Just a few years ago an online presentation like the one below wasn't possible unless you knew how to program in flash action script. And it needed to be an embedded flash file.
Probably the biggest reason why flash is frowned upon these days is because it's very device dependent for it's performance. Your phone or tablet needs to have a beeffy processor or graphics chip to display it smoothly.
Even worse, flash needs to be loaded onto each device and, everyone's favorite, it needs to be updated every other day for security!
Steve Jobs had these points in mind when he banned Flash from working on IOS devices. I say it all the time: Don't build your website in flash. Apple mobile devices don't see it. Nither do search engines well, they can't see into it.
Just a few years ago, flash was the only choice for slick interactive animations. Yet, today, without flash, and utilizing browser scripting languages, we can accomplish something amazing like below.
Embedded Link
100,000 Stars
An interactive 3D visualization of the stellar neighborhood, including over 100,000 nearby stars. Created for the Google Chrome web browser.
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