title: Linking directly to a SWF, what are the downsides?
body: <p>Usually Flash and Flex applications are embedded on in HTML using either a combination of <code>object</code> and <code>embed</code> tags, or more commonly using JavaScript. However, if you link directly to a SWF file it will open in the browser window and without looking in the address bar you can't tell that it wasn't embedded in HTML with the size set to 100% width and height.</p>
  
  <p>Considering the overhead of the HTML, CSS and JavaScript needed to embed a Flash or Flex application filling 100% of the browser window, what are the downsides of linking directly to the SWF file instead? What are the upsides?</p>
  
  <p>I can think of one upside and three downsides: you don't need the 100+ lines of HTML, JavaScript and CSS that are otherwise required, but you have no plugin detection, no version checking and you lose your best SEO option (progressive enhancement).</p>
  
  <p><em>Update</em> don't get hung up on the 100+ lines, I simply mean that the the amount of code needed to embed a SWF is quite a lot (and I mean including libraries like SWFObject), and it's just for displaying the SWF, which can be done without a single line by linking to it directly.</p>