Question

I know about Adobe’s Flash Detection kit – but is there any way to find out simply if Flash is installed/supported by the visitor? If the browser supports Flash, that’s great, but I don’t care what version. I’m struggling to find a simple bit of JavaScript that would do the trick. Has anyone seen something like this?
Cheers!

Answer 1

<script language="JavaScript">

function detectPlugin() {
    // allow for multiple checks in a single pass
    var daPlugins = detectPlugin.arguments;
    // consider pluginFound to be false until proven true
    var pluginFound = false;
    // if plugins array is there and not fake
    if (navigator.plugins && navigator.plugins.length > 0) {
    var pluginsArrayLength = navigator.plugins.length;
    // for each plugin...
    for (pluginsArrayCounter=0; pluginsArrayCounter < pluginsArrayLength; pluginsArrayCounter++ ) {
        // loop through all desired names and check each against the current plugin name
        var numFound = 0;
        for(namesCounter=0; namesCounter < daPlugins.length; namesCounter++) {
        // if desired plugin name is found in either plugin name or description
        if( (navigator.plugins[pluginsArrayCounter].name.indexOf(daPlugins[namesCounter]) >= 0) || 
            (navigator.plugins[pluginsArrayCounter].description.indexOf(daPlugins[namesCounter]) >= 0) ) {
            // this name was found
            numFound++;
        }   
        }
        // now that we have checked all the required names against this one plugin,
        // if the number we found matches the total number provided then we were successful
        if(numFound == daPlugins.length) {
        pluginFound = true;
        // if we've found the plugin, we can stop looking through at the rest of the plugins
        break;
        }
    }
    }
    return pluginFound;
} // detectPlugin



function detectFlash() {
    pluginFound = detectPlugin('Shockwave','Flash'); 
    // if not found, try to detect with VisualBasic
    if(!pluginFound && detectableWithVB) {
    pluginFound = detectActiveXControl('ShockwaveFlash.ShockwaveFlash.1');
    }
    // check for redirection
    if (pluginFound) {
    alert ("You has teh flash");
    }
}
detectFlash();

</script>

Adapted from:
http://developer.apple.com/internet/webcontent/detectplugins.html