A Flash movie can provide animation, sound and interactivity to a page. Text and graphic animation is possible with slide, zoom and fade effects. Movies can play in a linear fashion or can be directed to different scenes depending on a user's mouse movements. If movement is required in a web page, GIF files can be animated but there is a drawback.

Since each frame of animation requires a separate image, the resulting file size needs to be very large and this slows download. With Flash, the animation is created in real time so very small file sizes are possible. With spectacular animation and interaction Flash is a clear winner over animated GIFs.