It’s hard to believe that I’ve run learnswfobject.com for nearly ten years. It’s easy to overlook now, but back when Flash was booming, before iOS and Android changed everything, SWFObject was a very important piece of web technology. According to BuiltWith.com, SWFObject’s usage peaked
This is a journey into the madness of Internet Explorer. Yes, there is a happy ending. Jump to the end of the post if you just want the solution and don’t care about how we got there. The Scenario You want to embed a Flash SWF into your HTML
I’ve been reviewing bug submissions for the SWFObject project and was reminded of a big problem with SWFObject 2.2: the JavaScript technique it uses for detecting Internet Explorer does not work in Internet Explorer 9. SWFObject 2.2 currently uses an IE detection technique proposed by Andrea Giammarchi
Update, Dec. 2018: LearnSWFObject.com has been retired. It had a successful run, but with the demise of Adobe Flash, was no longer relevant. The domain learnswfobject.com is now owned by a squatter, don’t bother visiting. The site contents are preserved on GitHub, available at https://pipwerks.github.
Update: In 2013, four years after I posted this blog entry, Eolas lost their court case and subsequent appeals. Eolas Technologies is a company that manages licensing for patents. Eolas seeks to return value to its shareholders by commercializing these technologies through strategic alliances, licensing and spin offs. (source) The