Let’s face it: Flash is a mess. Hardly a week goes by without a new exploit and its performance problems are legion. Steve Jobs famously hated Flash and refused to allow its use in iOS. My Linux distribution strongly recommends against its use every time a new version of Flash is installed. In the meantime, HTML5 is poised to replace Flash.
Now Apple has pounded another nail into Flash’s coffin. As of OS X 10.7.4, OS X will disable Flash unless you have the latest version installed. They could have just installed the latest version for you as they have in the past but apparently decided to give their users a nudge by making them consciously choose to install Flash.
I’ve long thought about disabling Flash but it always seemed to me that I’d miss out on too much content that I might want to see. Nonetheless, after the upgrade I didn’t upgrade Flash and have been running Flash-free for the last few weeks. I have to say that not only have I not missed Flash, I’ve hardly noticed it’s gone.
I’m interested in other people’s experiences. I know many folks have stopped using Flash (whether or not they’re OS X users) but I have no idea of how widespread this is. If you’ve stopped using Flash or are thinking about doing so, leave a comment with your thoughts. Likewise, if you’ve consciously decided to continue using Flash, leave a comment with your reasoning.