Question

I would like to check if Flash is supported on the platform that hosts the browser. I don’t want to check is it is installed (I know how to do that). I just want to know if it’s reasonable to suggest to the user to install Flash plugin. If the page is viewed from iOS device that does not support Flash, I don’t want to show “Please install flash” message – I will display HTML5 version of the control then.

I know that one solution is check for iPad/iPhone/iPod in useragent to detect apple, but is there some library that check for more than only apple?

Answer 1

Then instead of showing the “Please install Flash” text, show instead the HTML5 version of the control. Put that HTML5 code where the “Please install Flash” is.

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Additionally, it’s easier (more like advisable) to use HTML5 first then fall back to Flash if not supported. Something like this:

<video src="html5_video_url">

    <!-- contents in here are only shown when video is not supported -->
    <embed src="flash_video_url"/>

</video>

Also, UA detection isn’t advisable since it can be modified.