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{{Infobox console | {{Infobox console | ||
− | |title=Adobe Flash | + | |title = Adobe Flash |
− | |logo= | + | |logo = |
− | | | + | |developer = Adobe |
− | | | + | |type = |
− | |release=1996 | + | |generation = |
− | |discontinued=2020 | + | |release = 1996 |
+ | |discontinued = 2020 | ||
+ | |predecessor = | ||
|emulated = {{✓}} | |emulated = {{✓}} | ||
}} | }} | ||
− | '''Flash''' (previously | + | '''Flash''' (previously FutureSplash Animator, before that SmartSketch) is a software platform created by FutureWave Software and is currently owned by Adobe (formerly Macromedia). Originally a drawing program for PenPoint OS, later ported to Windows and Macintosh when pen computing failed to take off, frame-by-frame animation features were added to it in a new program called FutureSplash Animator. The company was acquired by Macromedia in December 1996, rebranding FutureSplash Animator to Flash, an amalgamation of "Future" and "Splash". In turn, Macromedia was acquired by Adobe on December 3, 2005. Their operations, networks, and customer care organizations were merged shortly after. |
Used by an overwhelming majority of websites between the early 2000s and the mid 2010s, Flash was very much the go-to platform for online cartoons and games, being especially popular for various entertainment sites and children's sites due to its rich content, and has spawned its own subculture of animators and game developers as exemplified by the likes of Newgrounds. SWF elements also proved to be a crucial tool for many multimedia hosting sites so that they could actually play audio/video inside a browser, given the lack of viable alternatives in the pre-HTML5 days. However, around the start of 2010 YouTube started pushing really hard for HTML5 media elements, which have since become a standard feature in modern browsers and single-handedly made Flash Player obsolete for multimedia playback. | Used by an overwhelming majority of websites between the early 2000s and the mid 2010s, Flash was very much the go-to platform for online cartoons and games, being especially popular for various entertainment sites and children's sites due to its rich content, and has spawned its own subculture of animators and game developers as exemplified by the likes of Newgrounds. SWF elements also proved to be a crucial tool for many multimedia hosting sites so that they could actually play audio/video inside a browser, given the lack of viable alternatives in the pre-HTML5 days. However, around the start of 2010 YouTube started pushing really hard for HTML5 media elements, which have since become a standard feature in modern browsers and single-handedly made Flash Player obsolete for multimedia playback. | ||
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==Implementations== | ==Implementations== | ||
− | + | {| class="wikitable" style="text-align:center;" | |
− | + | ! scope="col"|Name | |
− | {|class="wikitable" style="text-align:center; | + | ! scope="col"|Platform(s) |
− | !scope="col"|Name | + | ! scope="col"|Latest version |
− | !scope="col"|Platform(s) | + | ! scope="col"|[[#ScaleForm GFx|ScaleForm GFx]] |
− | !scope="col"|Latest version | + | ! scope="col"|[[#Adobe AIR|Adobe AIR]] |
− | !scope="col"|[[#ScaleForm GFx|ScaleForm GFx]] | + | ! scope="col"|<abbr title="Free/Libre and Open-Source Software">FLOSS</abbr> |
− | !scope="col"|[[#Adobe AIR|Adobe AIR]] | + | ! scope="col"|Active |
− | !scope="col"|<abbr title="Free/Libre and Open-Source Software">FLOSS</abbr> | + | ! scope="col"|[[Recommended Emulators|Recommended]] |
− | !scope="col"|Active | ||
− | !scope="col"|[[Recommended Emulators|Recommended]] | ||
|- | |- | ||
− | !colspan=" | + | ! colspan="6"|Desktop / Plugin <ref group=N name=plugin>Plugin versions of these players require a browser that supports NPAPI/PPAPI.</ref> |
|- | |- | ||
|Flash Player | |Flash Player | ||
− | |align=left|{{Icon|Windows|Linux|macOS|Web}} | + | |align=left|{{Icon|Windows|Linux|macOS|Web}} |
|[https://web.archive.org/web/20220331041116/https://www.adobe.com/support/flashplayer/debug_downloads.html 32.0.0.465] | |[https://web.archive.org/web/20220331041116/https://www.adobe.com/support/flashplayer/debug_downloads.html 32.0.0.465] | ||
− | |{{ | + | |{{✓}} <ref group=N>Requires the Third-party software component to Access it.</ref> ||{{✗}} ||{{✗}} ||{{~}} <ref group=N>Adobe versions discontinued. Harman versions are currently maintained for enterprise customers only.</ref> ||{{✓}} |
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|[[Ruffle]] | |[[Ruffle]] | ||
− | |align=left|{{Icon|Windows|Linux|macOS | + | |align=left|{{Icon|Windows|Linux|macOS}} |
− | |[https://ruffle.rs/downloads Nightly builds] | + | |[https://ruffle.rs/#downloads Nightly builds] |
− | |{{~}} ||{{ | + | |{{~}} ||{{✗}} ||{{✓}} ||{{✓}} ||{{✓}}<small> (WIP)</small> |
|- | |- | ||
|[https://lightspark.github.io/ Lightspark] | |[https://lightspark.github.io/ Lightspark] | ||
− | |align=left|{{Icon|Windows|Linux|Web}} | + | |align=left|{{Icon|Windows|Linux|Web}} |
− | |[https://github.com/lightspark/lightspark/releases 0.8. | + | |[https://github.com/lightspark/lightspark/releases 0.8.6.1] |
− | |{{✗}} | | + | |{{✗}} ||{{✗}} ||{{✓}} ||{{✓}} ||{{~}}<small> (WIP)</small> |
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− | |{{✗ | ||
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|[https://gnu.org/software/gnash GNU Gnash] | |[https://gnu.org/software/gnash GNU Gnash] | ||
|align=left|{{Icon|Windows|Linux}} | |align=left|{{Icon|Windows|Linux}} | ||
|[https://www.gnu.org/software/gnash/download.html 0.8.10] | |[https://www.gnu.org/software/gnash/download.html 0.8.10] | ||
− | |{{ | + | |{{?}} ||{{✓}} ||{{✗}} ||{{✗}} |
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|[http://tulrich.com/textweb.pl?path=geekstuff/gameswf.txt GameSWF] | |[http://tulrich.com/textweb.pl?path=geekstuff/gameswf.txt GameSWF] | ||
− | |align=left|{{Icon| | + | |align=left|{{Icon|Windows|macOS|Linux}} |
|[https://sourceforge.net/projects/tu-testbed/files/demos/gameswf-2009-08-08/ 2009-08-08] | |[https://sourceforge.net/projects/tu-testbed/files/demos/gameswf-2009-08-08/ 2009-08-08] | ||
− | |{{ | + | |{{?}} ||{{✗}} ||{{✓}} ||{{✗}} ||{{✗}} |
|- | |- | ||
|[https://web.archive.org/web/20090116113151/http://swfdec.freedesktop.org/wiki swfdec] | |[https://web.archive.org/web/20090116113151/http://swfdec.freedesktop.org/wiki swfdec] | ||
− | |align=left|{{Icon|Linux|Web}} | + | |align=left|{{Icon|Linux|Web}} |
|[https://web.archive.org/web/20090116113151/http://swfdec.freedesktop.org/download/swfdec/0.8/swfdec-0.8.4.tar.gz 0.8.4] | |[https://web.archive.org/web/20090116113151/http://swfdec.freedesktop.org/download/swfdec/0.8/swfdec-0.8.4.tar.gz 0.8.4] | ||
− | |{{ | + | |{{?}} ||{{✗}} ||{{✓}} ||{{✗}} ||{{✗}} |
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|- | |- | ||
− | + | ! colspan="6"|HTML5 / WebAssembly | |
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− | !colspan=" | ||
|- | |- | ||
|[[Ruffle]] | |[[Ruffle]] | ||
− | | | + | | rowspan="7" {{na}} |
− | |[https://github.com/ruffle-rs/ruffle | + | |[https://github.com/ruffle-rs/ruffle git] |
− | |{{~}} ||{{ | + | |{{~}} ||{{✗}} ||{{✓}} ||{{✓}} ||{{✓}}<small> (WIP)</small> |
|- | |- | ||
− | |[https:// | + | |[https://awayfl.org/ AwayFL] |
− | + | |[https://github.com/awayfl/awayfl-player git] | |
− | |[https:// | + | |{{✗}} ||{{✗}} ||{{✓}} ||{{✓}} ||{{~}}<small> (WIP)</small> |
− | |{{ | ||
|- | |- | ||
− | + | |[https://github.com/vidkidz/waflash WAFlash] | |
− | + | | {{na}} | |
− | |[https:// | + | |{{✗}} ||{{✗}} ||{{✗}} ||{{✗}} ||{{~}} |
− | |{{ | ||
|- | |- | ||
− | | | + | |[https://swf2js.com/en/ swf2js] |
− | + | |[https://github.com/swf2js/swf2js 0.7.8] | |
− | |[https:// | + | |{{✗}} ||{{✗}} ||{{~}} ||{{✗}} ||{{~}} |
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− | |Flash | + | |[https://leaningtech.com/cheerpx-for-flash/ CheerpX for Flash] |
− | + | |[https://docs.leaningtech.com/cheerpx-for-flash/Changelog Version 34] | |
− | |[https:// | + | |{{?}} ||{{✗}} ||{{✗}} ||{{✓}} ||{{?}} |
− | | || ||{{✗}} ||{{ | ||
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− | |Flash | + | |[https://open-flash.github.io/ Open Flash / Doμ Player] |
− | | | + | |[https://github.com/open-flash/domu-player git] |
− | + | |{{?}} ||{{✗}} ||{{✓}} ||{{✗}} ||{{✗}} | |
− | | || ||{{ | ||
|- | |- | ||
− | + | |Shumway | |
− | + | |[https://github.com/mozilla/shumway git] | |
− | + | |{{?}} ||{{✗}} ||{{✓}} ||{{✗}} ||{{✗}} | |
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− | |[https://github.com/ | ||
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|} | |} | ||
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<references group=N /> | <references group=N /> | ||
===Comparisons=== | ===Comparisons=== | ||
====Hybrid==== | ====Hybrid==== | ||
− | ;[[Ruffle]] <small | + | ;[[Ruffle]]<small> ([https://ruffle.rs/demo/ web demo])</small> |
− | :A Rust-based player that targets both HTML5 and desktop. | + | :A Rust-based player that targets both HTML5 and desktop. Notably used by a bunch of veteran Flash content sites, including [https://www.newgrounds.com Newgrounds], [https://homestarrunner.com Homestar Runner] and [https://www.coolmathgames.com CoolMathGames], and also by the Internet Archive's [https://archive.org/details/softwarelibrary_flash Flash library]. By early 2021, it had already reached the point where it could run many early Flash games, including the original Flash version of [https://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/59593/format/flash?emulate=flash Alien Hominid]; support for newer AVM2-based files is now underway, although still far from complete as of December 2022. Unlike the other HTML5 options, Ruffle can be installed as a WebExtension in browsers that support it, with the caveat that a website's hosted copy will sometimes override the extension even if the site is running an older build. |
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====Desktop / NPAPI==== | ====Desktop / NPAPI==== | ||
− | [[wikipedia:NPAPI|NPAPI]]—in case you don't remember—is an obsolete browser plugin system designed to allow | + | [[wikipedia:NPAPI|NPAPI]]—in case you don't remember—is an obsolete browser plugin system that was designed to allow a bunch of different in-browser software platforms to co-exist in the earlier days of the internet, but it effectively existed only for the sake of SWF players once the format became properly dominant and pushed everything else out of the in-browser ecosystem. With the shrinking relevance of SWF in the late 2010s, the plugin system that the players relied on was increasingly seen as an ancient relic that modern browsers would be better off without. So, while Adobe was phasing out Flash Player in late 2020, NPAPI was also gradually being dropped by all the major browser vendors. It hasn't entirely disappeared (some indie browser devs still maintain NPAPI in their own forks of stuff like Firefox and Chromium), but there's no denying its obsolescence these days. |
;Flash Player | ;Flash Player | ||
− | :The proprietary reference player, which Adobe stopped directly supporting at the end of 2020 and has since fully delisted from their website. The plugin version has a built-in kill-switch that was flipped in January 2021, so it's probably not much use even in browsers that still support NPAPI, but the desktop player version is still usable if you download it from an archived version of the Adobe website. | + | :The proprietary reference player, which Adobe stopped directly supporting at the end of 2020 and has since fully delisted from their website. The plugin version has a built-in kill-switch that was flipped in January 2021, so it's probably not much use even in browsers that still support NPAPI, but the desktop player version is still usable if you download it from an archived version of the Adobe website. Harman International is also [https://airsdk.harman.com/flashplayer maintaining an extended support version specifically for enterprise users]. |
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;Lightspark | ;Lightspark | ||
− | :A C++ player designed to provide drop-in FLOSS replacements for both the desktop and NPAPI versions of Flash Player. It claims to have 83% of the overall SWF spec covered as of August 2022, but development has been slow | + | :A C++ player specifically designed to provide drop-in FLOSS replacements for both the desktop and NPAPI versions of Flash Player. It claims to have 83% of the overall SWF spec covered as of August 2022, but development has been fairly slow since 2015, when it became a mostly one-person effort. Lightspark historically focused on more recent versions of the SWF spec that weren't supported by Gnash, hence why Lightspark could (and still can) use Gnash as an automatic fallback if both are installed simultaneously. |
;GNU Gnash | ;GNU Gnash | ||
:A desktop-only C++ player that went inactive in 2017, with the most recent stable release dating back to 2012. Probably not much reason to use it over newer versions of Lightspark, which seem to have mostly (if not entirely) superseded Gnash for compatibility. | :A desktop-only C++ player that went inactive in 2017, with the most recent stable release dating back to 2012. Probably not much reason to use it over newer versions of Lightspark, which seem to have mostly (if not entirely) superseded Gnash for compatibility. | ||
− | ;GameSWF | + | ;GameSWF |
− | : | + | :An ''extremely'' old C++ player, definitely one of the first serious efforts to reverse-engineer Flash Player into an open-source package. Inactive since 2009, though it did lay the foundations for Gnash. |
+ | |||
+ | ;swfdec | ||
+ | :Another very early effort to create a non-proprietary replacement for Flash Player. it's actually pretty advanced for 2008-09, but it hasn't been active since. | ||
====HTML5==== | ====HTML5==== | ||
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;CheerpX for Flash | ;CheerpX for Flash | ||
− | :A proprietary software package designed to make the Harman version of Flash Player usable in modern browsers by running it inside CheerpX, a payware x86 emulator in WebAssembly. No one on this wiki has had the chance to properly evaluate it, but we'd expect reference-level accuracy at the cost of woeful performance. That being said, CheerpX | + | :A proprietary software package designed to make the Harman version of Flash Player usable in modern browsers by running it inside CheerpX, a payware x86 emulator in WebAssembly. No one on this wiki has had the chance to properly evaluate it, but we'd expect reference-level accuracy at the cost of woeful performance. That being said, CheerpX apparently has an alternate mode of operation that offloads most of the emulation and processing work to a server app, at which point the in-browser part is effectively just a streaming client. |
− | ;AwayFL <small | + | ;AwayFL<small> ([https://exponenta.games/games/AFL/ web demo])</small> |
− | :Developed by the Away Foundation, this is arguably the most direct alternative to Ruffle, | + | :Developed by the Away Foundation, this is arguably the most direct alternative to Ruffle, which it's roughly even with in terms of compatibility, although there are still a bunch of SWFs that'll work fine in one but not the other. |
− | ;WAFlash <small | + | ;WAFlash<small> ([https://clubpenguinadvanced.github.io/waflash-demo/ web demo])</small> |
:An inactive, closed-source C++-to-WebAssembly player that technically hasn't been made available to outside users, although there are a few sites where you can use it. It was considered the most accurate of the unofficial Flash players as of late 2021, although other still-active projects have caught up significantly. | :An inactive, closed-source C++-to-WebAssembly player that technically hasn't been made available to outside users, although there are a few sites where you can use it. It was considered the most accurate of the unofficial Flash players as of late 2021, although other still-active projects have caught up significantly. | ||
− | ;swf2js <small | + | ;swf2js<small> (web demos: [https://swf2js.com/free/index.html free], [https://swf2js.com/prod/index.html production])</small> |
− | :An open-core player that uses a dynamic recompiler. The source-available "Free" version supports limited features, such as AS1, AS2 and ZLIB compression. In contrast, the payware "Production" version is better suited to newer Flash files using AS3 and LZMA compression features. Built on more traditional JavaScript code, so it pretty much always performs worse than | + | :An open-core player that uses a dynamic recompiler. The source-available "Free" version supports limited features, such as AS1, AS2 and ZLIB compression. In contrast, the payware "Production" version is better suited to newer Flash files using AS3 and LZMA compression features. Built on more traditional JavaScript code, so it pretty much always performs worse than the WebAssembly-based options, sometimes noticeably so. |
;Shumway | ;Shumway | ||
− | :A relatively early HTML5 player | + | :A relatively early HTML5 player actively developed under Mozilla sponsorship between 2012 and 2016 but ultimately abandoned before reaching a usable beta state. |
==Peripherals== | ==Peripherals== | ||
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Scaleform GFx supported all major platforms, including game consoles, mobile and PC operating systems. Scaleform provides APIs for direct communication between Flash content and the game engine, and pre-built integrations for popular engines such as Unity, Unreal Engine, and CryENGINE. Scaleform GFx could also be licensed for use as a standalone Flash runtime system on mobile platforms, competing with Adobe AIR. | Scaleform GFx supported all major platforms, including game consoles, mobile and PC operating systems. Scaleform provides APIs for direct communication between Flash content and the game engine, and pre-built integrations for popular engines such as Unity, Unreal Engine, and CryENGINE. Scaleform GFx could also be licensed for use as a standalone Flash runtime system on mobile platforms, competing with Adobe AIR. | ||
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==See also== | ==See also== | ||
− | * [ | + | * [[Flashpoint]] - preservation effort for games designed in commercial web frameworks (not just Flash). |
== Resources == | == Resources == | ||
* [https://nosamu.medium.com/flash-player-emulators-how-to-play-swfs-in-2021-and-beyond-d56c3899b7e6 Article by nosamu (of Flashpoint): Flash Player Emulators: How to Play SWF Files in 2021 and Beyond] | * [https://nosamu.medium.com/flash-player-emulators-how-to-play-swfs-in-2021-and-beyond-d56c3899b7e6 Article by nosamu (of Flashpoint): Flash Player Emulators: How to Play SWF Files in 2021 and Beyond] | ||
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[[Category:Not really emulators]] | [[Category:Not really emulators]] |