anymore, as now there are new portable devices such as iPhone, iPad and various other cell phones/devices etc. Users who use such devices are not able to browse websites that are Flash based. This is a major drawback as these devices are gaining popularity day by day and Flash is designed to operate only with desktops computers or laptops.
Another drawback is the lack of consistency for cross-platform support. You may face difficulty loading pages where Flash animation is involved due to various requisites such as javascript is required. Flash animations and many videos can be viewed only after downloading the Adobe Flash player. If users refuse to download any such plugin or player they may not be able to access certain valuable content on a webpage.
The Flash software is pretty expensive. A price of $700 is very costly and unaffordable for small business owners and web developers. In contrast, it is reasonable for the web developers to use HTML instead which is highly affordable.
The usefulness of Flash technology is incontestable but when developing a website, one has to consider all the pros and cons of using Flash as a web design software.