A Single Article

Internet Explorer and Flash Content

A while back a lot of web designers were figuratively running around with their heads cut off over a very complicated patent dispute involving Microsoft. You can read all about it over at mezzoblue.com if you don’t know the story already. I actually thought it was very troubling too. The thought of tons of embedded content not loading correctly and requiring user approval sounded appalling. I got to thinking users might actually go off in search of a better browser. A few Javascript options for working around this issue were offered, so at least user-conscious developers were able to address the issue (with a little undeserved work).

I don’t know how far Microsoft has gone in updating Windows computers as of late, but I’m pretty sure that all Windows XP systems with automatic updates enabled now have this fix. It may not be a problem, though. I realized something a few days ago: Internet Explorer users are so used to having their browser hijacked and exploding with spyware, adware, toolbars, popups, and annoying scripting hacks that they don’t even notice a little click-to-load restriction on flash content. IE users are closet masochists… they willingly subject themselves to all sorts of tech torture as it is. How would they ever notice anything different about embedded content with all the stuff they have sitting on top of their browser already? It’s not like they are even going to think of using the hacked search bar at the top of their viewport to find a better browser. They’ll take just about anything you throw at them. With all the faulty software they are already used to, they are practically trained to expect problems. What did we ever worry about?