How Flash both helped and hurt the web
After Apple’s iPad announcemet, Adobe Flash was inadvertently thrust into the spotlight. Apple’s tablet device was pitched as the future of web browsing, but just like the iPhone, support for Flash was conspicuously absent. This led to a discussion that ultimately split many commenters into two camps; those that believe the iPad’s lack of Flash makes it an inferior web browsing device (despite what Steve Jobs wants us to believe), and others who feel Flash is so detrimental to the web that the iPad would likely be better off without it.
Even before the iPad’s announcement, it’s generally been in vogue to criticize Flash for its masterful ability to hog your resources, or its overall instability. While I can’t deny that Flash is far from a perfect solution, it’s worth remembering Flash’s positive contributions to the internet, along with the bad.
The World Wide Web has promised a lot over the years. Thus far, some of those promises have been fulfilled, but there have also been disappointments. One area that I feel has been consistently disappointing in recent years is the promise of newer, more powerful, and more useful file formats. I’ll take a look at three of these: SVG, JPEG 2000, and MNG, below.
The 
