February 12, 2008

Just Say No To Flash

Yet one more example of the inherent security issues brought about by embedded tech in your browser like Flash and JAVA.

This is why noscript continues to gain in popularity. This is why browsers within a couple years will start to package the ability to block embedded objects like flash, java, and even javascript.

DO NOT RELY ON THESE TECHNOLOGIES! If users are blocking these objects, such as Flash, and your whole web page is built in Flash, they will never see your website and you will lose customers!

Flash, Java, Javascript, etc.. these are technologies to be used to ENHANCE your website, but by no means should access to core functionality of your website rely on such technologies.

The only thing you should ever need to access EVERY CORE/CRITICAL piece of your website is a program that can translate HTML. The user who operates with Lynx should be able to use your website in all the key ways that someone with Opera 9 and nothing blocked (such as Flash) can use your website.

If you don't you lose customers.

It's that simple.

Posted by Ruthsarian at 09:48 AM | Comments (3)

Comments

What you say it's partly right. But: what's the core/critical functionality of Youtube? Well, it doesn't rely on HTML. Maybe there are exceptions, after all. Posted by: Pietro at February 14, 2008 05:00 AM
Speaking of not using javascript, i have seen a css only dropdown menu at http://www.grc.com/menu2/invitro.htm that even works in ie6. Posted by: Dale Novak at February 22, 2008 12:15 PM
Pietro: YouTube could offer direct links to video files for those users who don't have Flash installed. This would allow all users access to the critical content/feature of the site even if they don't have Flash enabled. -- Dale: The problem with GRC's dropdown menus is that they abuse IE6's support of the :hover pseudoclass for anchor tags. Dropdown menus (in the form of UL/LI elements) are placed inside anchor tags. This is invalid HTML. Now he gets around w3 validation by using conditional comments, a proprietary IE feature. The comments add bloat to the page, trigger other bugs in IE (http://www.positioniseverything.net/explorer/dup-characters.html) and still serve invalid HTML to IE. And as I've said before, the use of JavaScript in my Ruthsarian Menus is there purely to provide enhancement to IE6 (and IE5) users' experience. It does not deny them access to core features. Without JavaScript IE5&6 users would simply have to deal with an added click (or more) to get to the content they are after. Posted by: Ruthsarian at March 4, 2008 12:49 PM

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