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New Flash Player penetration statistics

adobe.com — There are new sets of statistics regarding Flash Player penetration. Adobe uses these penetration statistics as proof that the Flash Player really is as prevalent as everyone says it is.

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  • jrepin, on 10/12/2007, -14/+32It would be more interesting to see how they (don't) support different platforms, like 64-bit operating systems, Linux, BSD and so on.
    • rolosworld, on 10/12/2007, -7/+18I find it interesting that flash 8 has a 10% difference since flash 8 is not available on Linux.
    • barfnz, on 10/12/2007, -10/+23ignoring Linux is a certain way to cut your access to a growing future market off at the knees. silly adobe.
    • Jaymoon, on 10/12/2007, -27/+11Well what would linux users want to do with flash anyway? They are too busy coding programs, hacking into the FBI, and sending out Windows viruses.

      They don't have time for games and banner ads. And I don't think their text-only command line browser would support it anyway...
    • ScottMaximus, on 10/12/2007, -21/+7Don't Forget Telling Windows Users how useless their Game and Application Filled Operating System is.
    • dshPls, on 10/12/2007, -25/+5lol the zealots always bitch when flash becomes a topic, here's an idea donkeys, GET A REAL OS
    • ElectricGrandpa, on 10/12/2007, -7/+24Honestly, if you pick a non-mainstream OS, how can you expect everything to be available on it?
    • bpapa, on 10/12/2007, -11/+20also if you are using linux shouldnt you be shutting the ***** up and instead spending your time on getting it to work on your system? that kinda is in the spirit of linux.
    • PJBonoVox, on 10/12/2007, -8/+11They don't support Linux, yet Flash is prevalent. What does that tell you?
    • anchorman, on 10/12/2007, -4/+11They do support Linux... just not very well! Adobe needs to get their act together. Treating Linux like an ugly step-child is like ignoring an elephant in your living room! Linux is an extremely techy crowd... don't you want the tech crowd on your side Adobe? You should have Flash 9 available for Linux on the exact same day it is available on lesser OSes like Windows! WAKE UP ADOBE!!!
    • r2d7, on 10/12/2007, -7/+3Maybe if Linux actually had a notable share of the desktop market Adobe'd care.

      Why should they pour time and money into Flash players for linux when linux's desktop market share is under 1%?
    • CptnObvious, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4@r2d7: Maybe if Adobe supported Linux it would have more market share. Also how does anyone know the market share Linux has? there are so many distributions and anyone can burn multiple copies and give them to friends and such that it is impossible to know the actual number.The numbers that you people think it is probably way off, because there are too many variables to take into account when coming up with a percentage.

      Anyways I have given up on Adobe. Gnash FTW!
    • elroy, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3"Treating Linux like an ugly step-child is like ignoring an elephant in your living room!"

      Um... what?
  • i440, on 10/12/2007, -17/+18Maybe its just lower because everyone hasnt upgraded yet?
    • PJBonoVox, on 10/12/2007, -5/+6This comment makes total sense, yet Digg, being Digg, mods it down.
  • foobar5892, on 10/12/2007, -13/+4Why don't the percentages add up to 100?
    • chadu, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7This just shows the percentage of people capable of playing each version level of Flash, so that developers have a better idea of what features they can include.

      Now that Google analytics is open, however, every developer can ge that same info, only specific for the sites they are working on.
    • Sonic_Molson, on 10/12/2007, -16/+5Because these statistics are made up my adobe to make their product look more popular than it is. While I have no doubt that they do have a large market share, there is no way they can calculate accurately their penetration which they claim to be 696m users.
    • miscfiles, on 10/12/2007, -6/+2"Now that Google analytics is open, however, every developer can get that same info, only specific for the sites they are working on."

      Sure, assuming the developers have Flash...
    • ElectricGrandpa, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5"Because these statistics are made up my adobe to make their product look more popular than it is. While I have no doubt that they do have a large market share, there is no way they can calculate accurately their penetration which they claim to be 696m users."

      Yes... That's why all the stats are gathered by other companies... Haven't you noticed how popular Flash is? It's easily possible that these stats are correct... they might even be a little low!


      "Sure, assuming the developers have Flash..."

      Obviously.
  • chadu, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4This will be far more interesting when Flash Player 9 is added at the next survey release. I haven't seen any sites that require 9 yet, even though I have already upgraded.
    • gonephishin, on 10/12/2007, -0/+9Maybe you haven't seen them because you've upgraded already. I've found a few that don't work with 8.
    • smoothoperatah, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4actually myspace requires flash player 9 for its music player now.
    • Sukino, on 10/12/2007, -4/+8@smoothoperatah

      I'm happy I don't know that.
  • MasterWizard, on 10/12/2007, -27/+2umm, why is this here?
  • anonymoustroll, on 10/12/2007, -19/+5All that it will take is one good MySpace flash worm and it will deinstall its market share from internet connected computer in 15 hours.

    ...the life and times of a web browser plug-in is a fragile and tenuous thing; flash has lived will beyond its nine lives.
    • dshPls, on 10/12/2007, -5/+6Because no one uses quicktime or PDF's with a browser right? Plugins are still scattered...but flash can do all these things, like google video, and flash paper...things CSS noobs have wet dreams about, I'd bargain to say that more people can actually view flash than they can view CSS, because flash looks 100% the same in every OS, every browser...
    • MrPhelps, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2If by "every os" you mean "Microsoft windows", then yes, you are right.
    • anonymoustroll, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1> If by "every os" you mean "Microsoft windows", then yes, you are right.

      Ok then... "almost every OS".
  • notfred, on 10/12/2007, -11/+25Just because a web developer can use Flash, doesn't mean they should.
    • beermad, on 10/12/2007, -6/+23I'd rather put it, "If you haven't got anything to say, say it with Flash".
    • gambl0r, on 10/12/2007, -5/+4Thanks for sharing. The link isn't deabting that, it's providing statistics on how many people have the player installed. Just because you used the word Flash in your comment doesn't mean its on topic.
    • ElectricGrandpa, on 10/12/2007, -3/+3Just like ANY OTHER technology...
    • kevincannon, on 10/12/2007, -2/+4Just because a user can make an obvious comment on Digg doesn't meant they should either, but you still do!


      Any decent designer knows that Flash is a tool, useful in some circumstances, not in another. There's no absolute in the argument, it's all variable depending on the situation.
  • cheeseroll, on 10/12/2007, -3/+1The new flash player is a "custom think" for myspace’s requirements....no other comment.
  • edwardoh, on 10/12/2007, -4/+12Ahh .. but how many poeple use FlashBlock? As long as Flash in OSX slows down my computer to a crawl I will continue to block Flash. Actually why on earth does Flash run so poorly in OSX???

    http://flashblock.mozdev.org/
    http://pimpmycamino.com/parts/camiflash
    • striker1211, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3Because they have better penetration on mac, which means they screw you over more...
    • bigdaftdave, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5It's all to do with marketshare. I've done lots of testing of flash on various browsers / platforms and it works best in IE on windows, cos that's what most users use and that's what macromedia/adobe developers spend their time optimising. flash in firefox on windows is nearer the performance of flash in safari on a mac.
    • althe3rduww, on 10/12/2007, -5/+7I never have problems with flash, ever. And flash block does not block all ads since not all ads are using flash. I see no point in limiting flash on a machine. If you do that you might as well turn of javascript while your at it. Have fun with the web.
    • cmhanck, on 10/12/2007, -2/+5I use Flash on OSX in Safari and Firefox. Never really had a problem. I also use it on Windows in Firefox. Once again, no major problems. It's more about the individual Flash movie than the plugin itself. It's easy to write really crappy apps in Flash. Then again, the same can be said for VB or any other language...
    • jonnyeh, on 10/12/2007, -3/+6"you might as well turn of javascript while your at it"

      Good idea! I suggest the 'noscript' firefox extension.
    • jest3r, on 10/12/2007, -2/+2I use Flashblock ... whenever theres more than 1 Flash element on a webpage my CPU usage goes through the roof and everything runs slow. The only way to get the flash movies to speed up is my clicking the mouse on the movie itself. This is Firefox on OSX. Actually Flashblock really cleans up annoying animations and speeds up the browsing experience quite a bit in OSX. Don't really need it in Windows as these problems don't exist.

    • albertross, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0I had problems getting the above to work in Camino, so instead use an external flash switch app: http://jroller.com/page/malformed?entry=flash_switch_take_2
    • ZetaEta, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Actually, thank you for that link. There's a particular ad on the Wired blogs (usually their gadget or automotive topics) which gives me seizures because of the way it fades in text and images with bright flashes at just the wrong pulse rate. If I can block it for good, I'll be very very happy.
  • h00paj00, on 10/12/2007, -3/+20Any Flash on a website is still better than crap Active X that some sites still use.
    • althe3rduww, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3i couldn't agree more
    • digital1, on 10/12/2007, -5/+7Flash is an ActiveX control, but through great marketing, people have forgot this. It has all the same issues that comes with ActiveX, namely security.
    • ElectricGrandpa, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3It's not activeX in firefox...
  • bigdaftdave, on 10/12/2007, -8/+2balls. missed reply button. bury.
  • Apreche, on 10/12/2007, -8/+7Notice that Flash 7 and all previous versions have over 90%, but Flash 8 has a relatively large dropoff. That's because a newer version of Flash hasn't been released for Linux yet. Web developers, you must make all Flash compatible with Flash 7 until a newer Flash version is released for Linux.
    • chadu, on 10/12/2007, -4/+6I highly doubt that Linux usage is causing the dropoff.

      I think the dropoff is more likely because while the Flash 8 IDE was huge improvement over MX2004, the actual features released to the player were largely ingnored by content proivders (at least temporarily) because they mainly dealt with aesthetics (eg. Detailed stroke control, video with Alpha channels, etc)...

      Whereas Flash player 6 vs 7 was a big deal as it introduced Actionscript 2 and a whole new component architecture.
    • Omar12, on 10/12/2007, -7/+6As a flash developer, Flash 7 is the safest to go now. But I will not limit myself developing a Flash 7 site because there is no Linux plug-in for Flash 8. The vast majority users do not use Linux, and they are the target market of Flash websites.
    • dshPls, on 10/12/2007, -7/+4Caring about .0002% of the web browsers around, is not my worry.
    • ElectricGrandpa, on 10/12/2007, -3/+2Guys, let me get this through to you: Flash 8 has the FASTEST ADOPTION RATE of any Flash player to date. The only reason that it's 10% lower is because it hasn't been out long enough yet. 80% is extremely high anyway... I work as a professional Flash Developer, and all of our sites are Flash 8 now... Anyone who doesn't have the plug-in with just get the auto-updates to turn their Flash 6/7 into Flash 8... Unless they're a linux user, but heh, they don't expect everything to work for them anyway :)
  • LoudOrangeCat, on 10/12/2007, -3/+5The Flash for Linux current version is 7,0,63,0

    When websites like Myspace now require Flash 9, Adobe seems to be leaving out the powerusers.

    Adobe's stats are horrifically skewed.
    • blackmariah, on 10/12/2007, -21/+5Power users, or hopelessly pathetic ***** that confuse software with the meaning of life?
    • ateoto, on 10/12/2007, -5/+18Yes, because all Linux users are pathetic *****, and Windows users are the epitome of all that is awesome, manly, and sexy in this world. Grow up, get out of your parents basement. There are pathetic ***** in every walk of life, you're the perfect example.
    • ashebanow, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3See this blog from the guy who is porting Flash 9 to Linux:

      http://blogs.adobe.com/penguin.swf/
  • fishdan, on 10/12/2007, -7/+10The basic concept behind flash is adware. It can be used for other things, eevn good things, but what people use flash for the most is ads, because they are obtrusive and unavoidable if you have flash installed. Until Adobe makes it so that I can selectively choose to view or avoid flash on a page, I'm going to keep it uninstalled on my personal browser and block it at the switch level in my corporate environments.

    http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=193417&cid=15868989
    • althe3rduww, on 10/12/2007, -6/+7Wow, can i get what your smoking? but seriously....Flash is in no way mainly for adware. Not only can it not operate as adware locally on a machine due to security requirements in the player but its only form as an ad is a banner. And thats only because people wanted to make the ads more attractive. Flash has far far more uses and was not intended nor is it largely used as adware.
    • dbug, on 10/12/2007, -0/+10"Until Adobe makes it so that I can selectively choose to view or avoid flash on a page,..."

      Like someone else noted already, there is a firefox extension that lets you do exactly that:
      http://flashblock.mozdev.org/
    • topside, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3"Until Adobe makes it so that I can selectively choose to view or avoid flash on a page, I'm going to keep it uninstalled on my personal browser and block it at the switch level in my corporate environments."

      That's pretty remarkable fishdan.

      I never knew a layer-2 device could tag/filter application-layer data. Oh wait, it can't. Good thing you're not REALLY in control of any corporate enviornments!!
  • althe3rduww, on 10/12/2007, -3/+5By the way, flash 8 in april according to this same site was only at 68% and that was because it had just been released. I am willing to bet by the next survey flash 8 will be over 90%.

    What this shows us is that flash is just as ubiquitous as javascript. Many reports say javascript is turned off in about 7% of the market. So regardless of everyones flash bashing its no more dangerous to use than javascript on your site.
    • barfnz, on 10/12/2007, -10/+2flash is to the web what fox news is to plebians
  • pirplepig, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0myspace.com recommends flash player 9, also I hate the way Adobe's options interface works its slow and crappy. If anyone knows a good open source/any alternative for adobe flash that runs on WinXP, let me and the world know.
  • tranquilize, on 10/12/2007, -6/+41. i can't believe you guys are saying such horrible things about flash. the only downside is the lack of support on all operating systems.
    2. stop using myspace.
    • ScottMaximus, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6Flash is misused just like a lot of web technologies.
  • digital1, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1The timing of the stats seems auspicious, why not wait until Flash player 9 was released and show the actual aboption rate of flash. Maybe this has something to do with their latest software release Flex which relies on Flash 9. Their probably won't be to many takers on Flex if developers learned only ~10% of the people could use that new Flex app they just built.
    • ashebanow, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0These stats are released every quarter
  • appidydafoo, on 10/12/2007, -2/+4Mmmm, Penetration Statistics!
  • goat4, on 10/12/2007, -0/+12I got your penetration statistics right here baby
  • dontbejack, on 10/12/2007, -3/+4I prefer my traditional penetration, thank you very much. I'm not into this kinky "Flash Player penetration."
  • KaptainKandy, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0@Jaymoon


    Getting viruses on a Windows OS...NOOO...Never! Perhaps it isn't the Linux users you should be worried about so much as your perfectly coded kernal.
  • o0joshua0o, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3Flash is a great tool. Don't hate it just because it's misused by some people. Almost any technology can be abused.
  • digitallysick, on 10/12/2007, -4/+2Whats the stats look like from linux users and flash 9?? oh yeah, i forgot
  • skellener, on 10/12/2007, -6/+3Flash = worst video deliver system ever! It may be everywhere, but c'mon - it's 2006! Why settle for hideously compressed video? This isn't 1999. We deserve better.
    • kevincannon, on 10/12/2007, -2/+8Flash video is actually better. It's cleaner than Quicktime of Windows Media player, and doens't require a large plugin download.

      The only reason it's so compressed is because the website author chooses it to be. It's not an inherant limitation of Flash by any means. Flash supports high quality video.
    • skellener, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2Hmmm....really? Have a look at any QT file up on the Apple site. Then compare it to any file posted on YouTube. Can you see a bit of a difference there?
    • scorpioz, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0@kevincannon is right. If you have ever used flash you will know that whenever you import any video in flash you get the option to choose the quality. High/med/low or even use "advanced" settings to define custom bit-rate (quality etc).
      The only reason the videos are not as good looking as the quick-time ones are because people are trying to make smaller sized videos. So its about the file size not the quality of videos flash can handle.
    • JackAxe, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I compress loads of video for the Web. Although QT is the best hands down for playback and quality, a "properly" compressed FLV using the right tools can look very clean, and loads quickly on a decent connection. The problem has mainly been Flash's included compressors. Although the standalone compressor from Sorenson does an excellent job, the included version for Flash downright sucks, even with F8. But on hte other hand, Adobe has done a great job with "On2 VP6," which offers a big improvement over their previous vomit. It's quality is up their with WMV9, but not as good as H.264.
  • barthook, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2You think youtube has anything to do with the increased penetration? After all, they make viewers download the latest version. Just a thought.
  • bfoot, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0I hate flash ad. I hate it so much that I block it on the proxy server (squid). What a relief.
  • Slump, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Are you seriously comparing meticulously converted, hand tweeked encodings of cinema grade sources (quicktime clips on Apple's site) with bulk, machine-encodings of digital camera, DV, cellphone, and VCR video, and using it to make a conclusion about the relative quality of flash video vs quicktime?

    Cuz, if you are, that's kind of stupid.
  • xr56n44, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1If they claiming that 97% of people detest flash, that's a statistic i could believe.
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