10 Reasons Why Flash Is Better Than Silverlight

Michael Lankton | Aug 20, 2009 | View Comments


…or, why it’s better to stick with the devil you know.

Please note that within 24 hours of publication of this article I made the response that follows the article. My sources of information on Silverlight were suspect and/or dated, and the points I made regarding Silverlight were full of misinformation. Thanks to all who responded for calling me out when I was as wrong as I was.

With the help of Tim Heuer, Microsoft employee and program manager for Silverlight, I am going to try to undo my mistake, and you will see an interview published here soon where Tim can address some of the issues regarding the benefits of Silverlight vs. other technologies.

I made a mistake, and would love to take this article back, but I am not going to run away from my error. My apologies for violating your trust with a poorly researched piece.

I’m human, and I will do what I can to rectify the mistake.

You know my feelings on this. HTML 5 provides web designers an interface for integrating rich content into their web pages. Why use a proprietary delivery format if you can use simple markup, and be assured that every user with a Mozilla or Webkit based browser will get the same experience?

Now obviously when it comes to games Flash is a mature platform that allows you to create something that plays in a web browser that standard markup wouldn’t let you do. That’s fine. I’m just saying that you have better options for embedding video and audio content into a web page.

Flash IS useful when it accomplishes something that standard markup wouldn’t allow you to do, and it will continue to be useful for the foreseeable future. Now we have Microsoft’s Silverlight, a competing product to Adobe’s Flash. Why should you care?

Well, you shouldn’t.

It’s bad enough having one proprietary plugin that is necessary for web browsing. We should be moving away from plugins and exploiting the intrinsic features of HTML 5.

Adobe Flash is a necessary evil. HTML 5 provides a way to move part of what Flash delivers to the web browser, which is moving in the right direction. Introducing yet another proprietary content delivery method into the web is the wrong direction.

Now that I’ve re-established how I feel about web content that deviates from standard markup and javascript, on to the 10 Reasons Why Flash Is Better Than Silverlight:

  1. Platform compatibility Flash officially supports Windows, Mac, Linux and Solaris. Silverlight supports Windows, Mac (only just recently too), and Linux, via Moonlight, an implementation started by the Mono Project, an open source effort to bring .NET frameworks to the linux platform, sponsored by Novell. Linux and Solaris desktops may be an inconsequential segment of the market, but the backbone of your internet runs on linux, BSD and Solaris servers. Exclusion of these platforms narrows your developer audience.

    Advantage: Flash

  2. Market penetration Adobe tells us that Flash is on 97% of the web browsers out there, which pretty much jives with the independent numbers I found while researching this article. Microsoft states that Silverlight is on one in four browsers, or 26% market penetration. Not sure about that, as some of the independent studies show it as low as 6%.

    Advantage: Flash

  3. 64 bit web browser support Adobe has an alpha version of Flash Player 10 for 64 bit linux systems, with the other platforms to come next when it’s done. Microsoft does not support 64 bit web browsers, and hasn’t said anything substantial, other than to remind people that 32 bit Internet Explorer works on 64 bit Windows machines.

    Advantage: Flash

  4. Supported image formats Flash supports almost every image format. Silverlight supports png and jpg only.

    Advantage: Flash

  5. Package delivery Flash is a compressed format, and is stored and delivered as a single file. Silverlight is not compressed, and it’s component files are stored and delivered individually. However, it’s been pointed out to me that you can store the Silverlight content on the server as a .zip file. As an afterthought. Touche.

    Advantage: Flash, barely

  6. Audio Flash’s ActionScript scripting language contains classes for generating and controlling audio. Silverlight does not support audio API’s, so you won’t be writing any audio events for the browser in Silverlight. You can’t even play back a .wav in Silverlight.

    Advantage: Flash

  7. Portability Flash files can be turned into Windows applications, and can be played on any host computer who’s operating system can run a standalone Flash player (read, almost all os’es). Silverlight can only be used in a web browser with a Silverlight plugin.

    Advantage: Flash

  8. Accessibility Flash contains a nice set of controls for hearing and vision impaired users. Captions, keyboard bindings for audio controls, and screen reader functionality make Flash a better choice for accessibility.

    Silverlight gives the ability to switch color schemes. That’s it.

    Advantage: Flash

  9. Client-server communication Flash implements the ability to have the client communicate with a remote server. Many useful applications come to mind. Silverlight allows you to do this, but only using .NET, which most internet servers aren’t running, being unix systems.

    Advantage: Flash

  10. 3D rendering Flash now supports 3D graphics rendering, which opens up a lot of possibilities for Flash game designers. Silverlight does not.

    Advantage: Flash

Now, if I wanted to, I could write an article on the 5 Reasons Why Silverlight Is Better Than Flash. The technology is not without merit. However, we already have a proprietary technology for delivering rich web content, and it exists on nearly 100% of the computers hooked up to the internet. Why is it we need a new one?

And why is it you would trust Microsoft to be the supplier? 20 years of Microsoft dominance on the desktop gave us an operating system standard that has an arcane administration interface, a mediocre desktop environment, and made you all accept it’s lack of security and stability as status quo. Because there was no competition, Microsoft was never forced to make a better product, and all you Windows users just had to take what they gave you.

This is who you want to entrust with control of your web standards? Really?

Ok, I’m opinionated. I have a platform to express my opinions, and they are generally backed up with solid experience or data to justify them. I am not always right, and I welcome anyone who disagrees with my thoughts on Microsoft’s Silverlight to begin that discussion in the comments section.

I don’t see the draw to Silverlight, and you better have a better selling point than “It’s Microsoft” if you want to win me over.

The above article is as written. The following in italics is an update dated 21Aug09 that I made in the comments section. Many of you will never read through all the comments, so I am adding it to the article. Please read before making your judgement in the comments section. Thank you.
-Michael Lankton

Obviously with this kind of negative reaction there are some serious issues with the content of my article this week.

I write a 1000 word article for this site, weekly. I’m not trying to reinvent the wheel, and I can’t be Ars Technica on a given topic with 1000 words.

This kind of reaction would not have occured over an opinion, so obviously my postition was seriously flawed. I apologize. I wrote a “10 things” blog article over a topic I lacked your expertise in, and you exposed my lack of knowledge in the area. This was not my intention, and I genuinely believed in the points I was advancing, but I was mistaken about a great deal it seems.

I will correct this with a properly researched comparison. Until then, please accept my apology for this article. I generally write on topics that I have a firm grasp of, but this week I went out on a limb with minimal research, and it bit me in the ass. I will not delete this article, because I feel that your comments are valid, and frankly I deserve it if I was so wrong in my assertions.

Thanks for straightening me out.


Read Related Posts

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  2. Connected Interview: Tim Heuer of Microsoft Silverlight Connected Interview: Tim Heuer of Microsoft Silverlight
  3. Please Don't Screw Up HTML 5 Please Don’t Screw Up HTML 5
  4. Apple iPad: Why It Doesn't Support Flash Apple iPad: Why It Doesn’t Support Flash
  5. Adobe To Introduce Flash Players On Mobile Phones Adobe To Introduce Flash Players On Mobile Phones



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About the Author: Have you been a bass player in a hardcore punk band? Built stroker Harleys? Have you been in a fight this month? Written an article about SEO that somehow managed to turn into a social commentary editorial?Mike has.Since 2007 Mike has been sharing his unique worldview with Connected Internet readers. Stop back to see what Mike is thinking about next week.

  • Marc Schluper
    I only read this article because Tim Heuer took it seriously. Normally I would just shrug after the first paragraph and focus on what's important. Now that I have read it I'd like to comment on your question "Why use a proprietary delivery format if you can use simple markup, and be assured that every user with a Mozilla or Webkit based browser will get the same experience?"

    I have been a web application developer for seven years now. When I heard about Silverlight (or XAML rendered in the browser, 2003) I knew I'd be happy to drop HTML and JavaScript instantly. Here is why.

    > Until recently, with the advent of AJAX, web applications displayed a page from scratch upon every postback. (Sure there are various ways to cache information, but basically displaying a page starts from ground zero every time). This is incredibly wasteful. AJAX has improved things but looks like a patch. The "simple markup" is not as simple as we'd like. You cannot make a cripple run by giving him a crutch.

    > Browsers can only display so much information on a page because rendering all the HTML (text!) takes time. DOM manipulations are also notoriously slow. Consequently, web application developers either produce pages that are slow or limit the information they put on a page and force the user to click many times for simple tasks (the worst example: item details on a different page than the item list). In both cases the user is robbed of precious time (and forced to switch context repeatedly and unnecessarily).

    > The support for decent basic UI elements (like a splitter, menus, scrollbars) is awful. After more than a decade of HTML there still is no splitter control. Many websites have menus that do not work properly. And scrollbars, why do I need to spend even a minute on getting proper scrollbars, while there is actual work to be done?! Silverlight comes out of the box with a splitter. Adding scrollbars is a breeze. Free working menus are available. After just two years there are more controls available than the HTML community was able to produce in a decade. And animations make my user interfaces so much more easeful to work with. Instead of compromise on compromise, bandaid over bandaid, I am finally producing user interfaces that are limited by my imagination, not by the technology. As a matter of fact, the biggest limitation I have to cope with is my seven years of experience with HTML, as it has made me used to compromises and thinking inside a small box.

    I am not interested in whether a technology is proprietary or not. I am interested in solving business needs in as little time as possible. If Microsoft offers the best solutions for this, three hurrays for them.
  • .xap (zip) Silverlight package content can be generated on the server side using standard technologies. It allows dynamically creatable Silverlight applications that is more simple than create Flash applications dynamically.
  • FaisalHossain
    Michael,

    With all due respect, I would like to say that Mindset is a dangerous thing. You have made up your mind, Flash is better than Silverlight. You'll always go for Flash no matter how well we try to explain the advantages of Silverlight.
    But my opinion is, It would be better if you did a little homework on Silverlight before writing this article.
  • ted
    I've worked with both Flash and Silverlight due to nature of my work environment. My company uses both Microsoft and Unix products. If you're connecting with a lot of Microsoft products (asp.net, SQL server, Sharepoint) I would say it's better to stick with Silverlight as the IDE and terminology will pretty much remain the same. If you use a lot of Open source products (PHP, Linux, Apache) then I would stick with Flash as a lot of people paved the way for combining these technologies. Silverlight has been implemented in a very quick pace, something to expect from multi billion dollar Microsoft. Flash has been around for a long time, ActionScript has matured and is a versitile language. It's very dad that for the passed decade Microsoft hasn't released any original technologies (not saying that Zune, Xbox and Silverlight are not good products). SharePoint is probably the only recent Microsoft technology that got me excited.
    I wonder how long Microsoft will be satisified with being 2nd place when developing new product lines. Bing and the Yahoo tie up is another classic example of Microsoft being 2nd place though this time it's Internet Search, which I do think Google will dominate for a very long te as Google is a very original and innovative company.
  • Marc Roussel
    Long live to BING, man this search engine is the way I would like to search until I'm dead.
  • Michael,

    I came to this article late, because I am travelling in Asia (to teach WPF and Silverlight to employees of a wel known firm who, like many others, understood that this is the future). Many others already stated what I want to tell you, so I won't repeat. The bottom line is, your article is just plain wrong and you need to do your research before you write.

    What I don't understand, though, is why the article is still online. The way that you refute it now is not even close to what needs to be done. You need to either take the article down, or (even better) add the disclaimer at the top of the article. People need to know that this is a flawed article, that you didn't do your research. Yes, this is "just a blog article", but no, it doesn't make it acceptable to write just what's on your mind. Especially not on a community blog like this one.

    I saw that you now understood that you are totally wrong about Silverlight (you wrote this http://www.connectedinternet.co.uk/2009/08/21/b...). May I strongly suggest that you add the disclaimer as well as a link to that article at the top of the offending page, to give a warning to people who start to read the article. The way it is done now is not satisfying by a long way.

    Thanks,
    Laurent
    .-= Laurent Bugnion (Silverlight MVP)´s last blog ..Polymorphic Podcast: MVVM, Blend, Integrator in WPF and Silverlight =-.
  • Joe
    I have to say that there is quite a bit of inaccurate information in this article. Most others have pointed out its shortcomings, including Tim Heuer.

    There is something I would like to point out though, with regards as to why Silverlight will grow in user base and why it may be accepted faster.

    First of all, there is a large base of .NET application developers. I don't know how this compares to Adobe's AS4 script, but I tend to think that Flash was mainly designed to be used in Web-based applications, not desktop apps.

    .NET application developers have not tied themselves down to a proprietary language. The Microsoft development tools support fairly easy development (use of an external application for developing the UI [i.e. Expression Blend] is an annoyance) and debugging of Silverlight applications using a familiar integrated development environment is a bonus. (I think that Visual Studio 2010, when released, will make things much easier.)

    I own both Adobe CS4 Production Premium and Visual Studio 2008 Professional and I must say that I am more inclined to use Adobe for my content and Silverlight for my application code. Not to say I may not try AS4 at some point; but I code where I'm most comfortable. I use both tools in tandem and they do play well together.

    Cheers!
  • UI Engineer
    Wow...the author of this article needs a little more experience before making comparisons of software products he obviously knows nothing about. The title of the article should be changed to "The 10 Reasons Why I Cannot Get a Programming Job"
  • Kris
    Um as a coder and AV PROFESSIONAL myself- with over ten years experience in multimedia...I can say that this guy doesn't know what he's talking about. Flas is great , and ubiquitous, but Silverlight is more
  • John Graham
    If you want to see an example of real 3d into Silverlight you can take a look at this:

    http://www.innoveware.com/quakelight.html

    So yea, unfortunately it is another flaw in your article.
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