MAMA: Plug-ins
Index:
Introduction
The Web has multiple elements to handle plug-ins because of simple evolution.
At first, there was no standardized way to use plug-ins, so solutions arose
haphazardly—APPLET
, EMBED
and PARAM
. The standards process produced a cohesive
solution in the for of the OBJECT
element, but authoring inertia
seems to indicate that APPLET
and EMBED
are not going anywhere. Rather than the OBJECT
element
being used instead of EMBED
, for
instance, the majority of OBJECT
tags are used
in conjunction with EMBED
elements.
In all, 503,783 URLs use both EMBED
and OBJECT
elements (94.46% of all OBJECT
and 92.31% of all
EMBED
instances).
ELEMENT | Frequency |
---|---|
PARAM | 576,702 |
OBJECT | 533,343 |
EMBED | 545,734 |
APPLET | 52,160 |
PARAM
element
This element can be a child element of both the APPLET
and OBJECT
elements, allowing parameters to be passed
to a plug-in. Very few documents use APPLET
and
OBJECT
without a PARAM
;
APPLET
and OBJECT
were
used in a combined 580,031 cases, and PARAM
was used
in 576,702 of those (99.43%). The Value
and
Name
attributes are used in almost every instance
where PARAM
was found. There is no limit to the number
of parameters that can be passed to a plug-in, but authors typically refrain
from using them to excess. The average number of PARAM
elements in a document when PARAM
is used is 8.6.
However, the most popular quantity of PARAM
elements is 2—probably related to Flash usage, where the common OBJECT
syntax uses 2 PARAM
s. A full
frequency table of PARAM
quantities is available
for your viewing pleasure.
ELEMENT/Attribute | Frequency |
---|---|
PARAM | 576,702 |
Value | 576,554 |
Name | 576,508 |
Valuetype | 14,489 |
Ref | 951 |
URLs using the most PARAM
elements
The maximum number of PARAM
elements detected in a
single document was a dizzying 4,025 (!!). These extremes for PARAM
usage appear to vary over time. Jackandsusie.com, as originally analyzed, had 4,025
PARAM
elements but at the time of writing it had 2,087.
The next highest value detected (not listed below) had almost no PARAM
elements at the time of writing. Three of the four extreme PARAM
usages listed were in conjunction with the APPLET
element.
(Really, there are easier ways to create dynamic button effects and
flashy scrollers!)
URL | Quantity PARAM Elements |
---|---|
http://www.jackandsusie.com/ | 4,025 |
http://cotidianasvistas.blogspot.com/ | 1,320 |
http://www.ocracokeisland.com/index.htm | 1,150 |
http://www.selectconsult.ro/ | 1,022 |
The Name
attribute
The most popular values here are the top two, at more than 2-to-1 over any other values. These values, "movie" and "quality", are both related to Flash usage.
Name value | Frequency | Name value | Frequency | |
---|---|---|---|---|
movie | 529,950 | loop | 74,815 | |
quality | 503,365 | scale | 60,251 | |
bgcolor | 227,371 | play | 43,362 | |
wmode | 119,030 | flashvars | 38,759 | |
allowscriptaccess | 94,394 | base | 33,225 | |
menu | 80,290 | salign | 31,647 |
APPLET
element
This element is used to embed Java Applets in a document. When Applets are in
use, the average quantity detected was 2.7, and the most popular number of
Applets per document was 1. Judging by their overwhelming popularity, it appears
that authors treat Code
, Height
,
and Width
as required attributes. A full
frequency table of APPLET
quantities is on hand.
ELEMENT/Attribute | Frequency | ELEMENT/Attribute | Frequency | |
---|---|---|---|---|
APPLET | 52,160 | Name | 6,558 | |
Code | 52,137 | Alt | 3,874 | |
Height | 52,101 | Hspace | 2,284 | |
Width | 52,097 | Vspace | 1,676 | |
Codebase | 27,661 | Mayscript | 1,417 | |
Archive | 10,706 | Viewastext | 801 | |
Align | 10,578 |
URLs using the most APPLET
elements
Some URLs use large numbers of Java applets, often for disappointingly
little return (all the URLs listed below use Java to create animated push
button effects). The maximum number of APPLET
elements detected by MAMA was 82. Other documents also used
similarly high numbers of applets, with several URLs registering quantities
above 50 for a single URL.
URL | Quantity APPLET Elements |
---|---|
http://www.ez2.net/trojanforce/index.htm (URL no longer active) | 82 |
http://www.televisioninternet.com/ | 79 |
http://www.kilowattsoftware.com/glitterWarePageIE.htm | 73 |
http://laramsfreakworks.homestead.com/ | 66 |
EMBED
element
This element is the outdated method to include inline plug-in
content in a document. Its use has been officially supplanted by the
OBJECT
element in the standards, but OBJECT
has not quite overtaken EMBED
in usage numbers
(EMBED
is still slightly more popular than
OBJECT
). Additionally, most
cases indicate that EMBED
and OBJECT
are usually used together (over 90% of URLs that use EMBED
also use OBJECT
). Similar to the APPLET
element, there are 3 attributes that are used in almost every case—one to
specify the URL of the plug-in content (Src
in this
case), and two others for the content's dimensions (Height
and Width
). Also very widely used are the Type
,
Pluginspage
and Quality
attributes.
The average number of EMBED
elements in a document when it
is used is 1.7, with the most popular EMBED
quantity being
1. A full frequency table of EMBED
quantities is available.
ELEMENT/Attribute | Frequency | ELEMENT/Attribute | Frequency | |
---|---|---|---|---|
EMBED | 545,734 | Align | 135,043 | |
Src | 545,257 | Wmode | 84,745 | |
Width | 537,814 | Allowscriptaccess | 75,118 | |
Height | 537,448 | Loop | 65,530 | |
Type | 510,242 | Menu | 50,029 | |
Pluginspage | 491,348 | Scale | 40,412 | |
Quality | 484,736 | Play | 22,271 | |
Bgcolor | 194,952 | Flashvars | 19,612 | |
Name | 138,809 | Autostart | 19,301 |
URLs using the most EMBED
elements
The maximum number of EMBED
elements that MAMA found
was 186, but the usage in that case is questionable: all the EMBED
s
in that URL have dimensions, but no Src
attribute, so
this example does not represent the element in a realistic fashion. The first "legitimate"
maximum detected used 113 EMBED
elements. This and the
other URLs mentioned below were all uses of multiple Flash objects.
URL | Quantity EMBED Elements |
---|---|
http://k2.secure-banking.com/1102a.cfm | 186 |
http://www.donanimhaber.com/index.asp (URL no longer active) | 113 |
http://www.sanpetersburgo.com/idiomam.htm | 112 |
http://www.xtec.es/aulanet/ud/ciencies/taula/index.htm (URL no longer active) | 110 |
OBJECT
element
To wrap up the plug-in-related elements, we come to the OBJECT
element. It was introduced in HTML 4.0 to accomplish all of the tasks associated with
the APPLET
and EMBED
elements,
as well as assuming other unrelated duties such as hosting inline images.
Dimensions and paths to the plug-in content are again the dominant attributes.
The most popular number of OBJECT
elements used is 1,
and the average number of OBJECT
elements when they are
used is 1.7. As ever, MAMA has a full frequency table
of OBJECT
quantities for your perusal.
ELEMENT/Attribute | Frequency | ELEMENT/Attribute | Frequency | |
---|---|---|---|---|
OBJECT | 533,343 | Hspace | 8,839 | |
Width | 528,107 | Viewastext | 6,190 | |
Height | 527,771 | Standby | 2,261 | |
Classid | 497,697 | Alt | 1,480 | |
Codebase | 493,980 | Wmode | 941 | |
Align | 127,294 | Allowscriptaccess | 817 | |
Type | 27,257 | Allownetworking | 789 | |
Data | 24,261 | Namo_flashbutton | 513 | |
Border | 17,633 | Bgcolor | 500 | |
Vspace | 8,900 |
URLs using the most OBJECT
elements
The maximum number of OBJECT
s that MAMA detected
was 1,554; although the count from that URL at the time of writing stands
much lower at 924, it is still far and away the highest OBJECT
frequency from any URL that MAMA looked at. Unfortunately, all of the OBJECT
elements in this case appear to do nothing. Every one of the 924 OBJECT
instances at that URL carry Height
and Width
only but no content. For more "reasonable" maximum numbers of OBJECT
elements, we proceed to the next URLs on the list which have ~100-200 OBJECT
s
each. These instances all use Flash.
URL | Quantity OBJECT Elements |
---|---|
http://www.jimcoservices.com/ | 1554 |
http://www.loiclemeur.com/france/podcasting/ (URL no longer active) | 191 |
http://www.sanpetersburgo.com/idiomam.htm | 112 |
http://www.xtec.es/aulanet/ud/ciencies/taula/index.htm (URL no longer active) | 110 |
The Classid
attribute
A Classid
value is a 32-digit hexadecimal string
that can be used to uniquely identify a Microsoft Windows ActiveX component
for interpreting the content pointed to by the OBJECT
.
The Classid
attribute value was tracked by MAMA to
see if anything could be learned from its usage in the real world. Unfortunately,
the full frequency table is not terribly
easy to read; a Classid
may be easy to interpret by
a computer but humans are another matter entirely. Your favorite search
engine can make quick work of deciphering these cryptic strings. The top
Classid
value detected (by a HUGE
margin) was the Flash player (Classid
:
"d27cdb6e-ae6d-11cf-96b8-444553540000").
Classid | Plugin Type | Frequency |
---|---|---|
d27cdb6e-ae6d-11cf-96b8-444553540000 | Adobe Flash | 500,417 |
22d6f312-b0f6-11d0-94ab-0080c74c7e95 | Windows Media Player | 2,704 |
6bf52a52-394a-11d3-b153-00c04f79faa6 | Windows Media Player | 1,732 |
02bf25d5-8c17-4b23-bc80-d3488abddc6b | Apple Quicktime | 691 |
Flash and Java usage
So far in this document, I have mostly skirted around the issue of what types of plug-ins are in use on the Web, but MAMA did not try to avoid this in its research. In fact it specifically looked for as many manifestations as possible of two widely used plug-ins: Flash and Java.
Flash
MAMA tried to discover evidence of Flash usage in every document it analyzed. It had to resort to looking for a number of different factors, as authors can use Flash in many ways. Its use was detected by looking for one or more of the following components:
- Any
PARAM
element that contained the substrings ".swf" or "flash" - Any MIME types containing the substring "flash"
from
EMBED
[Src
] andOBJECT
[Data
] URLs - Any scripting component containing the substring "flash" or ".swf"
Using these criteria, 1,176,227 URLs were found to be using Flash. This is a
MUCH higher result than one would expect by looking solely at
the EMBED
and OBJECT
elements.
This means that either some aspect(s) of MAMA's detection mechanism are too
relaxed, or that some part of the analysis is flagging a lot of positive matches
that EMBED
or OBJECT
detection
alone does not catch. If any part of the above detection is suspect, it is likely
to be the scripting detection of Flash (due to the simplistic nature of its
substring search). Judging by anecdotal evidence seen over the years, the number
is probably pretty accurate; scripting is frequently given the duty of dynamically
generating plug-in markup.
It should also be noted that MAMA did not explicitly use the Classid
attribute to help declare the Flash totals. That does not appear to be a hindrance
though. Adding those URLs using the Flash Classid
(d27cdb6e-ae6d-11cf-96b8-444553540000) to the Flash tally causes absolutely
no change to the total. This indicates that checking for the Flash
Classid
would be a redundant search factor.
Java
As with Flash, there were a number of methods MAMA used to detect Java usage. Some of the policies used could be improved upon, but all in all they work rather well. The following criteria were used to judge whether or not Java was being used in a URL and resulted in the detection of 53,688 matches:
- Any usage of the
APPLET
element - Any
PARAM
element that contained the substrings ".class" or "java" - Any MIME types containing the substring "java"
from getting any
OBJECT
[Data
] URLs - Any scripting component containing the substring "application/java-vm"
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