The Good
Standardization
Cross browser compatibility was one of the main reasons why I thought flash was a wonderful addition to the world wide web. Not having to hack your CSS files to run on numerous browsers is a wonderful addition to any web designer’s palette. All elements of the website will appear as they are as long as the end user had a flash player installed.
Expressive Animation
Animating in Flash was a breeze compared to other methods. Being vector based it was much more lightweight and used smaller file sizes to get a similar effect by just using a movie file.
Interaction
What can I say… people Love to interact with things. Flash’s action script allowed programmers and designers to build vivid feedback forms and Flash-based video games. This level of interactivity would keep the customers coming back.
The Bad
Search Engine Optimization
The biggest issue in my humble opinion was that search engines could not index the majority of your Flash content. This in itself was enough for me to steer away from ever using it to create a complete website. To lose free advertising is just ludicrous.
Load Times
The amount of time it takes a Flash website to load is monstrous. People are impatient creatures and with that in mind, Flash-based websites never went as far as they could have. The back button would be clicked within the first 8 seconds.
The Flash Player Itself
The end user will have to download the Flash player before being able to view the website. Not everyone is willing to take the time to download and install third party software, for something they should be able to view without it. Nowadays most web browsers allow the end user to install the plug-in with minimal issues… but it still makes for a hassle for the visitors of your site.
If you absolutely must use Flash… shoot for a website that uses both Flash and HTML and only use the interactivity of Flash when needed.
