[thelist] Reliable Flash detection

[Beau Hartshorne]

So what's the best way to detect if a browser uses Flash? What I've been
doing is creating a small (3 second) Flash file on the index page that says
"Detecting Flash..." then shoots visitors off to the flash intro/section
right away. The index page also contains a 6 second meta refresh to shoot
visitors the non flash part of the site (since the three second flash movie
didn't load, they must not have flash installed.) The meta tag doesn't seem
to start counting until the flash file is fully loaded.

I've seen a way to do it with JavaScript, but this method doesn't seem to be
as reliable (or simple) as the one I've described above. Am I wrong?

Thoughts?

Beau