From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Thu Feb 14 07:11:14 2008 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id ED6C116A41B for ; Thu, 14 Feb 2008 07:11:14 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from jonathan+freebsd-questions@hst.org.za) Received: from hermes.hst.org.za (onix.hst.org.za [209.203.2.133]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id E7F3013C46A for ; Thu, 14 Feb 2008 07:11:13 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from jonathan+freebsd-questions@hst.org.za) Received: from sysadmin.hst.org.za (sysadmin.int.dbn.hst.org.za [10.1.1.20]) (authenticated bits=0) by hermes.hst.org.za (8.13.8/8.13.8) with ESMTP id m1E73ZXP037578 (version=TLSv1/SSLv3 cipher=RC4-MD5 bits=128 verify=NO) for ; Thu, 14 Feb 2008 09:03:35 +0200 (SAST) (envelope-from jonathan+freebsd-questions@hst.org.za) From: Jonathan McKeown Organization: Health Systems Trust To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Date: Thu, 14 Feb 2008 09:19:29 +0200 User-Agent: KMail/1.7.2 References: <47AFC80B.8090303@gmail.com> <20080213163421.165aaf84@scorpio> <20080213221453.GA7159@aleph.cepheid.org> In-Reply-To: <20080213221453.GA7159@aleph.cepheid.org> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Content-Disposition: inline Message-Id: <200802140919.29899.jonathan+freebsd-questions@hst.org.za> X-Spam-Score: -4.361 () ALL_TRUSTED,AWL,BAYES_00 X-Scanned-By: MIMEDefang 2.61 on 209.203.2.133 Subject: Re: what happened to linuxflashplugin? X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Thu, 14 Feb 2008 07:11:15 -0000 On Thursday 14 February 2008 00:14, Erik Osterholm wrote: > > IMHO, for an individual to state that Flash is not a relevant issue > > simply because they choose not to employ it, is similar to patient > > claiming that cancer research is a waste of time simply because they > > are not afflicted with the condition. > > Bad analogies are like a leaky screwdriver. > > All throughout this thread, there have been people mixing up issues. > It's true that Flash is used on many, many websites, but one of the > earliest "complaints" I saw regarded Flash-only sites--sites which > require Flash in order to navigate.  These sites seem fairly rare.  It > is manipulative and misleading to argue that because so many sites > /make use of Flash/, then /Flash has become an integral part of the > web/.  I browse with Flash disabled all of the time, only enabling it > specifically when I need it to use the web site.  It certainly > happens--but it's not a constant thing.  I'm aware that Flash content > exists on the pages I view, but most of the time it's supplemental, > and the page degrades quite nicely without it. This is the best summary of the issues I've seen in this thread. One last time, because we're going round in circles: I don't have a problem with people putting in the effort to get Flash working: I'd be even happier if Adobe would do it themselves; but there's not much that Flash is essential for, and to claim that ``half the entire Web'' is unusable without Flash, seems somewhat overstated. There are many sites which degrade, more or less gracefully, in the absence of Flash, but, like Erik, I don't come across many that are completely unusable. In fact, browsing with Konqueror, I have more problem with Java, faulty Javascript and AJAX than with Flash. I still haven't seen any comeback on the accessibility issue: is it really the case that banks in the USA (for example) have websites that are not accessible to a section of the population, and that this isn't covered by the ADA? (I'm not trying to score points here: I'm genuinely interested). Jonathan