Easiest way to make animated gifs?

I was told that making a flash animation and exporting as a gif is the simplest way. I've tried Adobe but it takes a long time. I've also tried free gif animators but they're lousy on the whole.

Any ideas?

 

For basic animations I use Banner Maker Pro 6, it's a nice little program. It's very easy to use, you can also do frame by frame animations also but it's kind of tricky.

 

I'd have to say the best I have ever used is Ulead Gif Animator 5... worth the $... they do have a trial also.. http://www.ulead.com/ga/runme.htm
It has tons of features...