Do You Have Flash?

plugins and media 1998 dead

Every Flash site opened by interrogating navigator.plugins, deciding whether to show the intro or the download nag.

In 2026: Dead as a detector. navigator.plugins still exists but since 2021 it returns the same hardcoded list of five PDF viewer entries for everyone, because the real list was a fingerprinting goldmine. The demo prints what your browser admits to, which is what every other browser admits to. Flash itself ended in 2020.

Where it came from: Netscape JavaScript 1.1 navigator.plugins, 1996. The nag-or-intro pattern was every Flash site's front door. MDN ↗

<script language="JavaScript">
// Does the visitor have Flash? Walk the plugin list and see.
var hasFlash = false;
for (var i = 0; i < navigator.plugins.length; i++) {
  if (navigator.plugins[i].name.indexOf("Shockwave Flash") != -1)
    hasFlash = true;
}
document.write(hasFlash
  ? "<p>Flash detected. Loading intro...</p>"
  : "<p>No Flash. <a href='#'>Click here to download the plugin.</a></p>");

// What does the browser admit to in 2026?
document.write("<ul>");
for (var j = 0; j < navigator.plugins.length; j++)
  document.write("<li>" + navigator.plugins[j].name + "</li>");
document.write("</ul>");
</script>

sandboxed demo · breaks nothing but itselfrestart

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