[thelist] Sound in webpages

[Richard Bennett]

On Thursday 11 November 2004 21:31, Wilma Schilder wrote:
> According to Macromedia:
>
> http://www.macromedia.com/software/player_census/flashplayer/

Makes me wonder though...
98% have flash...
I don't, and none of the searchengines do.
88% have Java.
I have never ever had Java on any browser in over 10 years...
55% have shockwave?
Again, I've never had it.
51% media player...
Nope - don't have it.
In fact, of the whole list I only have Adobe Acrobat

Then if we check how they got these statistics it says:
"In March 2004, NPD Research, the parent company of MediaMetrix, conducted a 
study to determine what percentage of Web browsers have Macromedia Flash 
preinstalled.The results show that 98.0% of Web users can experience 
Macromedia Flash content without having to download and install a player."

Now, firstly I wonder how that study got them the statistics about Java, 
Shockwave, Mediaplayer etc, and secondly, browser-use stats show 
Mozilla-based browsers use to be somewhere over 10% at the moment - and the 
Firefox versions I downloaded came without Flash pre-installed, in fact I 
don't think any browsers beside IE have Flash pre-installed, so if that's the 
measure they use to say 98% have Flash, I wouldn't be surprised if the true 
number is more like 75%.

So what to use to play music on a website? MP3.
If you have something worth listening to put a link to the MP3 - the user can 
then open it in the player of their choice, and if it was supposed to be 
background music, don't bother at all.

Richard

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