Adobe Flash
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discontinued everywhere else, i.e. outside China | |
License | Proprietary |
---|---|
Website | adobe.com/flash |
Adobe Flash (formerly Macromedia Flash and FutureSplash) is a discontinued, and embedded web browser video players.
About
Flash displays text, vector graphics, and raster graphics to provide animations, video games, and applications. It allows streaming of audio and video, and can capture mouse, keyboard, microphone, and camera input.
The ActionScript programming language allows the development of interactive animations, video games, web applications, desktop applications, and mobile applications. Programmers can implement Flash software using an IDE such as Adobe Animate, Adobe Flash Builder, Adobe Director, FlashDevelop, and Powerflasher FDT. Adobe AIR enables full-featured desktop and mobile applications to be developed with Flash and published for Windows, macOS, Android, iOS, Xbox One, PlayStation 4, Wii U, and Nintendo Switch.
Flash was initially used to create fully-interactive websites, but this approach was phased out with the introduction of HTML5. Instead, Flash found a niche as the dominant platform for online multimedia content, particularly for browser games. Following an open letter written by Steve Jobs in 2010 stating that he would not approve the use of Flash on Apple's iOS devices due to numerous security flaws, use of Flash declined as Adobe transitioned to the Adobe AIR platform. The Flash Player was deprecated in 2017 and officially discontinued at the end of 2020 for all users outside mainland China, as well as non-enterprise users,[6] with many web browsers and operating systems scheduled to remove the Flash Player software around the same time. Adobe continues to develop Adobe Animate, which supports web standards such as HTML5 instead of the Flash format.[7]
Applications
Websites
In the early 2000s, Flash was widely installed on desktop computers, and was often used to display interactive web pages and online games, and to play video and audio content.[8] In 2005, YouTube was founded by former PayPal employees, and it used Adobe Flash Player as a means to display compressed video content on the web.[8]
Between 2000 and 2010, numerous businesses used Flash-based websites to launch new products, or to create interactive company portals.[9] Notable users include Nike, Hewlett-Packard (more commonly known as HP), Nokia, General Electric, World Wildlife Fund, HBO, Cartoon Network, Disney, and Motorola.[9][10] After Adobe introduced hardware-accelerated 3D for Flash (Stage3D), Flash websites saw a growth of 3D content for product demonstrations and virtual tours.[11][12]
In 2007, YouTube offered videos in HTML5 format to support the iPhone and iPad, which did not support Flash Player.[8] After a controversy with Apple, Adobe stopped developing Flash Player for Mobile, focusing its efforts on Adobe AIR applications and HTML5 animation.[8] In 2015, Google introduced Google Swiffy, a tool that converted Flash animation to HTML5, which Google used to automatically convert Flash web ads for mobile devices.[13] In 2016, Google discontinued Swiffy and its support.[14] In 2015, YouTube switched to HTML5 technology on most devices by default;[15][16][17] however, YouTube supported the Flash-based video player for older web browsers and devices until 2017.[18]
Rich Internet Applications
After Flash 5 introduced ActionScript in 2000, developers combined the visual and programming capabilities of Flash to produce interactive experiences and applications for the Web.[19] Such Web-based applications eventually became known as "Rich Internet Applications"[19] and later "Rich Web Applications".[20]
In 2004, Macromedia Flex was released, and specifically targeted the application development market.
Between 2006 and 2016, the Speedtest.net web service conducted over 9.0 billion speed tests with a utility built with Adobe Flash.[23][24] In 2016, the service shifted to HTML5 due to the decreasing availability of Adobe Flash Player on PCs.[25]
Developers could create
Video games
Flash video games were popular on the Internet, with portals like Newgrounds, Kongregate, and Armor Games dedicated to hosting Flash-based games. Many Flash games were developed by individuals or groups of friends due to the simplicity of the software.[26] Popular Flash games include Farmville, Alien Hominid, QWOP and Club Penguin.[27][28]
Adobe introduced various technologies to help build video games, including Adobe AIR (to release games for desktop or mobile platforms), Adobe Scout (to improve performance), CrossBridge (to convert C++-based games to run in Flash), and Stage3D (to support GPU-accelerated video games). 3D frameworks like Away3D and Flare3D simplified creation of 3D content for Flash.[citation needed]
Adobe AIR allows the creation of Flash-based
Flash is also used to build interfaces and HUDs for 3D video games using
Film and animation
Notable users of Flash include
History
FutureWave
The precursor to Flash was SmartSketch, a product published by FutureWave Software in 1993. The company was founded by Charlie Jackson, Jonathan Gay, and Michelle Welsh.[32][33][34][35] SmartSketch was a vector drawing application for pen computers running the PenPoint OS.[36][37] When PenPoint failed in the marketplace, SmartSketch was ported to Microsoft Windows and Mac OS.[33][38]
As the Internet became more popular, FutureWave realized the potential for a vector-based web animation tool that might challenge Macromedia Shockwave technology.[32][33] In 1995, FutureWave modified SmartSketch by adding frame-by-frame animation features and released this new product as FutureSplash Animator on Macintosh and PC.[32][33][39][40]
FutureWave approached
Macromedia
In December 1996,[41] FutureSplash was acquired by Macromedia, and Macromedia re-branded and released FutureSplash Animator as Macromedia Flash 1.0. Flash was a two-part system, a graphics and animation editor known as Macromedia Flash, and a player known as Macromedia Flash Player.[42]
FutureSplash Animator was an animation tool originally developed for pen-based computing devices. Due to the small size of the FutureSplash Viewer, it was particularly suited for download on the Web. Macromedia distributed Flash Player as a free browser plugin in order to quickly gain market share. By 2005, more computers worldwide had Flash Player installed than any other Web media format, including Java, QuickTime, RealNetworks, and Windows Media Player.[43]
Macromedia upgraded the Flash system between 1996 and 1999 adding MovieClips, Actions (the precursor to ActionScript), Alpha transparency, and other features. As Flash matured, Macromedia's focus shifted from marketing it as a graphics and media tool to promoting it as a Web application platform, adding scripting and data access capabilities to the player while attempting to retain its small footprint.[citation needed]
In 2000, the first major version of ActionScript was developed, and released with Flash 5. Actionscript 2.0 was released with Flash MX 2004 and supported object-oriented programming, improved UI components and other programming features. The last version of Flash released by Macromedia was Flash 8, which focused on graphical upgrades such as filters (blur, drop shadow, etc.), blend modes (similar to Adobe Photoshop), and advanced features for FLV video.[citation needed]
Release | Year | Icon | Description |
---|---|---|---|
FutureSplash
Animator |
1996 | Initial version of Flash released in May, 1996 with basic editing tools and a timeline.[44][45] | |
Macromedia
Flash 1 |
1996 | A re-branded version of the FutureSplash Animator, released on December 18, 1996, under the name Macromedia Flash 1.0. The name "Flash" was created by blending the words Future and Splash.[46][45] | |
Macromedia
Flash 2 |
1997 | Released with Flash Player 2, new features include synchronized | |
Macromedia
Flash 3 |
1998 | Released with Flash Player 3, new features include shape tweening, the movie clip element, PNG support, sprite animation, vector & bitmap transparency, bandwidth profiling and an external stand-alone player.[49]
| |
Macromedia
Flash 4 |
1999 | Released with Flash Player 4, new features include a redesigned user interface, internal | |
Macromedia
Flash 5 |
2000 | Released with Flash Player 5, new features include pen and sub-selection tools, ActionScript 1.0 (based on ECMAScript, making it very similar to JavaScript in syntax), XML support, Smartclips (the precursor to components in Flash), HTML text formatting added for dynamic text.[51] | |
Macromedia
Flash MX (6) |
2002 | Released with Flash Player 6, new features include context-sensitive properties panel, timeline folders, improved color mixer, a video | |
Macromedia
Flash MX 2004 (7) |
2003 | Released with Flash Player 7, new features include screens (forms for non-linear state-based development and slides for organizing content in a linear slide format like PowerPoint), small font size rendering, timeline effects, updated templates, high-fidelity import and video import wizard.[53]
ActionScript 2.0 was released with this version, enabling object-oriented programming but lacking the easier "Script assist" method of writing code. JavaScript for Flash (JSFL) allowed users to write scripts to automate tasks within the Flash editor. New programming features included: web services integration, MP3/FLV media playback components, XML data service components, data binding APIs, the Project Panel, V2 UI components, and Transition libraries.[54] | |
Macromedia
Flash 8 |
2005 | Released with Flash Player 8, new features include graphical filters (blur, blend modes, easing control for animation, enhanced stroke properties (caps and joins), object-based drawing mode, run-time bitmap caching, FlashType advanced anti-aliasing for text, On2 VP6 advanced video codec, support for alpha transparency in video, a stand-alone encoder and advanced video importer, cue point support in FLV files, an advanced video playback component, and an interactive mobile device emulator.[55]
Macromedia Flash Basic 8, a "lite" version of the Flash authoring tool targeted to new users who only wanted to do a basic drawing, animation, and interactivity. The Basic product was eventually stopped. |
Adobe
On December 3, 2005, Adobe Systems acquired Macromedia
In 2007, Adobe's first version release was Adobe Flash CS3 Professional, the ninth major version of Flash. It introduced the ActionScript 3.0 programming language, which supported modern programming practices and enabled business applications to be developed with Flash.
In 2008, Adobe released the tenth version of Flash, Adobe Flash CS4. Flash 10 improved animation capabilities within the Flash editor, adding a motion editor panel (similar to Adobe After Effects), inverse kinematics (bones), basic 3D object animation, object-based animation, and other text and graphics features. Flash Player 10 included an in-built 3D engine (without GPU acceleration) that allowed basic object transformations in 3D space (position, rotation, scaling).[citation needed]
Also in 2008, Adobe released the first version of Adobe Integrated Runtime (later re-branded as Adobe AIR), a runtime engine that replaced Flash Player, and provided additional capabilities to the ActionScript 3.0 language to build desktop and mobile applications. With AIR, developers could access the file system (the user's files and folders), and connected devices such as a joystick, gamepad, and sensors for the first time.[citation needed]
In 2011, Adobe Flash Player 11 was released, and with it the first version of Stage3D, allowing GPU-accelerated 3D rendering for Flash applications and games on desktop platforms such as Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X.[58] Adobe further improved 3D capabilities from 2011 to 2013, adding support for 3D rendering on Android and iOS platforms, alpha-channels, compressed textures, texture atlases, and other features.[59][60] Adobe AIR was upgraded to support 64-bit computers, and to allow developers to add additional functionality to the AIR runtime using AIR Native Extensions (ANE).
In May 2014, Adobe announced that Adobe AIR was used in over 100,000 unique applications and had over 1 billion installations logged worldwide.[61] Adobe AIR was voted the Best Mobile Application Development product at the Consumer Electronics Show on two consecutive years (CES 2014 and CES 2015).[62][63]
In 2016, Adobe renamed Flash Professional, the primary authoring software for Flash content, to Adobe Animate to reflect its growing use for authoring HTML5 content in favor of Flash content.[64]
Release | Year | Icon | Description |
---|---|---|---|
Adobe Flash Professional CS3 (9) | 2007 | Flash CS3 is the first version of Flash released under the Adobe brand name, and features improved integration with Adobe Photoshop, enhanced QuickTime video export, filter and motion tween copy-paste support, improved vector drawing tools becoming more like Adobe Illustrator and Adobe Fireworks.[65]
ActionScript 3.0 was released with this version, along with ActionScript Virtual Machine 2.0 (AVM2) for faster code execution and garbage collection[66] New programming features included: strongly typed variables with type safety, runtime errors, improved events, display list instead of "depth" system, and many new classes (Socket, ByteArray, Loader, RegExp, etc.).[67] AS3 allowed entire applications to be written in code, without needing the Flash timeline. | |
Adobe Flash Professional CS4 (10) | 2008 | Flash CS4, released on September 23, 2008, introduces a new object-based motion-tween, renaming the former frame-based version as classic tween. Additions include basic 3D object manipulation, inverse kinematics (bones), a vertical properties panel, the Deco and Spray brush tools, motion presets and further expansions to ActionScript 3.0 (Vector arrays). CS4 allows the developer to create animations with many features absent in prior versions.[68][69] | |
Adobe Flash Professional CS5 (11) | 2010 | Flash CS5 was released on April 12, 2010, and launched for purchase on April 30, 2010. Flash CS5 Professional includes support for publishing iPhone applications.[70] However, on April 8, 2010, Apple changed the terms of its Developer License to effectively ban the use of the Flash-to-iPhone compiler[71][72] and on April 20, 2010, Adobe announced that they will be making no additional investments in targeting the iPhone and iPad in Flash CS5.[73]
Other features of Flash CS5 are a new text engine (TLF), new document templates, further improvement to inverse kinematics, new Deco tool effects, live FLV playback preview, and the code snippets panel.[74][75] | |
Adobe Flash Professional CS5.5 (11.5) | 2011 | Flash Professional CS5.5 was released in 2011. It includes improved support for publishing iPhone applications, following Apple's revision of their iOS developer terms.[76] Flash CS5.5 also contains several features to improve mobile app workflows across devices. Some examples are content scaling and stage resizing, copy and paste layers, sharing symbols across FLA files, symbol rasterization, incremental compilation, auto-save and file recovery, and integration with CS Live online services.[74] | |
Adobe Flash Professional CS6 (12) | 2012 | Adobe Flash Professional CS6 was released in 2012. It includes support for publishing files as HTML5 and generating sprite sheets.[77] This is the last 32-bit version and last perpetually licensed version. | |
Adobe Flash Professional CC (13) | 2013 | Flash Professional CC was released in June, 2013, as part of Adobe's Creative Cloud rebrand. Changes include a native 64-bit scene rendering engine, HiDPI user interface with Dark/Light themes, unlimited pasteboard size, live preview in shapes, fills and strokes, new distribute to keyframes option, full-screen mode, center stage button, multiple selection support for layer properties, guides, masks, etc. Minor performance improvements and bug fixes, and the removal of legacy features such as ActionScript 2 support, as well as the removal of the bone tool, deco tool and spray brush tools. As part of the Creative Cloud suite, Flash CC offered users the ability to synchronize settings and save files online.[78]
| |
Adobe Flash Professional CC 2014 (14) | 2014 | Flash Professional CC (2014) was released on June 18, 2014. It includes variable-width strokes, | |
Adobe Flash Professional CC 2014 (14.1) | 2014 | Flash Professional CC (2014.1) was released on October 6, 2014, featuring expanded WebGL publishing abilities, brush custom settings (angle, flatness), and the ability to import external SWFs.[79] Also, a new software development kit (SDK) enabling extensibility for custom platforms without depending on the Flash runtime, to reach more viewers. | |
Adobe Flash Professional CC 2015 (15) | 2015 | Flash Professional CC (2015) was released on June 15, 2015, with the return of the bone animation tool ( spritesheet for HTML5 Canvas, brush scaling with stage zoom, universal document type converter, improved audio workflows, improved Motion Editor, panel locking, faster saving of FLA files, auto-recovery optimizations, organize imported GIFs in a library, library search by linkage name, invert selection, paste and overwrite frames. Programming features include code snippet support for WebGL, improved Custom Platform Support SDK, latest Flash Player (version 17.0), AIR SDK (version 17.0) and CreateJS libraries.[80]
|
Open Source
Adobe has taken steps to reduce or eliminate Flash licensing costs. For instance, the SWF file format documentation is provided free of charge[81] after they relaxed the requirement of accepting a non-disclosure agreement to view it in 2008.[82] Adobe also created the Open Screen Project which removes licensing fees and opens data protocols for Flash.
Adobe has also open-sourced many components relating to Flash.
- In 2006, the Tamarin Project jointly managed by Mozilla and Adobe Systems[84]It is now considered obsolete by Mozilla.
- In 2011, the Apache Software Foundation and rebranded as Apache Flex.[85] Some saw this move as Adobe abandoning Flex, and stepping away from the Flash Platform as a whole.[86][87] Sources from Apache say that "Enterprise application development is no longer a focus at Adobe. At least as Flash is concerned, Adobe is concentrating on games and video.",[86][88] and they conclude that "Flex Innovation is Exploding!".[88] The donated source code included a partly developed AS3 compiler (dubbed "Falcon") and the BlazeDS set of technologies.[87][88]
- In 2013, the
Adobe has not been willing to make complete source code of the Flash Player available for
Open Screen Project
On May 1, 2008, Adobe announced the Open Screen Project, with the intent of providing a consistent application interface across devices such as personal computers, mobile devices, and consumer electronics.[93] When the project was announced, seven goals were outlined: the abolition of licensing fees for Adobe Flash Player and Adobe AIR, the removal of restrictions on the use of the Shockwave Flash (SWF) and Flash Video (FLV) file formats, the publishing of application programming interfaces for porting Flash to new devices, and the publishing of The Flash Cast protocol and Action Message Format (AMF), which let Flash applications receive information from remote databases.[93]
As of February 2009[update], the specifications removing the restrictions on the use of SWF and FLV/F4V specs have been published.[94] The Flash Cast protocol—now known as the Mobile Content Delivery Protocol—and AMF protocols have also been made available,[94] with AMF available as an open source implementation, BlazeDS.
The list of mobile device providers who have joined the project includes Palm, Motorola, and Nokia,[95] who, together with Adobe, have announced a $10 million Open Screen Project fund.[96]
End of life
One of Flash's primary uses on the Internet when it was first released was for building fully immersive, interactive websites. These were typically highly creative site designs that provided more flexibility over what the current HTML standards could provide as well as operate over dial-up connections.
Toward the end of the millennium, the
In 2011, Adobe ended support for Flash on Android.[102] Adobe stated that Flash platform was transitioning to Adobe AIR and OpenFL, a multi-target open-source implementation of the Flash API.[103] In 2015, Adobe rebranded Flash Professional, the main Flash authoring environment, as Adobe Animate to emphasize its expanded support for HTML5 authoring, and stated that it would "encourage content creators to build with new web standards" rather than use Flash.[104]
In July 2017, Adobe
With Flash's EOL announced, many browsers took steps to gradually restrict Flash content (caution users before launching it, eventually blocking all content without an option to play it). By January 2021, all major browsers were blocking all Flash content unconditionally. Only
Post EOL support
Adobe Flash will still be supported in China and worldwide on some specialized enterprise platforms beyond 2020.[5]
Content preservation projects
As early as 2014, around the same time that Adobe began encouraging Flash developers to transition their works to HTML5 standards, others began efforts to
Closer to Flash's EOL date in 2020, there were more concentrated efforts simply to preserve existing Flash applications, including websites, video games, and animations beyond Flash's EOL.[99][108][109] The Internet Archive introduced Ruffle and Emularity Flash emulators to emulate Flash games and animations without the security holes in November 2020, opening a new collection for creators and users to save and preserve Flash content.[110][111] By October 2023, the Flashpoint Archive has collected more than 160,000 Flash applications, excluding those that were commercial products, and offered as a freely available archive for users to download.[112][113] Kongregate, one of the larger sites that offered Flash games, has been working with the Strong Museum of Play to preserve its games.[107]
Format
FLA
Flash source files are in the FLA format and contain graphics and animation, as well as embedded assets such as bitmap images, audio files, and FLV video files. The Flash source file format was a proprietary format and Adobe Animate and Adobe Flash Pro were the only available authoring tools capable of editing such files. Flash source files (.fla) may be compiled into Flash movie files (.swf) using Adobe Animate. Note that FLA files can be edited, but output (.swf) files cannot.
SWF
Flash movie files were in the SWF format, traditionally called "ShockWave Flash" movies, "Flash movies", or "Flash applications", usually have a .swf
The use of vector graphics combined with program code allows Flash files to be smaller—and thus allows streams to use less bandwidth—than the corresponding bitmaps or video clips. For content in a single format (such as just text, video, or audio), other alternatives may provide better performance and consume less CPU power than the corresponding Flash movie, for example, when using transparency or making large screen updates such as photographic or text fades.
In addition to a vector-rendering engine, the Flash Player includes a virtual machine called the ActionScript Virtual Machine (AVM) for scripting interactivity at run-time, with video, MP3-based audio, and bitmap graphics. As of Flash Player 8, it offered two video codecs:
3D
Flash Player 11 introduced a full 3D
Various 3D frameworks have been built for Flash using Stage3D, such as
Flash Video
Virtually all browser plugins for video are free of charge and cross-platform, including Adobe's offering of Flash Video, which was introduced with Flash version 6. Flash Video had been a popular choice for websites due to the large installed user base and programmability of Flash. In 2010, Apple publicly criticized Adobe Flash, including its implementation of video playback for not taking advantage of hardware acceleration, one reason Flash was not to be found on Apple's mobile devices. Soon after Apple's criticism, Adobe demoed and released a beta version of Flash 10.1, which used available GPU hardware acceleration even on a Mac. Flash 10.2 beta, released December 2010, added hardware acceleration for the whole video rendering pipeline.
Flash Player supports two distinct modes of video playback, and
- Software Rendered Video
- Flash Player supports software rendered video since version 6. Such video supports vector animations displayed above the video content. This obligation may, depending on graphic multimedia player would use, with the consequence that color space conversion and scaling must happen in software.[121]
- Hardware Accelerated Video
- Flash Player supports hardware accelerated video playback since version 10.2, for FLV video formats. Such video is displayed above all Flash content and takes advantage of video codec chipsets installed on the user's device. Developers must specifically use the "StageVideo" technology within Flash Player in order for hardware decoding to be enabled. Flash Player internally uses technologies such as DirectX Video Acceleration and OpenGLto do so.
In tests done by Ars Technica in 2008 and 2009, Adobe Flash Player performed better on Windows than Mac OS X and Linux with the same hardware.[122][123] Performance has later improved for the latter two, on Mac OS X with Flash Player 10.1,[124] and on Linux with Flash Player 11.[125]
Flash Audio
Flash Audio is most commonly encoded in
On August 20, 2007, Adobe announced on its blog that with Update 3 of Flash Player 9, Flash Video will also implement some parts of the
Adobe Flash Player 10.1 does not have acoustic echo cancellation, unlike the VoIP offerings of Skype and Google Voice, making this and earlier versions of Flash less suitable for group calling or meetings. Flash Player 10.3 Beta incorporates acoustic echo cancellation.
ActionScript
Flash programs use ActionScript programming language. It is an enhanced superset of the ECMAScript programming language, with a classical Java-style class model, rather than JavaScript's prototype model.
Specifications
In October 1998, Macromedia disclosed the Flash Version 3 Specification on its website. It did this in response to many new and often semi-open formats competing with SWF, such as Xara's
Macromedia made the Flash Files specifications for versions 6 and later available only under a non-disclosure agreement, but they are widely available from various sites.
In April 2006, the Flash SWF file format specification was released with details on the then newest version format (Flash 8). Although still lacking specific information on the incorporated video compression formats (On2, Sorenson Spark, etc.), this new documentation covered all the new features offered in Flash v8 including new ActionScript commands, expressive filter controls, and so on. The file format specification document is offered only to developers who agree to a license agreement that permits them to use the specifications only to develop programs that can export to the Flash file format. The license does not allow the use of the specifications to create programs that can be used for playback of Flash files. The Flash 9 specification was made available under similar restrictions.[128]
In June 2009, Adobe launched the
Animation tools
Official tools
The Adobe Animate authoring program is primarily used to design graphics and animation and publish the same for websites, web applications, and video games. The program also offers limited support for audio and video embedding and ActionScript scripting.
Adobe released Adobe LiveMotion, designed to create interactive animation content and export it to a variety of formats, including SWF. LiveMotion failed to gain any notable user base.[specify]
In February 2003, Macromedia purchased Presedia, which had developed a Flash authoring tool that automatically converted PowerPoint files into Flash. Macromedia subsequently released the new product as Breeze, which included many new enhancements.
Third-party tools
Various free and commercial software packages can output animations into the Flash SWF format including:
- Ajax Animator aims to create a Flash development environment
- Apple Keynote allows users to export presentations to Flash SWF animations
- KTooncan edit vectors and generate SWF, but its interface is very different from Macromedia's
- Moho is a 2D animation software package specialized for character animation, that creates Flash animations
- OpenOffice Impress
- Screencast and Screencam, produces demos or tutorials by capturing the screen and generating a Flash animation of the same
- SWiSH Max is an animation editor with preset animation, developed by an ex-employee of Macromedia, that can output Flash animations
- Synfig
- Toon Boomis a traditional animation tool that can output Flash animations
- Swift 3d for vector 3D rendering & animation
- Xara Photo & Graphic Designercan output Flash animations
The Flash 4 Linux project was an initiative to develop an
Programming tools
Official tools
Adobe provides a series of tools to develop
- Apache Software Foundationin 2011.
- Adobe Animate – primarily used to design graphics and animation, but supports ActionScript scripting and debugging.
- Adobe Flash Builder – enterprise application development & debugging, contains the Flex SDK with UI and charting components.
- Adobe Scout – a visual profiler to optimize the performance of Flash content.
- cross-compileC++ code to run in Flash Player.
Third-party tools
Third-party development tools have been created to assist developers in creating software applications and video games with Flash.
- FlashDevelop is a free and open source Flash ActionScript IDE, which includes a project manager and debugger for building applications on Flash Player and Adobe AIR.
- Powerflasher FDT is a commercial ActionScript IDE similar to FlashDevelop.
- compiler optimizations supported in Haxe.[citation needed]
- SVGtags.
- swfmill and MTASC also provide tools to create SWF files by compiling text, ActionScript or XML files into Flash animations
- . It is able to import and export graphics from XML into SWF.
Players
Proprietary
Adobe Flash Player is the multimedia and application player originally developed by Macromedia and acquired by Adobe Systems. It plays SWF files, which can be created by Adobe Animate, Apache Flex, or a number of other Adobe Systems and 3rd party tools. It has support for a scripting language called ActionScript, which can be used to display Flash Video from an SWF file.
IrfanView, an image viewer, uses Flash Player to display SWF files.
Open source
OpenFL, a cross-platform open-source implementation of the Adobe Flash API,[103] supports importing SWF assets.[131]
Gnash aimed to create a software player and browser plugin replacement for the Adobe Flash Player. Gnash can play SWF files up to version 7, and 80% of ActionScript 2.0.[133] Gnash runs on Windows, Linux and other platforms for the 32-bit, 64-bit, and other operating systems, but development has slowed significantly in recent years.
Shumway was an open source Flash Player released by Mozilla in November 2012. It was built in JavaScript and is thus compatible with modern web browsers.[134][135][136] In early October 2013, Shumway was included by default in the Firefox nightly branch.[137] Shumway rendered Flash contents by translating contents inside Flash files to HTML5 elements, and running an ActionScript interpreter in JavaScript.[138] It supported both AVM1 and AVM2, and ActionScript versions 1, 2, and 3.[139] Development of Shumway ceased in early 2016.[140]
In the same year that Shumway was abandoned, work began on Ruffle, a flash emulator written in Rust. It also runs in web browsers, by compiling down to WebAssembly and using HTML5 Canvas.[141] In 2020, the Internet Archive added support for emulating SWF by adding Ruffle to its emulation scheme.[142] As of March 2023, Ruffle states that it supports 95% of the AS1/2 language and 73% of the AS1/2 APIs, but does not correctly run most AS3 (AVM2) applications.[citation needed]
Availability
Desktop computers
Adobe Flash Player
Adobe Flash Player is currently only supported with the enterprise[1][2][4] and China[5] variants, it has been deprecated everywhere else.[6]
Adobe Flash Player is available in four flavors:
- ActiveX-based Plug-in
- NPAPI-based Plug-in
- PPAPI-based Plug-in
- Projector
The ActiveX version is an
Adobe AIR
Adobe AIR shares some code with Adobe Flash Player and essentially embeds it.
Mobile devices
Adobe Flash Player
Adobe Flash Player was previously available for a variety of mobile operating systems, including
In 2011 Adobe reaffirmed its commitment to "aggressively contribute" to HTML5.
There is no Adobe Flash Player for iOS devices (iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch). However, Flash content can be made to run on iOS devices in a variety of ways:
- Flash content can be bundled inside an Adobe AIR app, which will then run on iOS devices. (Apple did not allow this for a while, but they relaxed those restrictions in September 2010.[157])
- If the content is Flash video being served by Adobe Flash Media Server 4.5, the server will translate and send the video as HTTP Dynamic Streaming or HTTP Live Streaming, both of which can be played by iOS devices.[158]
- Some specialized mobile browsers manage to accommodate Flash via streaming content from the cloud directly to a user's device. Some examples are Photon Browser[159] and Puffin Web Browser.[160]
The mobile version of Internet Explorer for Windows Phone cannot play Flash content;[161] however, Flash support is still present on the tablet version of Windows.[162]
Adobe AIR
AIR is a cross-platform runtime system for developing applications for mobile devices running Android (ARM Cortex-A8 and above)[163] and Apple iOS.[164]
Adobe Flash Lite
Adobe Flash Lite is a lightweight version of Adobe Flash Player intended for mobile phones[165][self-published source?] and other portable electronic devices like Chumby and iRiver.
Alternatives on the web
For a list of non-web alternative players, see § Open source.
OpenFL
OpenFL is an open-source software framework that mirrors the Adobe Flash API. It allows developers to build a single application against the OpenFL APIs, and simultaneously target multiple platforms including iOS, Android, HTML5 (choice of Canvas, WebGL, SVG or DOM), Windows, macOS, Linux, WebAssembly, Flash, AIR, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 3, PlayStation Vita, Xbox One, Wii U, TiVo, Raspberry Pi, and Node.js.[166] OpenFL mirrors the Flash API for graphical operations. OpenFL applications can be written in Haxe, JavaScript (EcmaScript 5 or 6+), or TypeScript.[167]
More than 500 video games have been developed with OpenFL,[168] including the BAFTA-award-winning game Papers, Please, Rymdkapsel, Lightbot, and Madden NFL Mobile.
HTML5
HTML5 is often cited as an alternative to Adobe Flash technology usage on web pages. Adobe released a tool that converts Flash to HTML5,[169] and in June 2011, Google released an experimental tool that does the same.[170][171] In January 2015, YouTube defaulted to HTML5 players to better support more devices.[172]
Flash to HTML5
The following tools allow converting Flash content to HTML5:
- Adobe Edge Animate was designed to produce HTML5 animations directly.[173]
- Adobe Animate now allows Flash animations to be published into HTML5 content directly.
- SVG for graphics and JavaScriptfor animation.
- Adobe Wallaby was a converter developed by Adobe.[174]
- CreateJS is a library that while available separately was also adopted by Adobe as a replacement for Wallaby in
The following tools run Flash content in an HTML5-enabled browser, but do not convert to a HTML5 webpage:
- Shumway, developed by Mozilla, was an open source Flash virtual machine written in JavaScript.
- Web Flash Player, developed by GraphOGL Risorse, is a free and on-line Flash Player (Flash virtual machine) written in JavaScript.[179]
Criticisms
Mobile support
Websites built with Adobe Flash will not function on most modern mobile devices running
to build websites that support both desktop and mobile devices.However, Flash is still used to build mobile games using Adobe AIR. Such games will not work in mobile web browsers but must be installed via the appropriate app store.
Vendor lock-in
The reliance on Adobe for decoding Flash makes its use on the
Adobe's restrictions on the use of the SWF/FLV specifications were lifted in February 2009 (see Adobe's Open Screen Project). However, despite efforts of projects like Gnash, Swfdec, and Lightspark, a complete free Flash player is yet to be seen, as of September 2011. For example, Gnash cannot use SWF v10 yet.[180] Notably, Gnash was listed on the Free Software Foundation's high priority list, from at least 2007, to its removal in January 2017.[181]
Notable advocates of free software, open standards, and the World Wide Web have warned against the use of Flash:
The founder of Mozilla Europe, Tristan Nitot, stated in 2008:[182]
Companies building websites should beware of proprietary
rich-mediatechnologies like Adobe's Flash and Microsoft's Silverlight. (...) You're producing content for your users and there's someone in the middle deciding whether users should see your content.
Representing open standards, inventor of
I believe very strongly, that we need to agree on some kind of baseline video format if [the video element] is going to succeed. Flash is today the baseline format on the web. The problem with Flash is that it's not an open standard.
Representing the free software movement, Richard Stallman stated in a speech in 2004 that:[184] "The use of Flash in websites is a major problem for our community."
Accessibility and usability
Usability consultant Jakob Nielsen published an Alertbox in 2000 entitled, Flash: 99% Bad, stating that "Flash tends to degrade websites for three reasons: it encourages design abuse, it breaks with the Web's fundamental interaction principles, and it distracts attention from the site's core value."[185] Some problems have been at least partially fixed since Nielsen's complaints: text size can be controlled using full page zoom and it has been possible for authors to include alternative text in Flash since Flash Player 6.
Flash blocking in web browsers
Flash content is usually embedded using the object
or embed
HTML element.[186] A web browser that does not fully implement one of these elements displays the replacement text, if supplied by the web page. Often, a plugin is required for the browser to fully implement these elements, though some users cannot or will not install it.
Since Flash can be used to produce content (such as advertisements) that some users find obnoxious or take a large amount of bandwidth to download, some web browsers, by default, do not play Flash content until the user clicks on it, e.g. Konqueror, K-Meleon.
Most current browsers have a feature to block plugins, playing one only when the user clicks it. Opera versions since 10.5 feature native Flash blocking. Opera Turbo requires the user to click to play Flash content, and the browser also allows the user to enable this option permanently. Both Chrome[187] and Firefox[188] have an option to enable "click to play plugins". Equivalent "Flash blocker" extensions are also available for many popular browsers: Firefox has Flashblock and NoScript, Internet Explorer has Foxie, which contains a number of features, one of them named Flashblock. WebKit-based browsers under macOS, such as Apple's Safari, have ClickToFlash.[189] In June 2015, Google announced that Chrome will "pause" advertisements and "non-central" Flash content by default.[190]
However, there are ways to pass this error in absence of flash player by deleting the validation code in HTML. This also depends on browser vision.
Security
For many years Adobe Flash Player's security record[192] has led many security experts to recommend against installing the player, or to block Flash content.[193][194] The US-CERT has recommended blocking Flash,[195] and security researcher Charlie Miller recommended "not to install Flash";[196] however, for people still using Flash, Intego recommended that users get trusted updates "only directly from the vendor that publishes them."[197] Adobe Flash Player has over 1078 CVE entries,[198] of which over 842 lead to arbitrary code execution, and past vulnerabilities have enabled spying via web cameras.[199][200][201][202] Security experts have long predicted the demise of Flash, saying that with the rise of HTML5 "...the need for browser plugins such as Flash is diminishing".[203]
Active moves by third parties to limit the risk began with
Flash cookies
Like the
Notable people
- The Brothers Chaps, creators of one of the most popular applications of Flash, the Homestar Runner cartoon series
- Colin Moock, an Adobe Flash and ActionScript expert, author, tutor, and programmer[212]
See also
Explanatory footnotes
- ^ FLV and F4V Archived September 23, 2010, at the Wayback Machine. F4V is based on the ISO base media file format standard, available as a free download at http://standards.iso.org/ittf/PubliclyAvailableStandards/index.html .
- ^ except in China, where it continues to be used, as well as Harman for enterprise users.
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