10.2. Canvas and Flash

It seems that you can't go anywhere these days without someone claiming that canvas is a Flash killer, or that Flash is better than canvas. It's actually quite annoying, because there really isn't a battle between the two technologies; they serve completely different purposes!

Flash was created many years ago, and has evolved to solve some of the issues surrounding animation and multimedia on the Web. At the time, there were no native methods of drawing 2d graphics within the browser, or embedding video and audio. Flash solved these problems by providing a plugin that worked consistently across most, if not all browsers and platforms. It was a lifesaver!