Javascript only recently became useful for action intensive games and in some situations using canvas and WebGL for games is worse than just doing the graphics as CSS divs. For instance Jangaron: http://www.jangaron.net/jangaron0.6/jangaron.html would be a lot slower and more power hungry if it used Canvas or WebGL for rendering.

Also, it’s a lot easier to write real-time Flash games out of the box. Until we start seeing easy to use and efficient of the shelf Javascript games libraries most people will be forced to make their web-games in Flash.

However since Javascript is still being optimized and WebGL is still a draft I doubt it will take too long before Javascript becomes a viable option even for physics intensive vector graphic action games. I just hope newgrounds will start excepting Javascript games.

Adobe is saying that Flash is everywhere, and this is why people should support it – I disagree. I say people should be using the technology that is appropriate for the job in hand. Writing webgames in Flash to me seems silly – but then I am a Mac user, and Flash on the Mac sucks *hard*.

Similarly, playing video in Flash is a silly idea when there are standard ways of doing it. And yes, I know the current ’standard way’ is so recent that it currently works on Safari 4.0.4 and Chrome 4, but it is starting to get there – and people are starting to write to the standard.

Except for Firefox. Theora, eh? I think not. (And as a footnote, when I first heard of OGG Theora, I thought to myself “Theora? Is that a real name then? I assumed it was made up for the Max Headroom movie”, only to find out they named it after Theora Jones in said movie).

I have been saying for *years* that people who write entire websites in Flash should be shot. Or at least hurt quite badly. I also despise Flash ads, that distract and annoy while you are trying to read websites.

Take away those four things (video, webgames, websites and ads), and you have to ask yourself the question: “Flash, huh! What is it good for?”

So far I have only come up with the answer “absolutely nothing!”

For years I have been rabid on the subject of flash and it’s use on the web. Any website that requires flash for navigation should just get off the Internet; the intranet is your natural home. Go somewhere that you’re allowed to say who has what installed on their machine.

The problem now lies with BBC iPlayer. That uses flash video and the desktop client needs flash and air. I spent a fair chunk of Saturday trying to get the bitch working on my Linux machine. It still doesn’t, although I am proud to say flash is working in the browser.

I like Internet games. I am a farmville adict.

Flash is NOT java though, and should not pretend to be.

For Adobe it’s a case of losing control of a large part of what it sells.

For Apple it’s down to Apples refusal to condone any proprietory standard that isn’t pwnt by Apple. So, erm, a fear of losing control of a large part of what it sells.

Ok, so not so different reasons.