A new Internet campaign is seeking to stop Flash ads from breaking websites across the entire web by convincing ad networks to make changes to their Flash embeds codes.
Flash Ads Are Broken, which launched yesterday, is focused on stopping Flash ads from creating nasty overlays and destroying site designs. The real issue though is that the campaign claims that site owners can't actually fix the problem. It's up to the ad networks (especially Google) to fix it on their side.
"It took me a while to come up with a partial solution," Flash Ads Are Broken campaign founder and Scribd Senior Product Developer James Yu told Mashable. "However, I figured out that when it's in an iFrame, it's impossible to fix. I was floored."
The campaign's goal is simple: to get advertising networks to change the wmode parameter in their Flash embeds to "transparent" or "opaque." In order to convince the ad networks to take action, Yu's campaign is trying to draw more awareness and attention to pressure them to make the change. The campaign's website even has a form where people can submit screenshots of offending Flash ads.
"Web developers around the world have been dealing with issues like this with Flash," Yu said. "I'm just trying to get the word out and bring awareness to this issue."
Yu goes on to say that a better solution would be for ad networks to adopt HTML5 instead of Flash for creating and delivering ads. "It'll happen," he stated.
There is one major issue that stands in the way of Yu's campaign though. Changing the wmode parameter in Flash embeds from "window" to "transparent" or "opaque" consumes more CPU. While the Flash Ads Are Broken campaign claims that consumers now have machines that are fast enough to avoid major issues, we're not in agreement. While most developed countries will have machines that can handle the additional CPU load, most developing nations have older and slower PCs that would be adversely affected by the change. Even newer machines could exhibit strain if there are enough Flash objects on the page.