One of the questions often asked about CSS animations is “Why use CSS animations when an animated gif works in many more clients?”

Until now, the answer seems to be that CSS animations are more fluid, has smaller filesize and a much higher color palette (gif images are limited to 256 colors). There is now another reason to use CSS animations – the ability to play the animations on demand.

This article shows you a technique to restart CSS animations with a single click or tap using the :active pseudo-class.