There were other advantages. To write JS you just need a text editor, and it's easy to pick up. To write Flash requires spending several hundred dollars. To write Java requires the JDK and to learn Java.
Especially on 1995 technology, that mattered. Compiling Java took a while. I didn't use Flash enough to retain an impression of speed, but it sure wasn't instantaneous.
It's also the reason why Flash was so prevalent until recently and is still installed in 90-something % of desktop computers: it's faster. Significantly faster, and very specially so in the 90s and early 2000s.
Used to to do a good amount of flash development - you could actually do it with just a text editor and a compiler (which was free). There were also quite nice free IDEs, like FlashDevelop.
If I had to pinpoint it, I'd say Flash's primetime was around 2005-2008 perhaps, and FlashDevelop was available then. Guess we probably define it's prime differently haha, I'm thinking more of when it matured - AS3 as a language, lots of tooling choices, etc.
I wasn't ever anything close to a professional Flash developer, I'll take your word for it if you say that was the best time to be developing for it.
I was thinking about the days of Homestar Runner, Weebl and Bob, Newgrounds, and so on, when flash cartoons and games were (for kids, at least) a huge part of internet culture, and everyone wanted to be a Flash animator. Youtube kinda killed the Flash cartoon medium, sadly. Sure, videos are simpler and don't rely on a proprietary binary blob, but there's nothing like loading up a Strong Bad email and clicking random things (or, uh, holding down tab) trying to find secrets.
Ah, don't give me too much credit haha, was more of a side-project thing for me, definitely wasn't a professional, especially at the animation side of things (as opposed to the programming side). I was also more involved with the games side of Flash, which Flash became much stronger at as ActionScript 3 came out which coincided with much better Flash performance. Flash advertising and simple animations were probably stronger earlier.
I'm just interested in the topic because it's kind of neat to look back at the internet and observe its history and the changes its gone through. Just did a little wikipediaing for fun - here are when a few different websites / notable games were released:
or VBScript for that matter.. I think there's some confusion about why JS won. JS couldn't easily manipulate the DOM either until JQuery in 2005-2006.
The fact that Java, ActiveX etc.. had full control of the system and causes problems ensuring security was an issue, but it is not the reason why JS beat them all.
Don't discount the power of 1) free and 2) easy to use software that is 3) not controlled by a single corporation. JS is the only web programming language that is all of these.
Yea, maybe Python or Clojure in the browser would be cool. I would argue Clojure is absolutely more difficult for a novice to learn, and Python provides what additional benefit? JS was there first.
The only reasons why plugins existed is you couldn't do these kinds of things in the DOM. JQ, and the subsequent advances in browser technology, HTML, CSS, JS - made it so you can. Also, other things being equal - programmers will choose elegance over bloat, less layers of abstraction over more. Plugin architecture became just an unnecessary layer between the programmer and the browser, after HTML/JS/CSS caught up.
JS did not become ubiquitous by accident, or because it was the only choice. There were many choices (all being pimped by big well-funded companies). JS won because it was the better than the alternatives.