My Life Without Flash Player

Dear Adobe,

It seems that your Flash Player for Intel-based Macs has a pretty serious problem. Whenever I first start out using it, things start off fine but, as time wears on, my browser moves slower and slower until it eventually hangs altogether, destroying whatever I was working on at the time.

I can confirm definitively that the problem is with your player. How? I tested it on nine, count them nine, different browsers (Safari, Webkit, Firefox, Flock, OmniWeb, Shiira, Opera, Netscape and Camino). For anyone who is counting, that is four Webkit and four Gecko browsers along with Opera.

Every single one of those browsers experienced the exact same problem. They’d run great for a while, slow after visiting a few sites with Flash and then die an undignified death.

The only thing that made the problem go away was uninstalling Flash player or disabling the plugin, two things I had been hesitant to do.

Worse still, your own support section makes me pine for Microsoft support. Your guide on troubleshooting Flash Player on Intel Macs has only one suggestion, running the browser in Rosetta and using Flash 8. Great, rather than you fixing your stupid plugin, I have to slow my entire browser to a painful crawl and use an outdated version of Flash.

No thanks.

So yesterday, I did the unthinkable. I downloaded the Flash uninstaller and ran it, this time, for the last time. No reinstallation planned.

I was expecting to hate my life. But, instead, I’ve learned something strange: I think I like the Web better without Flash. In addition to my browser now being stable (24 hours and counting) the Web is a much more peaceful place.

I might just keep it this way.

Halcyon Days

When I first stepped out onto the Web sans my Flash Player, I noticed something almost immediately. The Web was a LOT less annoying.

Most of the tacky animated banners disappeared, no more flybys, no ads covering up what I was trying to read, no video starting without my permission and a lot less noise in general. The Web was quiet, focused and, dare I say it, productive.

I’ve done more work in the last 24 hours than I have in the past week. Without your plugin poisoning my browser like it’s a Russian dissident or the Flash animations distracting me wherever I go, the Web is faster and more useful than ever.

Sure,it’s not a perfect world. I kind-of-sort-of miss my YouTube and YouTube-like sites. I miss not being able to watch my favorite White Stripes video whenever the urge hits me and Newgrounds just isn’t the same. However, these are small prices to pay.

Granted, I can’t listen to a podcast on the Web anymore, but I can still download the damn thing to iTunes and listen to it whenever and wherever I want. Is there a video I need to see? There’s probably a Quicktime version floating around and, if not, I can always download the FLV file and view it in an offline player.

In short, if you have two brain cells to rub together, you don’t NEED Flash Player. It’s a matter of convenience and laziness. That’s why, it is very important, Adobe, that the plugin WORKS AS ADVERTISED. If it becomes a headache, it gets kicked to the curb quicker than a cheating girlfriend (which, in my experience, is not all that fast).

Granted, my vote isn’t worth a damn in the big scheme of things, but what if other development-happy Mac lovers start abandoning Flash. It could turn south pretty damn quick. Mac users may not be large in number, but we definitely have an important part to play.

Bottom Line

The bottom line is this Adobe: Fix your damn plugin.

If you don’t, you might forget what the Web looked like with Flash and I might never go back. Of course, Apple, you have an interest in this too. Until it gets fixed I’m keeping my Windows and Linux computers on standby, just in case Adobe actually manages to create a need for its product.

Oh, and for the record, yes I did have the latest Flash Player (9.0.47.0) and yes the problem continued after the update. I’ve been building Web sites for ten years. Trust me, I know what I’m doing (bonus points for anyone who gets that reference).

Fix the damn plugin or at least come up with a real workaround. Otherwise, I might just become environmentally minded and start by cleaning up pollution on the Web…



July 19, 2007 | Filed Under Adobe, Apple, Technology 

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