Believe it or not, Flash still has an ardent fan club. The once-ubiquitous media player for browsers has taken its lumps, thanks in large part to security issues. However, diehards remain in Flash’s corner in its battle with HTML5, despite the sense that Flash may be on the ropes, as HTML5 continues to close any functionality gaps it might have had with its proprietary predecessor.

Occupy HTML5, a Facebook page that pitches itself as “The movement to rid the world of HTML purism,” is one such outlet taking up Flash’s mantle. The page stresses it “is not an anti-HTML5 movement, but rather an opposition to purism, biased supremacy, and corporate bullying.” Flash, Occupy HTML5 says, is mature. “It’s supported by all major desktop browsers. It’s stable when used properly. If not, it crashes a lot, just like every other technology.” The page, which has more than 700 Likes, was created by ardent Flash advocate Stephane Beladaci, who said recently he has been planning to relaunch the site.

Flash “powers some amazing experiences that work consistently across all of the major browsers in a way that cannot be replicated without Flash technology,” Beladaci writes on the Occupy HTML5 Facebook page. “Championing simplistic statements regarding web technologies makes the web less educated. At this point, it’s holding back the web.”

But in recent years, Flash has been the subject of security maladies, and browser vendors, including Apple, Google, and Mozilla, have moved away from it. W3Techs, which compiles statistics on the usage of Web technologies, reports Flash being used on only 8 percent of websites, down from 10 percent in a year ago. Six years ago, Flash was used on 28.5 percent of websites, when Steve Jobs wrote “Thoughts on Flash,” the open letter in which he cited issues such as security, performance, and battery life in announcing Apple would ban Flash on its iPhones.