HTML5 Versus Flash Versions

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Serge has a great post on Adobe and the open web. I don’t think Adobe gets enough credit for contributing to the open web. That takes a couple of approaches. One is, as Serge said, we participate in a lot of open source and open web initiatives. But we also spend a lot of time and money investing in the web and solving problems that we come across. Cross-domain support is a perfect example. It was a problem we saw coming long before Ajax and we created a solution in the Flash Player to support cross domain requests. I ran down some of the new APIs and changes between HTML5 and HTML4 according to Wikipedia and compared them to what we have in Flash and when we added it.

Not all of this is 100% accurate but it’s the best guess I have at 2:00 AM. I’ll update it as I get new info.

HTML5 Flash Version
Canvas Tag (2D Drawing and Animation) FutureSplash (Flash Player 1)
Video/Audio Support Flash 2 (Audio) Flash 6 (Video)
Offline Storage Database No real offline storage in Flash Player, Adobe AIR added it in version 1
Drag-and-drop Supported in ActionScript 1(Flash Player 5)
Cross-Document Messaging Cross-Domain support in Flash Player 7
MIME type and protocol handler registration I don’t think there is anything analogous to this in Flash.
New parsing rules N/A
New elements such as progress, nav, time, etc Largely covered with ActionScript 2 (Flash Player 7)
New form controls (dates, times, email, url) Shipped with Flash authoring (Flash Player 3/4)

Related posts:

  1. Reminder: Flash Player Security Update in April – Prepare Your SWF
  2. The “War” Between Flash and HTML/Ajax
  3. Flash 9 Really IS Cross Platform
  4. Flash Platform Week in Review (Mar 4 – Mar 10)
  5. Adobe Flash Player 10 on Linux: “One Heck of a Beta”
  • http://www.vdeprojects.com Tom Van den Eynde

    Just to make the list complete:

    HTML 1 Flash Version
    —— ————-
    Render HTML Not even in Flash 10

  • http://micheljansen.org Michel Jansen

    I think the most important difference is that HTML is for HyperText pages, whereas Flash is for applications. This is a very big difference. I really wouldn’t like to see a Flash version of Wikipedia, just as I think HTML/JS is unsuitable for any serious games.

  • http://playground.deju.nu Jens Wegar

    Agree with Michel Jansen. Each tool has it’s use. I would however still love to see better support for basic HTML and CSS for text rendering inside the flash player’s text fields.

  • World without Flash
  • Laura

    I’d be interested to see an accessibility comparison.

  • http://www.ukims.co.uk Richard Ford

    Flash seems better geared towards service agencies that offer a creative service and want to engage their customers. When it comes to simplistic online activity such as buying a product then HTML is my favoured approach.

  • http://lyciasoft.com Ogla Sungutay

    kontain.com is a very succesfull usage example of full Flash website, and which is text heavy.

  • http://esw.w3.org/topic/HTML/AddedElementCanvas Laura

    Would love to see an accessibility comparison between Flash and canvas.

  • http://blog.stef.be Steffest

    somehow you are all focussing on how great Flash is …
    Yes, nobody is denying that; Flash is super duper awesome!
    However, the point is, flash is not OPEN, html is … (And I’m not talking about open sourcing the flash player or the file format)
    I’m talking about decentralization and transparency and third-party Integratable.
    oh, I love Flash, I really do, but don’t pretend your not breaking the open web, because you do :-)

  • http://jaap.haitsma.org Jaap

    Also for games there is stuff in the works to to have 3D part of the html standard. Take a look at http://code.google.com/apis/o3d/
    Demo is already pretty impressive

  • brendan

    @Steffest

    me being nice: the “open web” is still locked up in proprietary-ish ( at least non-standard ) browsers… so….

    me being a jerk: get at me when you don’t have to have a logic to detect which browser you are in. Then we are open.

    big up to Adobe for having the original workaround to IE6 ! thanks for giving me the time to learn how to program cool stuff and not just hack the DOM or crappy browsers!

  • milan

    It’s not comparable, flash is web browser plugin. Yeah, there is a lot of html 5 chance to kill flash and it probably will(canvas, video), but that’s something we all expected from html after all… so Adobe will have to drive Flash to it’s roots (games, advertising), implement gpu 3d rendering and open platform (amf, rtmp,rtmfp) for all that crazy stuff that’s not and will ever be possible with html. There will always be stateless and state full web models, even if “web creators” don’t thinks so… Flash will survive :)

    my 0.2 $

  • http://maliboo.pl maliboo

    I think drag and drop is in Flash since SWF4 (_droptarget property)

  • majordan
  • LQDstudios

    One thing I really think has been over looked in every blog I have read so far… is what has HTML really done for us Web Designers but give us friken headaches. Cross-Browser Compatablity, recently I find myself building websites more and more with flash just to avoid having to write 8 different CSS files just to support 3 main browers and their previous versions.

  • leef

    Is HTML5′s drag&drop not referring to desktop drag to browser interaction? For dragging desktop files to the browser application for upload, or file-reading? That was my impression, and I don’t believe flash player has this yet.

  • http://www.hofstra.edu Brian Ferris

    There has been much ado about HTML 5 replacing Flash. Typically, the people who talk about this have no experience with Flash, and thus no idea of what its truly capable of. I suspect that if they truly did, they likely would not be making such statements.

    Even where there is technological overlap between the two solutions, the Flash based solution is usually far more polished. Let’s take an easy example: the new HTML 5 video and audio tags that grown men are weeping with joy over. You can do this in a browser natively-great!!! You don’t need Flash!!! All the open-web zealots can get up and do the conga! Except, there’s one problem. None of the browser vendors can agree on standard audio/video codecs. Welcome back, 1997! Yes, in order to make sure your audio/video tags work in all browsers (we’re not even talking about browsers that don’t support these tags) you’ll need to encode your video/audio in different formats for each browser. (Either that, or you can encode in Flash video and it will work anywhere-you decide).

    Don’t get me wrong-the HTML 5 spec is a step in the right direction, *but* it is only a step (and a baby step at that). The sad fact of the matter is that people are acting like the release of HTML 5 (now scheduled for 2022 according to the co-editor of the spec, Ian Hickson) is akin to the rapture being imminent not because its a vast improvement-but because its *any* improvement where HTML basically stagnated in the arms of the W3C for the past ten years.

  • Chepech

    is Flash dead??

    With the Flex4 about to be released, I think we are seeing one of the brighter periods for flash.

    I would like to see some opensource alternative, but a real one. I don’t think HTML5 is worth comparing it with flash. Canvas… well it works, but you have to see how slow it is in complex application to throw it away in a blink.

    Yeah I know JQuery / Prototype make the pain more endurable… but thats as far as they go.

    Flash = no Cross Borwser crap for the developer + GREAT look and smooth performance + Binary protocol transmition (AMF) + Cloud Appications (AIR) + … do you really want me to go on?

    Besides Word Peace and the end of world hunger; OpenFlash is one of the 3 wishes I would ask =P

  • http://blog.nothingGrinder.com nothingGrinder

    Apple has its own agenda in the HTML5 wars because it holds a patent to HTML5 tech.

    We wrote all about it here on “I’d rather be a Woz.”:
    http://blog.nothinggrinder.com/id-rather-be-a-woz

  • http://www.lmgtfy.com wordpeace

    word peace eh? I’m always pissed off when my nouns and adjectives are gaining up on my adverbs. we need a damn grammar treaty.