Things you can't do with javascript only and using flash you can

Are there some useful and commonly used things you can't do with pure Javascript and using some (non visible) Flash you can?

For example file access, direct printing开发者_StackOverflow, browser window controlling, detecting installed applications...

Edit: I'm interested in client-side scripting only.

Local storage is something useful that isn't available on older browsers. see Shared Objects

Shared objects are quite powerful: they offer real-time data sharing between objects that are persistent on the local location. You can think of local shared objects as "cookies."

You can use local shared objects to maintain local persistence. This is the simplest way to use a shared object. For example, you can call SharedObject.getLocal to create a shared object, such as a calculator with memory, in the player. Because the shared object is locally persistent, Flash saves its data attributes on the user's machine when the movie ends. The next time the movie runs, the calculator contains the values it had when the movie ended. Alternatively, if you set the shared object's properties to null before the movie ends, the calculator opens without any prior values the next time the movie runs.

To create a local shared object, use the following syntax:

// Create a local shared object 
so = SharedObject.getLocal("foo");

Local disk space considerations Local shared objects are always persistent on the client, up to available memory and disk space.

Dynamic shape Tweens. You can't create a square that turns into a triangle and then a circle.

The kind of things it seems you want to do can't be done with Flash either.

You can't print without a print dialog. You can't have file system access from a non visible Flash, there is file system access, but it is restricted and can only be triggered by the user clicking a button and selecting files in a dialog, you can't access the file system with ActionScript alone, so to speak. You can't detect installed applications. You can't control the browser window except going full screen.