[thailandstartup]

Click to Flash is the ideal middle ground for mobile devices. Only load the Flash when the user explicitly requests. 90% of the time, the user won't notice the Flash missing, the other 10% it is available on request. That solves the issues of 1) Flash in the background draining the battery or exploiting security holes and 2) the annoying advertisements.

It's great to have Flash there when you need it. So many sites still have integral Flash content.

[SoftwareMaven]

That doesn't address the user experience when interacting with the apps written for desktop computers on a tablet, which was one of the core complaints.

The truth is that interacting with applications written for a different platform sucks. It sucks especially for Flash because Flash was generally used to build interactive applications that HTML/JavaScript couldn't. However, it isn't confined to Flash. I've had HTML5 apps that expected mouse/keyboard usage that couldn't be replicated on a tablet and they sucked, too.

[dantheman]

I'd rather have a poor user experience than a zero user experience.

[LokiSnake]

This will be bad for device manufacturers though. Many users will think "iPad with Flash still can't use lots of Flash" when many Flash sites depend on things such as mouseovers and other events that don't make sense on a touchscreen UI. We would know it's the site's fault, but it'll give iPad/Android/etc. a bad image.

[pchristensen]

In practice, many user experiences have ready substitutes, so people would rather have a different, good user experience than any specific bad one.

[Niten]

I agree (and I have no idea why you're being downvoted). I don't always need Flash on my phone, but in the situations where I do I'm really grateful to have it. And click-to-flash is the ideal way of handling this.

[bradleyland]

Meta: He's being downvoted because people disagree with him, which is wrong. Downvoting should only be used for posts that don't contribute to the conversation. This is a valid discussion, even if you disagree with the assertion.

On to the actual point of the discussion. I disagree that click-to-flash is an "ideal" way of handling this. Is it pragmatic? Yes. Is it ideal? No way.

Click-to-flash is a kludge; plain and simple. This isn't Flash's fault though. It's laziness on the part of content producers. Maybe laziness is a bit unfair, but it stems from a desire to "build once, run anywhere". The internet graveyard has more than one resident whose stated goal was exactly that. The desire to "build once" is a cost concern. It's not cheap to build content for every platform in existence. Content producers aren't interested in platforms, they're interested in audiences. Relevant questions for content producers are:

* How many eyes are there on a given platform?

* What revenue can I expect to generate from those eyes?

If a content producer can move in to a new market (platform) at zero cost, they'll always take that deal. That's the deal that Flash promises. The trouble is, that's a false promise.

There's a terrible epidemic of myopia plaguing the industry. If you went to an "old school" media person and told them you wanted to take the content from a tri-fold brochure, scale it down, and mail it on a post card, they'd laugh you out of the room. Then they'd lecture you about how your message must fit the medium if you expect it to generate results. Sound familiar?

You can't simply cram Flash applications designed for a desktop on to a tablet and expect the transition to go well. Designing for a tablet is a change in medium that requires consideration from the outset. Anything less is a sub-par experience.

[mikeryan]

Meta: Using Up/Down to express agreement and disagreement is fine. Its the HN way.

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=117171

[metageek]

Meta Meta: Arguing over whether to use Down to express disagreement is the HN way.

[MetaMan]

3 points

1. Most existing Flash content is designed for the keyboard and mouse. Even if they were written using JS/CSS etc the same user interface issues would exist. In other words the problems are with the initial UI design. Flash really should not be blamed here! The current versions of the Flash developer tools support multi-touch.

2. I disagree about the deal. Flash offers the ability to have content appear the same across different platforms with the same form factor. E.g. the same on a 10" android tablet or a 10" windows tablet. Given the platform battle currently taking place spreading your risk by not developing purely for one platform (E.g. webOS) makes a lot of sense.

3. Unless developers have really deep pockets, the choice often boils down to - select a multi-platform development environment and accept some technical compromises but spread your financial risk OR make a calculated gamble and develop purely for one platform and hopefully get an optimised user experience.

[SwellJoe]

I disagree that click-to-flash is an "ideal" way of handling this.

Personally, I wish I had click-to-flash on my desktop. Flash is so often used for intrusive ends, I'd rather it be sandboxed from the real web content. Of course, these days, HTML can be used for similar intrusive content, but it rarely is, so far.

[qeorge]

For Firefox, there's FlashBlock:

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/flashblock/

which I can attest works wonderfully.

For Chrome, I believe there's a version of FlashBlock, and for Safari, www.clicktoflash.com looks good (I have not tried either of these though).

[Relwal]

Regarding 1) Flash on Android doesn't run in the background.

[adestefan]

I've had an iPhone since the original and there's been only 1 time I wish it had flash. Of course it was a restaurant website for their menu.