Adobe’s website for Air (their cross-platform ‘web for the desktop’ technology) requires Flash 10. If you have an earlier version of Flash, like 75% of the visitors to my website, then you see a big blank box.
This is a terrible mistake for the company that makes Flash. In no way does it inspire confidence that Flash is accessible.
The real irony is Adobe’s own website was the first website I’ve seen that was incompatible with the version of Flash I was using. If other websites leveraged Flash 10, they gracefully degraded so that I could use them with Flash 9.
When I finally upgraded, I couldn’t see why Adobe’s website needed Flash 10 was required. I wasn’t wowed. All I saw was some fancy transitions between slow-loading flash videos.
Just by being open, that one website used 125% of my CPU even when I wasn’t interacting with it. No joke, 125% is what OS X reported. I am using a dual core machine, so the 125% means that 100% of one CPU, and 25% of another were used — just to render a webpage I wasn’t even looking at.
Is Adobe fine with alienating 75% of the internet?
Why can’t they make their own website laptop friendly?
Why should I trust their new Air platform that “lets developers use proven web technologies” if its own website won’t just work for me?
> If you have an earlier version of Flash, like 75% of the visitors to my website
My site stats according to google analytics reports: Flash 10(r12-r32)=87.5%, Flash 9(r28-r124)=6.5%, Flash 6(r79-r88)=1.2%, No flash set=4.8%.
I don’t say that 12.5% is something to ignore, but certainly it’s not 75%.
Furthermore, there is no blank page, there is just no header.
Right underneath there is a link writes, “get Adobe Flash player”. You are just one click away.
> All I saw was some fancy transitions
That’s what more or less a website header does.
> Just by being open, that one website used 125% of my CPU even when I wasn’t interacting with it.
I don’t quite understand what’s wrong with your PC. With about the same characteristics, my PC reports 3% when video is halt and about 4-10% when is moving. 125% is an obvious calculation failure.
> Is Adobe fine with alienating 75% of the Internet?
I don’t quite believe that Adobe consultants are that stupid.
They have proven skills far more advanced than yours and mine.
Comment by Teo — September 30, 2009 @ 7:29 am
Teo,
Different websites have different demographics, and those demographics change with time. It’s been over half a year since I posted this. Last month, I had 90% of visitors on Flash 10. That’s a big jump from 25% in 7 moths! As a caveat, only 22% of my visitors run Windows, so I don’t think I’m a representative of the internet at large. Accusing Adobe of alienating “75% of the internet” was hyperbole, even if it was true of my visitors at the time. It’s certainly not true today.
Flash 10 still excludes 100% of iPhone users. That’s not a problem for everyone. But it’s a demographic I care about.
Unfortunately, Flash still performs very poorly on Mac OS, and Linux, compared to Windows. As I clearly explained in the article 125% CPU = 100% of one core + 25% of another one. This is not a calculation failure, but it is an obvious performance failure. Sadly, it’s still true on the latest and greatest browser, Webkit Nightly Version 4.0.3 (6531.9, r48908). This is why I have ClickToFlash installed.
I wish these Adobe consultants with proven skills far more advanced than yours and mine would spend more time optimizing CPU usage of their website.
Comment by Vincent Gable — September 30, 2009 @ 5:19 pm