[MetaMan]

Agreed. But most of the crashes I see are of the former type (I.e developers fault).

I honestly can't remember ever seeing a Flash crash actually bring down the the browser. Maybe I've been very lucky.

I see that I'm getting down voted for calling 'ED' out on his sweeping statement where he did not define what he meant by a "crash". Note that for many users a "crash" is when what ever App/game/web-page they are running stops with some error and they can't continue. My basic point is that many (most??) of these, in my experience, are down to developer error.

Many developers seem to have an irrational "hate-fest" going against Flash. For sure there's a lot wrong with it but, for me, all to often "its not the tool but the craftsman at fault".

[comex]

People are definitely referring to Flash taking down the browser (or crashing the plugin in Chrome and Safari, which have plugin sandboxes). Personally, I've seen "Plug-in Failure" several times even though I rarely visit sites that feature Flash. Steve Jobs wrote that "we know first hand that Flash is the number one reason Macs crash."

[jessicarios]

It isn't irrational. It's quite simply that my laptop fans run loudly when I'm using flash, draining the battery while not using flash doesn't run my fans or drain my battery. It's a pretty simply complaint. Flash is a power and resource hog for very little upside.