HTML5 Vs Flash – Which Is Better, Flash or HTML5?

This is the age of the Internet, where people all over the world are willing to spend a good part of their day online, either surfing sites or sharing tidbits about their life with friends and strangers. Organizations these days have come to appreciate the huge potential that the Internet offers and the access it gives one to the global market. It’s no longer just about the content; it’s also about how that content is displayed. Enter Flash. This software developed by Macromedia, is really popular and used to create animation programs based on graphics. They offer full-screen navigation interfaces, graphic illustrations, allow two way interaction and support sound as well. Besides offering a wonderful online experience, Flash graphics were hailed for their fast download speed which was all thanks to the vector based animations. Besides, the files themselves were small, compact and designed for an optimum experience.

HTML on the other hand stands for Hyper Text Markup Language and is also used for interactive purposes as both images and objects can be embedded. Recently, HTML5 became the centre of focus after the Apple iPad which did not support Flash was unveiled in January this year. It was assumed that Flash which requires a plugin to be downloaded in the browser would pale in comparison to HTML5, which does not require any plugins. A number of tests were conducted to check which application was best suited to which browser. HTML5 was found to have performed better than Flash 10 in Safari, although the experience was more or less the same with other browsers on a Mac. In a Windows OS however, Flash proved to be the clear winner with an efficiency rate of 58% in Google Chrome alone.

Although, Flash is touted to be more complex and expensive than HTML5, its many features cannot be ignored. Flash gives developers better flexibility which HTML5 has yet to do in areas like video conferencing, live audio & video recording and 3d object video rotation. Flash is the undisputed king in the field of video games as well, which makes it a hot favorite with Playstation, Nintendo and X-Box for online emulation and playability through a web browser. Flash allows byte-level preloading (which lets users track the progress of a game that’s loading), timeline animation, multi touch support, multi player games and can even read pixel data on webcams.

It may be true that HTML5 will get there soon enough and may be the next big thing of the future, but for now it looks like Flash is still the preferred software. Whether you’re a user looking for an enriching website experience or an organization keen on gaining an audience; that plugin is just what you need.