Stop Checking For Flash

After spending a good year waiting for nspluginwrapper to finally work well enough with Flash to be stable, I decided to start running Firefox on 64-bit Gentoo with the Flash plugin installed.

It works perfectly! Man, I can't wait to start viewing all the Flash crap I've been skipping for the past year. Prior to this, I just used a 32-bit Opera to view anything vital that contains Flash content.

When I made the choice to install Flash, I noticed version beta 10 was out. It actually worked with nspluginwrapper with zero crashes. So why would I have any problems? Why do I have to visit non-flash sites to get my sports betting predictions?

The Flash version detection kit. The single biggest failure of all time by Adobe. Here is how the kit works for detecting if a user can view anything that requires Flash 8.

Seriously, how the hell did Adobe design this piece of crap? Now I will admit, this was a pretty big mistake on their part. The only people that are as bad as Adobe are the people who actually use this kit.

http://www.saw5.com

Maybe when you click that link, you can view any of the trailers you want to see. I get INSTANTLY redirected to their page warning me I don't have Flash.

Well that's interesting. I swear, I was just on Youtube, maybe 12 seconds ago? To even further the dilemma I face, I actually visited their site by clicking a FLASH BANNER I saw on IMDB. If I really didn't have Flash, I would have never been able to click that advertisement.

In fact, what's the point of warning me I don't have Flash and then preventing me from seeing any content? Can't they just let me take the gigantic risk and view the site, while still acknowledging their very helpful warning?

What's the point of even warning me? Let's assume I don't have the Flash plugin installed. Okay, let's pull up a very popular site that I am more likely to view than the Saw 5 website. Youtube. I go to Youtube. Hey, this video isn't loading, but there's a warning from my browser that will clear it up for me by installing this plugin. Okay, it's installed. I should be fine now.

The browser will take care of installing Flash. It has for YEARS now, and will continue to do so. I don't need some movie trailer site informing me that I don't have Flash. If you did not have Flash by the time you visited saw5.com, chances are you are well aware of that. You've either decided to not install Flash at all, or can't get the piece of crap working yet.

For the record, the Saw 4 website doesn't have this "feature" and I can view all of the wonderful Flash content.