HTML 5 <video> tag vs Flash video. What are the pros and cons?

Question

IMPORTANT UPDATE

This question was made over 9 years ago. It made sense then, it doesn\'t make it now. Flash is hard on its way out; sup

Answer 1

Current state of Flash is:

Flash Desktop platforms:

• IE
• Microsoft Edge
• Safari (Mac)
• Chrome
• FF
• Opera

Mobile browsers:

• No

So you can't use Flash video on mobile browsers because Flash Player is not pre-installed by default.

Optimal way - using HTML5 video with Flash fallback for those browsers where HTML5 video is not supported.