Why Adobe Flash Is Naughty and Requires Spanking

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There is a phrase among We-The-Technos that has been coming up in conversation a lot more often lately. That phrase is "TechTardiness". For Mac users, TechTard inspired anti-Apple hate is nothing new. By design or by error, the Macintosh platform has consistently been misrepresented in the press for decades, thus the extended phrase "TechTard Journalists". Walt Mossberg of the Wall Street Journal used to be among them. But like so many others, he got a Mac, tried it and found that it really is superior to the alternatives. I'm always pleased and full of praise when any of us cures our ignorance and moves beyond a regrettable  past.

Recent among opportunities to cure ignorance is coming to terms with Adobe Flash. Despite a shocking amount of published data regarding Flash's incredibly poor performance and its blatant dangers on the Mac platform, TechTardiness remains in full force. This past week there was an amazing addition to the chorus of ignorance from Patrick Lo, the Chairman and CEO of Netgear. His bizarro, crude and insightless comments are covered here:

Closed Apple headed for trouble as Jobs's ego bites: Netgear CEO

Patrick's obtuse slamming of Steve Jobs , (who is currently out ill from Apple, how brave of Patrick), includes this gem:

What's the reason for him to trash Flash? There's no reason other than ego.

For everyone's benefit, here is a list of reasons why Mac users trash Flash:

1) Adobe Flash eats the Mac's CPU alive.

2) Adobe Flash inexplicably continues to chew on the Mac's CPU after each Flash file has stopped playing.

3) The more open Flash files, running or not, the more the Mac's CPU is devoured.

4) Adobe Flash bombs Mac web browsers, particularly Apple's Safari browser, due to memory leaks.

5) Adobe Flash is the most dangerously insecure software for Mac. This is according to top Macintosh security experts such as Dr. Charlie Miller. (The #2 and #3 insecure software for Mac are Apple's QuickTime and Adobe's PDF format).

6) Adobe maintains an unrealistic quarterly 'band' system for providing Flash Player security updates. Every month during this summer, extending into October of 2010, a new 'out-of-band' security patch was required for Flash Player.

CONCLUSIONS:

All of the above Flash problems are verifiable by anyone with Google and the willingness to do their homework.

There are reasons why Flash blocking add-ons are extremely popular for Mac web browsers.

The next time someone denies or ignores all of the above, just laugh at them. There's FUD (Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt); And then there's DOS (Denial, Obfuscation and Stupidity). Neither are good for your health.

And Further More: 

For smirkers who like to brag that their PDA/Smartphone can play Flash, don't forget to tell everyone the following:

A) How well does Flash play on your gadget?

-and-

B) How well does its battery survive playing Flash?

The answer at this point in time is: Poorly.

I personally am open to Adobe repairing all these problems and making Flash a friendly member of the computer community. However, Adobe has consistently been in denial mode, despite a mountain of easily verifiable evidence to the contrary. IMHO Adobe is strangling their own baby. That bodes poorly for Flash's future. I wish it were not so.

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