Last week, Adobe released version 10.1 of their Flash player plugin for both the Mac and Windows operating systems, which included a large number of security fixes. Much to the frustration of visually impaired users, the installer application, which had previously been accessible, was rendered inaccessible with screen readers on both operating systems. This, of course, means that many visually impaired users are stuck using an older version of the plugin, along with all its known vulnerabilities.

I can’t pretend to know what’s going on with Adobe that they’re so tied to this installer monkey business. The accessibility issue above is just one symptom of larger trouble that serves to confuse those of us who — admittedly — think maybe-too-deeply about this stuff. Nonetheless, this is puzzling.

When you download an installer from Adobe, you get this fancy, flashy wrapper that comes up, and then calls the real installer which is buried in the thing you just downloaded. That hidden, real installer is everything you need to install the software on your Mac. Everything else is just cruft.

Think of it this way. The buried installer is the bar of soap you will use to wash yourself. The primary Adobe installer is the sock in which you will place the bar of soap so that you may more effectively beat yourself with it.

Bray is so centered on this issue. I need to dial down my own rhetoric on the subject. He says clearly what takes me far too many words to describe vis my feelings on Flash.

What’s not to like, then? Well, the user experience, which in my experience is fourth-rate for anything but games; No “Back” button, feaugh. And of the course the fact that it remains essentially proprietary.

So, I use a Flash-blocker every day, and I am not a friend of Flash inside Google, but none of my arguments have anything to do with being part of the Web, or not.

From Jobs missive on Flash today:

Perhaps Adobe should focus more on creating great HTML5 tools for the future, and less on criticizing Apple for leaving the past behind.

Of course, Adobe is going to make a great product for authoring in HTML5 and so on, because a great-big-non-trivial-part-of-the-business exists to do that. But by saying this out loud, Jobs just guaranteed that Adobe will be resentful the whole time.

Dear Tony,

I think about you often when I work on the web. It starts out fondly, and quickly turns to rage when my browser crashes thanks to over-abundance of Flash advertising which destroys my favorite sites. I think of you, Tony, because, since you’re a Flash developer, this experience makes me hate you, just a little bit. That’s why I’m writing to let you know about ClickToFlash.

ClickToFlash is a browser plugin I’ve installed for Safari on the Mac which allows me to prevent you from taking advantage of me, Tony. It’s simple, and smart: load a page with flash without the plug in and see this:

But load a page with ClickToFlash installed and see this:

It’s beautiful, isn’t it? Page loads are nearly instantaneous!

But, I know what you’re saying, Tony. You’re saying, “What about my site — the one that’s all Flash and sweet, sweet sexiness. Can you still see it if you want to?” That’s the beauty of this plugin, Tony. Just click once on any flash box on the page and POW! … the Flash will load in a snap.

My browsing experience has become more smooth, more stable, and more sedate as a result, Tony. The preferences that ship with ClickToFlash allow you to do even smarter blocking than just turning off Flash. In fact, you can turn off Flash cookies, which are dangerous miscarriages of browser justice that do not expire by default, and store more information that you’d normally want in a cookie. I know you’d never use one, Tony, but if you want to learn more about them, read here.

So, I close by reminding you that as a person, when you’re not at a computer, there’s a lot to like about you, Tony. But the fact that you’ve devoted your life to Flash, well, it forces me to strongly recommend Safari users to cut you off by installing ClickToFlash. It’s donationware, and as such, worth exactly what you think it is.

Thanks for reading, man.

Pete

So Flash is kind of a big deal on new smartphones. The iPhone doesn’t have it, the Pre doesn’t have it, BlackBerry devices don’t have it… but the Hero does. Unfortunately, in our testing, we found the inclusion actually hurts operation of the phone more than it helps. When browsing to a site heavy on Flash (there are many), the browser loading times were abysmal. Furthermore, trying to view videos in-window produced choppy, nearly unwatchable results. You may have a better experience with lighter kinds of content, but in our opinion the main reason to introduce Flash into a mobile environment is to allow for broader media viewing options, and in the current state of this Flash player, you’re not really going to get much mileage out of it.

Watch the video and see for yourself. Loading the Flash movie is an atrocious, fist-pounding experience, and while I thought Topolsky nailed the rest of the review, on this point he was far too gracious. Two things I take out of it:

1) If your customers are clamoring for a feature in a product which you know will deliver a maddening experience for them, don’t deliver the feature. There’s a reason the iPhone doesn’t have Flash. There’s a reason the Blackberry doesn’t have Flash. There’s a reason the Pre doesn’t have Flash. It’s because the experience is abysmal for users.

2) This is more of a damning review for Adobe than it is for HTC. It’s clearly tough to scale Flash down to mobile devices, but it’s been years now and the natives are moving passed “restless” and into resignation that they’ll never get Flash at all. Politics aside, maybe HTML5 is a better bet?

On the flip side, Joe Klegseth (pres), Courtney LeBoeuf (account manager), and Stasia Brownell (project manager), appear to be quality people in a budding quality agency. If I was looking for agency marketing and branding assistance, this is a company looking to build and extend an already impressive reputation; I’d certainly give them a holler on the short list.

Check ‘em out. And thanks for the coffee and snacks!

Massive Friggin’ Annoyance Factor: All the niceties aside, why does every single marketing and branding agency have to lead with a completely bombastic Flash website? It’s heavy, ostentatious, pretentious, and it completely gets in the way of the message you’re trying to tell. 2Plural/evive is certainly not alone in this, they just come as the latest example of agentius adobus flashititus, an overwhelming need to prove to potential clients that you can deliver content in a medium that completely hides the fact that you have nothing of substance to say.

That, and if you try to visit the site in your iPhone, you’re plum out of luck.