Changes

|title = Adobe Flash|logo = Adobe_Flash_Logo.png|developer logowidth= Adobe160|type = |generation developer= Adobe|release = 1996|discontinued = 2020|predecessor =

; If you don't want to mess with these tools, just use [[Flashpoint]] - preservation effort for games and animations designed in commercial web frameworks (not just Flash).<div style="overflow-x:auto;width:100%">{| class="wikitable" style="text-align:center;width:100%"! scope="col"|Name! scope="col"|Platform(s)! scope="col"|Latest version! scope="col"|[https://emulation.gametechwiki.com/index.php/Flash[#Scaleform%20GFx Scaleform ScaleForm GFx|ScaleForm GFx]]!scope="col"|[[#Adobe AIR|Adobe AIR]]! scope="col"|<abbr title="Free/Libre and Open-Source Software">FLOSS</abbr>! scope="col"|Active! scope="col"|[[Recommended Emulators|Recommended]]

! colspan="68"|Desktop / Plugin <ref group=N name=plugin>Plugin versions of these players require a browser that supports & NPAPI/PPAPI.</ref>

|align=left|{{Icon|Windows|Linux|macOS|Web}}<ref group=N name=plugin>Web version requires a browser that supports NPAPI.</ref>

|{{✓~}} <ref group=Nname=scaleform>Requires the Thirdthird-party software component to Access access it.</ref> ||{{✗}} ||{{✗}} ||{{~}} <ref group=N>Adobe versions discontinued. Harman versions are currently maintained for enterprise customers only.</ref> ||{{✓}}|-|[https://gitlab.com/cleanflash/installer Clean Flash Player]|align=left|{{Icon|Windows|Linux|macOS|Web}}<ref group=N name=plugin/>|[https://github.com/darktohka/clean-flash-builds 34.0.0.289] (Windows, Mac)<br />[https://github.com/darktohka/clean-flash-builds/releases/tag/v1.7 34.0.0.137] (Linux)|{{~}} <ref group=N name=scaleform/> ||{{✗}}||{{✗}} ||{{✓}} ||{{✓}}

|[https://ruffle.rs/#downloads Nightly builds]|{{~}} ||{{~}} ||{{✓}} ||{{✓}} ||{{✓}}<small> (WIP)</small>

|align=left|{{Icon|Windows|Linux|Web}}<ref group=N name=plugin/>|[https://github.com/lightspark/lightspark/releases 0.8.6.17]|{{✗}} ||{{~}} [https://github.com/lightspark/lightspark/blob/master/src/main.cpp#L365 *]||{{✓}} ||{{✓}} ||{{~}}<small> (WIP)</small>|-|Moco|align=left|{{Icon|Windows}}|[https://github.com/naomiEve/Moco git]|{{✗}} ||{{✗}} ||{{✓}} ||{{✗}} ||{{✗}}

|{{?✗}} ||{{✗}} ||{{✓}} ||{{✗}} ||{{✗}}

|align=left|{{Icon|WindowsWindows7|macOS|Linux}}

|{{?✗}} ||{{✗}} ||{{✓}} ||{{✗}} ||{{✗}}

|align=left|{{Icon|Linux|Web}}<ref group=N name=plugin/>

|{{?✗}} ||{{✗}} ||{{✓}} ||{{✗}} ||{{✗}}

! colspan="68"|HTML5 / WebAssembly

|{{~}} ||{{~}} ||{{✓}} ||{{✓}} ||{{✓}}<small> (WIP)</small>

|{{✗}} ||{{~}} ||{{✓}} ||{{✓}} ||{{~}}<small> (WIP)</small>

|[https://vidkidz.github.com/vidkidz/waflash io WAFlash]| {{naNa}}|{{✗}} ||{{✗}} ||{{✗}} ||{{✗}} ||{{~}}

|{{✗}} ||{{✗}} ||{{~}} ||{{✗}} ||{{~}}

|[https://docs.leaningtech.com/cheerpx-for-flash/Changelog Version 3435]|{{?✗}} ||{{✗}} ||{{✗}} ||{{✓}} ||{{?✗}}

|{{?✗}} ||{{✗}} ||{{✓}} ||{{✗}} ||{{✗}}

|{{✗}} ||{{~}} ||{{✓}} ||{{✗}} ||{{✗}}|-!colspan="8"|Mobile|-|[[Ruffle]]|align=left|{{Icon|Android}}|[https://github.com/ruffle-rs/ruffle-android git]|{{~}} ||{{~}} ||{{✓}} ||{{✓}} ||{{✓}}|-!colspan="8"|Consoles|-|FGP3|align=left|{{Icon|PS3}}|[https://github.com/DropSonic0/Flash-Player-PS3-Store 1.06]|? ||?||{{✓}} ||{{✓}} ||{{✓}}|-|PSP Flash Player|align=left|{{Icon|PSP}}|[https://archive.org/details/swfplayerv13.7z v13]|? ||? ||{{✗}} ||{{✗}} ||{{✗}}

;[[Ruffle]]<smallclass="plainlinks" style="font-weight:normal;"> ([https://ruffle.rs/demo/ web demo]) ([https://github.com/ruffle-rs/ruffle/issues/310 avm1 compatibility]) ([https://ruffle.rs/avm2.html avm2 compatibility])</small>:A Rust-based player that targets both HTML5 and desktop. Notably Ruffle has been able to run many early Flash games since 2021, and the main development focus is now on support for newer AVM2-based files, although that's still far from complete as of 2024. 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.:Ruffle has become hugely popular as an alternative SWF player, being 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 It's also the point where it could run many early Flash games, including most actively developed and arguably the original Flash version most accurate of [https://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/59593/format/flash?emulate=flash Alien Hominid]; support for newer AVM2the open-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 source players that support itare available today, so this is likely your next best option if you don't want to bother with the caveat Flash Player or anything that a website's hosted copy will sometimes override the extension even if the site is running an older buildbeen forked from it.

[[wikipedia:NPAPI|NPAPI]]—in case you don't remember—is an obsolete browser plugin system that was designed to allow for interactive web-page elements beyond what early versions of HTML could do on their own. While there were a bunch of different in-browser software platforms to co-exist existing in the earlier days of the internet, but it NPAPI 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, and so NPAPI was also gradually started being dropped phased out by all the major browser vendorsin late 2020 (around the same time that Adobe was preparing to drop Flash Player itself). It NPAPI hasn't entirely disappeared (gone away though, as some indie browser devs still maintain NPAPI it in their own forks of stuff like Firefox and Chromium), but there's no denying its obsolescence these daysand such.

: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. It's also worth noting that the player hasn't been completely discontinued: Harman International is also continues to maintain [https://airsdk.harman.com/flashplayer maintaining an extended support version specifically ] intended for enterprise users; and there's also a consumer-level Chinese version which is actively developed by Zhongcheng, although you shouldn't get it from their official site (Flash [dot]cn) because it'll be full of bundled malware.:Despite the hard discontinuation and a lack of support for user-friendly features such as URL spoofing, Adobe's Flash Player still remains the most widely-compatible desktop player for Flash games as of 2023, which is why the [[Flashpoint]] preservation project still relies on Flash Player to run its SWF games.:;Clean Flash Player::An unofficial effort that takes the still-active Zhongcheng version of Flash Player and repacks it minus as much malware as the Clean Flash project can remove. This might be the better option if you're looking for an NPAPI player specifically.

: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 ever since 2015, when it became a mostly one-person effortcirca 2015. 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.

;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 Two very early effort efforts to create a non-proprietary replacement replacements for the desktop Flash Player. it's actually pretty advanced for 2008-09, but it hasn't been active both inactive since2009 and very much obsolete nowadays. Gnash began as a fork of GameSWF.

: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 can also function as a streaming client to a bundled server app that offloads most of does the emulation and processing work to a server app, at which point the in-browser part is effectively just a streaming clientinstead.

;AwayFL<smallclass="plainlinks" style="font-weight:normal;"> ([https://exponenta.games/games/AFL/ web demo])</small>:Developed by the Away Foundation, this is arguably the most direct alternative to Ruffle, which although it's roughly even with has fallen behind in terms of compatibility, although there are still a bunch of SWFs that'll work fine in one but not the other.

;WAFlash<smallclass="plainlinks" style="font-weight:normal;"> ([https://clubpenguinadvanced.github.io/waflash-demo/ web demo])</small>

;swf2js<smallclass="plainlinks" style="font-weight:normal;"> (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 any of the WebAssembly-based optionsplayers, sometimes noticeably so.

:A relatively early HTML5 player , actively developed under Mozilla sponsorship between 2012 and 2016 but ultimately then abandoned before reaching a usable beta state.

* [[Flashpoint]https://archive.org/details/softwarelibrary_flash?tab=collection Archive.org-Software Library: Flash] - preservation effort Internet Archive's Flash Games Software Library is abundant with options for any level of computer gaming. With an in-site emulator ready to run thousands of games designed in commercial web frameworks (not just Flash)the Software Library, the Internet Archive can turn your computer into a mini arcade at the click of a button.