Adobe Flash Player (known in Internet Explorer, Firefox, and

Google Chrome Google Chrome is a cross-platform web browser developed by Google. It was first released in 2008 for Microsoft Windows, built with free software components from Apple WebKit and Mozilla Firefox. Versions were later released for Linux, macOS ...

as Shockwave Flash) is computer software for viewing multimedia contents, executing rich Internet applications, and streaming audio and video content created on the

Adobe Flash Adobe Flash (formerly Macromedia Flash and FutureSplash) is a multimedia software platform used for production of animations, rich web applications, desktop applications, mobile apps, mobile games, and embedded web browser video players. Fla ...

platform. It can run from a web browser as a browser

plug-in Plug-in, plug in or plugin may refer to: * Plug-in (computing) is a software component that adds a specific feature to an existing computer program. ** Audio plug-in, adds audio signal processing features ** Photoshop plugin, a piece of softwar ...

or independently on supported devices. Originally created by FutureWave under the name FutureSplash Player, it was renamed to Macromedia Flash Player after Macromedia acquired FutureWave in 1996. It was then developed and distributed by Adobe Systems as Flash Player after Adobe acquired Macromedia in 2005. It is currently developed and distributed by Zhongcheng for users in China, and by Harman International for enterprise users outside of China, in collaboration with Adobe. Flash Player runs

SWF SWF ( ) is an Adobe Flash file format used for multimedia, vector graphics and ActionScript.Open Screen Pr ...

files that can be created by

Adobe Flash Professional Adobe Animate (formerly Adobe Flash Professional, Macromedia Flash, and FutureSplash Animator) is a multimedia authoring and computer animation program developed by Adobe Inc. Animate is used to design vector graphics and animation for televis ...

, Adobe Flash Builder or by third-party tools such as FlashDevelop. Flash Player supports vector graphics, 3D graphics, embedded audio, video and

raster graphics upright=1, The Smiley, smiley face in the top left corner is a raster image. When enlarged, individual pixels appear as squares. Enlarging further, each pixel can be analyzed, with their colors constructed through combination of the values for ...

, and a scripting language called

ActionScript ActionScript is an object-oriented programming language originally developed by Macromedia Inc. (later acquired by Adobe). It is influenced by HyperTalk, the scripting language for HyperCard. It is now an implementation of ECMAScript (meani ...

, which is based on ECMAScript (similar to

JavaScript JavaScript (), often abbreviated as JS, is a programming language that is one of the core technologies of the World Wide Web, alongside HTML and CSS. As of 2022, 98% of Website, websites use JavaScript on the Client (computing), client side ...

) and supports

object-oriented code Object-oriented programming (OOP) is a programming paradigm based on the concept of "objects", which can contain data and code. The data is in the form of fields (often known as attributes or ''properties''), and the code is in the form of pro ...

. Internet Explorer 11 and Microsoft Edge Legacy, in Windows 8 and later, along with

on all versions of Windows, came bundled with a

sandboxed In computer security, a sandbox is a security mechanism for separating running programs, usually in an effort to mitigate system failures and/or software Vulnerability (computing), vulnerabilities from spreading. The isolation metaphor is taken ...

Adobe Flash plug-in. Flash Player once had a large user base, and was a common format for

web games A browser game or a "flash game" is a video game that is played via the internet using a web browser. They are mostly free-to-play and can be single-player or multiplayer. Some browser games are also available as mobile apps, PC games, or on co ...

, animations, and graphical user interface (GUI) elements embedded in web pages. Adobe stated in 2013 that more than 400 million out of over 1 billion connected desktops updated to new versions of Flash Player within six weeks of release. However, Flash Player became increasingly criticized for its performance, consumption of battery on mobile devices, the number of security vulnerabilities that had been discovered in the software, and its closed platform nature.

Apple An apple is an edible fruit produced by an apple tree (''Malus domestica''). Apple trees are cultivated worldwide and are the most widely grown species in the genus '' Malus''. The tree originated in Central Asia, where its wild ances ...

co-founder

Steve Jobs Steven Paul Jobs (February 24, 1955 – October 5, 2011) was an American entrepreneur, industrial designer, media proprietor, and investor. He was the co-founder, chairman, and CEO of Apple; the chairman and majority shareholder of Pixar; a ...

was highly critical of Flash Player, having published an open letter detailing Apple's reasoning for not supporting Flash on its iOS device family. Its usage also waned because of modern

web standards Web standards are the formal, non-proprietary standards and other technical specifications that define and describe aspects of the World Wide Web. In recent years, the term has been more frequently associated with the trend of endorsing a set of s ...

that allow some of Flash's use cases to be fulfilled without third-party plugins. This led to the eventual deprecation of the platform by Adobe. Flash Player was officially discontinued on 31 December 2020, and its download page was removed two days later. Since 12 January 2021, Flash Player (original global variants) versions newer than 32.0.0.371, released in May 2020, refuse to play Flash content and instead display a static warning message. The software remains supported in mainland China and in some enterprise variants.

Features

Adobe Flash Player is a runtime that executes and displays content from a provided

SWF SWF ( ) is an Adobe Flash file format used for multimedia, vector graphics and ActionScript.Open Screen Pr ...

file, although it has no in-built features to modify the SWF file at runtime. It can execute software written in the

programming language which enables the runtime manipulation of text, data, vector graphics,

sound In physics, sound is a vibration that propagates as an acoustic wave, through a transmission medium such as a gas, liquid or solid. In human physiology and psychology, sound is the ''reception'' of such waves and their ''perception'' by ...

, and

video Video is an Electronics, electronic medium for the recording, copying, playback, broadcasting, and display of moving picture, moving image, visual Media (communication), media. Video was first developed for mechanical television systems, whi ...

. The player can also access certain connected hardware devices, including the web cameras and

microphone A microphone, colloquially called a mic or mike (), is a transducer that converts sound into an electrical signal. Microphones are used in many applications such as telephones, hearing aids, public address systems for concert halls and pub ...

s, after permission for the same has been granted by the user. Flash Player was used internally by the Adobe Integrated Runtime (AIR), to provide a cross-platform runtime environment for desktop applications and mobile applications. AIR supports installable applications on

Windows Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for ...

Linux Linux ( or ) is a family of open-source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged as a Linux distribution, which i ...

macOS macOS (; previously OS X and originally Mac OS X) is a Unix operating system developed and marketed by Apple Inc. since 2001. It is the primary operating system for Apple's Mac (computer), Mac computers. Within the market of ...

, and some mobile operating systems such as iOS and

Android Android may refer to: Science and technology * Android (robot), a humanoid robot or synthetic organism designed to imitate a human * Android (operating system), Google's mobile operating system ** Bugdroid, a Google mascot sometimes referred to ...

. Flash applications must specifically be built for the AIR runtime to use additional features provided, such as file system integration, native client extensions, native window/screen integration, taskbar/dock integration, and hardware integration with connected

Accelerometer An accelerometer is a tool that measures proper acceleration. Proper acceleration is the acceleration (the rate of change of velocity) of a body in its own instantaneous rest frame; this is different from coordinate acceleration, which is acce ...

and GPS devices.

Data formats

Flash Player included native support for many data formats, some of which can only be accessed through the

scripting interface. * XML: Flash Player has included native support for

XML Extensible Markup Language (XML) is a markup language and file format for storing, transmitting, and reconstructing arbitrary data. It defines a set of rules for encoding documents in a format that is both human-readable and machine-readable. ...

parsing and generation since version 8. XML data is held in memory as an XML

Document Object Model The Document Object Model (DOM) is a cross-platform and language-independent interface that treats an XML or HTML document as a tree structure wherein each node is an object representing a part of the document. The DOM represents a docum ...

, and can be manipulated using ActionScript. ActionScript 3 also supports ECMAScript for XML (E4X), which allows XML data to be manipulated more easily. * JSON: Flash Player 11 includes native support for importing and exporting data in the

JavaScript Object Notation JSON (JavaScript Object Notation, pronounced ; also ) is an open standard file format and data interchange format that uses human-readable text to store and transmit data objects consisting of attribute–value pairs and arrays (or other se ...

(JSON) format, which allows interoperability with web services and

programs. * AMF: Flash Player allows application data to be stored on users computers, in the form of Local Shared Objects, the Flash equivalent to browser cookies. Flash Player can also natively read and write files in the

Action Message Format Action Message Format (AMF) is a binary format used to serialize object graphs such as ActionScript objects and XML, or send messages between an Adobe Flash client and a remote service, usually a Flash Media Server or third party alternatives. T ...

, the default data format for Local Shared Objects. Since the AMF format specification is published, data can be transferred to and from Flash applications using AMF datasets instead of

JSON JSON (JavaScript Object Notation, pronounced ; also ) is an open standard file format and data interchange format that uses human-readable text to store and transmit data objects consisting of attribute–value pairs and arrays (or other s ...

, reducing the need for

parsing Parsing, syntax analysis, or syntactic analysis is the process of analyzing a string of symbols, either in natural language, computer languages or data structures, conforming to the rules of a formal grammar. The term ''parsing'' comes from Lati ...

and validating such data. * SWF: The specification for the

SWF SWF ( ) is an Adobe Flash file format used for multimedia, vector graphics and ActionScript.Open Screen Pr ...

file format was published by Adobe, enabling the development of the SWX Format project, which used the SWF file format and AMF as a means for Flash applications to exchange data with server side applications. The SWX system stores data as standard SWF bytecode which is automatically interpreted by Flash Player. Another

open-source Open source is source code that is made freely available for possible modification and redistribution. Products include permission to use the source code, design documents, or content of the product. The open-source model is a decentralized sof ...

project, SWXml allows Flash applications to load XML files as native ActionScript objects without any client-side XML parsing, by converting XML files to SWF/AMF on the server.

Multimedia formats

Flash Player is primarily a graphics and multimedia platform, and has supported

and vector graphics since its earliest version. It supports the following different multimedia formats which it can natively decode and play back. * MP3: Support for decoding and playback of

streaming Streaming media is multimedia that is delivered and consumed in a continuous manner from a source, with little or no intermediate storage in network elements. ''Streaming'' refers to the delivery method of content, rather than the content i ...

MPEG-2 Audio Layer III MP3 (formally MPEG-1 Audio Layer III or MPEG-2 Audio Layer III) is a coding format for digital audio developed largely by the Fraunhofer Society in Germany, with support from other digital scientists in the United States and elsewhere. Origi ...

(MP3) audio was introduced in Flash Player 4. MP3 files can be accessed and played back from a server via

HTTP The Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) is an application layer protocol in the Internet protocol suite model for distributed, collaborative, hypermedia information systems. HTTP is the foundation of data communication for the World Wide Web, ...

, or embedded inside an SWF file, which is also a streaming format. * FLV: Support for decoding and playing back video and audio inside

Flash Video Flash Video is a container file format used to deliver digital video content (e.g., TV shows, movies, etc.) over the Internet using Adobe Flash Player version 6 and newer. Flash Video content may also be embedded within SWF files. There ...

(FLV and F4V) files, a format developed by Adobe Systems and Macromedia. Flash Video is only a container format and supports multiple different video

codec A codec is a device or computer program that encodes or decodes a data stream or signal. ''Codec'' is a portmanteau of coder/decoder. In electronic communications, an endec is a device that acts as both an encoder and a decoder on a signal or ...

s, such as Sorenson Spark, VP6, and more recently H.264. Flash Player uses hardware acceleration to display video where present, using technologies such as

DirectX Video Acceleration DirectX Video Acceleration (DXVA) is a Microsoft API specification for the Microsoft Windows and Xbox 360 platforms that allows video decoding to be hardware-accelerated. The pipeline allows certain CPU-intensive operations such as iDCT, motion ...

and

OpenGL OpenGL (Open Graphics Library) is a cross-language, cross-platform application programming interface (API) for rendering 2D and 3D vector graphics. The API is typically used to interact with a graphics processing unit (GPU), to achieve ha ...

to do so. Flash Video is used by

YouTube YouTube is a global online video sharing and social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by Google, and is the second most ...

Hulu Hulu () is an American subscription streaming service majority-owned by The Walt Disney Company, with Comcast's NBCUniversal holding a minority stake. It was launched on October 29, 2007 and it offers a library of films and television seri ...

, Yahoo! Video,

BBC Online BBC Online, formerly known as BBCi, is the BBC's online service. It is a large network of websites including such high-profile sites as BBC News and Sport, the on-demand video and radio services branded BBC iPlayer and BBC Sounds, the childr ...

, and other news providers. FLV files can be played back from a server using

progressive download, and can also be embedded inside an SWF file. Flash Video can also be streamed via RTMP using the Adobe Flash Media Server or other such server-side software. * PNG: Support for decoding and rendering Portable Network Graphics (PNG) images, in both its 24-bit (opaque) and 32-bit (semi-transparent) variants. Flash Player 11 can also encode a PNG bitmap via ActionScript. * JPEG: Support for decoding and rendering compressed

JPEG JPEG ( ) is a commonly used method of lossy compression for digital images, particularly for those images produced by digital photography. The degree of compression can be adjusted, allowing a selectable tradeoff between storage size and im ...

images. Flash Player 10 added support for the JPEG-XR advanced image compression standard developed by

Microsoft Corporation Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology corporation producing computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at the Microsoft Redmond campus located in Redmond, Washingt ...

, which results in better compression and quality than JPEG. JPEG-XR enables

lossy In information technology, lossy compression or irreversible compression is the class of data compression methods that uses inexact approximations and partial data discarding to represent the content. These techniques are used to reduce data size ...

and

lossless Lossless compression is a class of data compression that allows the original data to be perfectly reconstructed from the compressed data with no loss of information. Lossless compression is possible because most real-world data exhibits statistic ...

compression with or without

alpha channel In computer graphics, alpha compositing or alpha blending is the process of combining one image with a background to create the appearance of partial or full transparency. It is often useful to render picture elements (pixels) in separate pass ...

transparency. Flash Player 11 can also encode a JPEG or JPEG-XR bitmap via ActionScript. * GIF: Support for decoding and rendering compressed

Graphics Interchange Format The Graphics Interchange Format (GIF; or , see pronunciation) is a bitmap image format that was developed by a team at the online services provider CompuServe led by American computer scientist Steve Wilhite and released on 15 June 1987 ...

(GIF) images, in its single-frame variants only. Loading a multi-frame GIF will display only the first image frame.

Streaming protocols

* HTTP: Support for communicating with

web server A web server is computer software and underlying hardware that accepts requests via HTTP (the network protocol created to distribute web content) or its secure variant HTTPS. A user agent, commonly a web browser or web crawler, initi ...

s using

requests and POST data. However, only websites that explicitly allow Flash to connect to them can be accessed via HTTP or sockets, to prevent Flash being used as a tool for

cross-site request forgery Cross-site request forgery, also known as one-click attack or session riding and abbreviated as CSRF (sometimes pronounced ''sea-surf'') or XSRF, is a type of malicious exploit of a website or web application where unauthorized commands are submitt ...

cross-site scripting Cross-site scripting (XSS) is a type of security vulnerability that can be found in some web applications. XSS attacks enable attackers to inject client-side scripts into web pages viewed by other users. A cross-site scripting vulnerability may ...

, DNS rebinding, and

denial-of-service attack In computing, a denial-of-service attack (DoS attack) is a cyber-attack in which the perpetrator seeks to make a machine or network resource unavailable to its intended users by temporarily or indefinitely disrupting services of a host conn ...

s. Websites must host a certain XML file termed a ''cross domain policy'',Policy file changes in Flash Player 9 and Flash Player 10
, Adobe allowing or denying Flash content from specific websites to connect to them. Certain websites, such as

Digg Digg, stylized in lowercase as digg, is an American news aggregator with a curated front page, aiming to select stories specifically for the Internet audience such as science, trending political issues, and viral Internet issues. It was launche ...

Flickr Flickr ( ; ) is an American image hosting and video hosting service, as well as an online community, founded in Canada and headquartered in the United States. It was created by Ludicorp in 2004 and was a popular way for amateur and professiona ...

, and Photobucket already host a cross domain policy that permits Flash content to access their website via HTTP. * RTMP: Support for live audio and video streaming using the

Real Time Messaging Protocol Real-Time Messaging Protocol (RTMP) is a communication protocol for streaming media, streaming audio, video, and data over the Internet. Originally developed as a proprietary protocol by Macromedia for streaming between Flash Player and the Flash ...

(RTMP) developed by Macromedia. RTMP supports a non-encrypted version over the

Transmission Control Protocol The Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) is one of the main protocols of the Internet protocol suite. It originated in the initial network implementation in which it complemented the Internet Protocol (IP). Therefore, the entire suite is common ...

(TCP) or an encrypted version over a secure

Transport Layer Security Transport Layer Security (TLS) is a cryptographic protocol designed to provide communications security over a computer network. The protocol is widely used in applications such as email, instant messaging, and voice over IP, but its use in secu ...

(SSL) connection. RTMPT can also be encapsulated within

requests to traverse firewalls that only allow HTTP traffic. * TCP: Support for

(TCP) Internet socket communication to communicate with any type of server, using stream sockets. Sockets can be used only via

, and can transfer

plain text In computing, plain text is a loose term for data (e.g. file contents) that represent only characters of readable material but not its graphical representation nor other objects ( floating-point numbers, images, etc.). It may also include a limi ...

, or binary data (ActionScript 3.0 and later). To prevent security issues, web servers that permit Flash content to communicate with them using sockets must host an

-based cross domain policy file, served on

Port A port is a maritime facility comprising one or more wharves or loading areas, where ships load and discharge cargo and passengers. Although usually situated on a sea coast or estuary, ports can also be found far inland, such as ...

843. Sockets enable AS3 programs to interface with any kind of server software, such as

MySQL MySQL () is an open-source relational database management system (RDBMS). Its name is a combination of "My", the name of co-founder Michael Widenius's daughter My, and "SQL", the acronym for Structured Query Language. A relational database ...

Performance

Hardware acceleration

Until version 10 of the Flash player, there was no support for GPU acceleration. Version 10 added a limited form of support for

shader In computer graphics, a shader is a computer program that calculates the appropriate levels of light, darkness, and color during the rendering of a 3D scene - a process known as '' shading''. Shaders have evolved to perform a variety of spec ...

s on materials in the form of the Pixel Bender API, but still did not have GPU-accelerated 3D vertex processing. A significant change came in version 11, which added a new low-level API called Stage3D (initially codenamed Molehill), which provides full GPU acceleration, similar to WebGL. (The partial support for GPU acceleration in Pixel Bender was completely removed in Flash 11.8, resulting in the disruption of some projects like MIT's Scratch, which lacked the manpower to recode their applications quickly enough.) Current versions of Flash Player are optimized to use

hardware acceleration Hardware acceleration is the use of computer hardware designed to perform specific functions more efficiently when compared to software running on a general-purpose central processing unit (CPU). Any transformation of data that can be calc ...

for video playback and 3D graphics rendering on many devices, including desktop computers. Performance is similar to

HTML5 video The HTML5 specification introduced the video element for the purpose of playing videos, partially replacing the object element. HTML5 video is intended by its creators to become the new standard way to show video on the web, instead of the previo ...

playback. Also, Flash Player has been used on multiple mobile devices as a primary user interface renderer.

Compilation

Although code written in ActionScript 3 executes up to 10 times faster than the prior ActionScript 2, the Adobe ActionScript 3 compiler is a non-

optimizing compiler In computing, an optimizing compiler is a compiler that tries to minimize or maximize some attributes of an executable computer program. Common requirements are to minimize a program's execution time, memory footprint, storage size, and power cons ...

, and produces inefficient bytecode in the resulting SWF, when compared to toolkits such as CrossBridge.Alchemy:FAQ
, Adobe LabsOptimizing ActionScript Bytecode using LLVM
, AdobeAdobe Alchemy, is it ActionScript heresy?
, Unit Zero One CrossBridge, a toolkit that targets C++ code to run within the Flash Player, uses the

LLVM LLVM is a set of compiler and toolchain technologies that can be used to develop a front end for any programming language and a back end for any instruction set architecture. LLVM is designed around a language-independent intermediate repre ...

compiler to produce bytecode that runs up to 10 times faster than code the ActionScript 3 compiler produces, only because the LLVM compiler uses more aggressive optimization. Adobe has released ActionScript Compiler 2 (ASC2) in Flex 4.7 and onwards, which improves compilation times and optimizes the generated bytecode and supports

method inlining In computing, inline expansion, or inlining, is a manual or compiler optimization that replaces a function call site with the body of the called function. Inline expansion is similar to macro expansion, but occurs during compilation, without chan ...

, improving its performance at runtime. As of 2012, the

Haxe Haxe is an open source high-level cross-platform programming language and compiler that can produce applications and source code, for many different computing platforms from one code-base. It is free and open-source software, released under the ...

multiplatform language can build programs for Flash Player that perform faster than the same application built with the Adobe Flex SDK compiler.

Development methods

Flash Player applications and games can be built in two significantly different methods: * "Flex" applications: The

Adobe Flex Apache Flex, formerly Adobe Flex, is a software development kit (SDK) for the development and deployment of cross-platform rich web applications based on the Adobe Flash platform. Initially developed by Macromedia and then acquired by Adobe Sy ...

Framework is an integrated collection of stylable

Graphical User Interface The GUI ( "UI" by itself is still usually pronounced . or ), graphical user interface, is a form of user interface that allows User (computing), users to Human–computer interaction, interact with electronic devices through graphical icon (comp ...

, data manipulation and networking components, and applications built upon it are termed "Flex" applications. Startup time is reduced since the Flex framework must be downloaded before the application begins, and weighs in at approximately 500KB. Editors include Adobe Flash Builder and FlashDevelop. * "Pure ActionScript" applications: Applications built without the Flex framework allow greater flexibility and performance. Video games built for Flash Player are typically pure-Actionscript projects. Various open-source component frameworks are available for pure ActionScript projects, such as ''MadComponents'', that provide UI Components at significantly smaller SWF file sizes. In both methods, developers can access the full Flash Player set of functions, including

text Text may refer to: Written word * Text (literary theory), any object that can be read, including: **Religious text, a writing that a religious tradition considers to be sacred **Text, a verse or passage from scripture used in expository preachin ...

, vector graphics,

bitmap In computing, a bitmap is a mapping from some domain (for example, a range of integers) to bits. It is also called a bit array or bitmap index. As a noun, the term "bitmap" is very often used to refer to a particular bitmapping application: th ...

graphics,

audio Audio most commonly refers to sound, as it is transmitted in signal form. It may also refer to: Sound *Audio signal, an electrical representation of sound *Audio frequency, a frequency in the audio spectrum * Digital audio, representation of soun ...

, camera, microphone, and others. AIR also includes added features such as file system integration, native extensions, native desktop integration, and hardware integration with connected devices.

Development tools

Adobe provides five ways of developing applications for Flash Player: * Adobe Animate: graphic design, animation and scripting toolset * Adobe Flash Builder: enterprise application development and debugging * Adobe Scout: visual profiler for performance optimization * Apache Flex: a free SDK to compile Flash and Adobe AIR applications from source code; developed by Adobe and donated to the Apache Foundation * CrossBridge: a free SDK to cross-compile C++ code to run in Flash Player Third-party development environments are also available: * FlashDevelop: an open-source Flash ActionScript IDE, which includes a debugger for AIR applications *

Powerflasher FDT Powerflasher FDT is an integrated development environment (IDE) built on the Eclipse platform for development of Adobe Flash-based content. FDT enables development of content such as video games, rich web applications and Adobe AIR applications, ...

: a commercial ActionScript IDE * CodeDrive: an extension to

Microsoft Visual Studio Visual Studio is an integrated development environment (IDE) from Microsoft. It is used to develop computer programs including web site, websites, web apps, web services and mobile apps. Visual Studio uses Microsoft software development platfor ...

2010 File:2010 Events Collage New.png, From top left, clockwise: The 2010 Chile earthquake was one of the strongest recorded in history; The Eruption of Eyjafjallajökull in Iceland disrupts air travel in Europe; A scene from the opening ceremony of ...

for ActionScript 3 development and debugging *

MTASC MTASC (Motion-Twin ActionScript 2 Compiler) is an ActionScript 2.0 compiler written in the OCaml programming language by the company Motion Twin. It is free software and can be used alone or with other tools like swfmill to produce SWF ...

: a compiler *

: a multi-platform language

Game development

Adobe offers the free Adobe Gaming SDK, consisting () of several open-source AS3 libraries built on the Flash Player Stage3D APIs for GPU-accelerated graphics: * Away3D: GPU-accelerated 3D graphics and animation engine *

Starling Starlings are small to medium-sized passerine birds in the family Sturnidae. The Sturnidae are named for the genus ''Sturnus'', which in turn comes from the Latin word for starling, ''sturnus''. Many Asian species, particularly the larger ones, ...

: GPU-accelerated 2D graphics that mimics the Flash display list API * Feathers: GPU-accelerated skinnable GUI library built on top of Starling * Dragon Bones: GPU-accelerated 2D

skeletal animation Skeletal animation or rigging is a technique in computer animation in which a character (or other articulated object) is represented in two parts: a surface representation used to draw the character (called the '' mesh'' or ''skin'') and a hierar ...

library A few commercial

game engine A game engine is a software framework primarily designed for the development of video games and generally includes relevant libraries and support programs. The "engine" terminology is similar to the term " software engine" used in the softwar ...

s target Flash Player (Stage3D) as run-time environment, such as Unity 3D and

Unreal Engine Unreal Engine (UE) is a 3D computer graphics game engine developed by Epic Games, first showcased in the 1998 first-person shooter game '' Unreal''. Initially developed for PC first-person shooters, it has since been used in a variety of genr ...

3. Before the introduction of Stage3D, a number of older 2D engines or isometric engines like

Flixel Adam Saltsman, also known as Adam Atomic, is an American indie video game designer best known for creating the endless runner ''Canabalt''. He is a founder of Semi Secret Software and Finji video game studios. Career Flixel (2008-11) Saltsm ...

saw their heyday. Adobe also developed the CrossBridge toolkit which cross-compiles C/ C++ code to run within the Flash Player, using

and GCC as compiler backends, and high-performance memory-access

opcode In computing, an opcode (abbreviated from operation code, also known as instruction machine code, instruction code, instruction syllable, instruction parcel or opstring) is the portion of a machine language instruction that specifies the opera ...

s in the Flash Player (termed "Domain Memory") to work with in-memory data quickly. CrossBridge is targeted toward the

game development Video game development (or gamedev) is the process of developing a video game. The effort is undertaken by a developer, ranging from a single person to an international team dispersed across the globe. Development of traditional commercial PC ...

industry, and includes tools for building, testing, and debugging C/C++ projects in Flash Player. Notable online video games developed in Flash include ''

Angry Birds ''Angry Birds'' is a Finnish action-based media franchise created by Rovio Entertainment. The game series focuses on the eponymous flock of angry birds who try to save their eggs from green-colored pigs. Inspired by the game '' Crush the Castl ...

'', ''

FarmVille ''FarmVille'' is a series of agriculture-simulation social network game developed and published by Zynga in 2009. It is similar to '' Happy Farm'' and ''Farm Town''. Its gameplay involves various aspects of farmland management, such as plowing ...

'', and ''

AdventureQuest ''AdventureQuest'' (also referred to by its website name BattleOn or abbreviated to ''AQ'') is an online Flash-based single-player role-playing video game started in 2002 and currently developed by Artix Entertainment. As of March 5, 2019, aq.b ...

'' (started in 2002, and still active as of 2020).

Availability

Desktop platforms

Adobe Flash Player is available in two major flavors: # The plugin version for use in various web browsers # The "projector" version is a standalone player that can open

SWF SWF ( ) is an Adobe Flash file format used for multimedia, vector graphics and ActionScript.Open Screen Pr ...

files directly. On February 22, 2012, Adobe announced that it would no longer release new versions of NPAPI Flash plugins for Linux, although Flash Player 11.2 would continue to receive security updates. In August 2016 Adobe announced that, beginning with version 24, it will resume offering of Flash Player for Linux for other browsers. The Extended Support Release (ESR) of Flash Player on macOS and Windows was a version of Flash Player kept up to date with security updates, but none of the new features or bug fixes available in later versions. In August 2016, Adobe discontinued the ESR branch and instead focused solely on the standard release. Version 10 can be run under Windows 98/Me usin
KernelEx
HP offered Version 6 of the player for

HP-UX HP-UX (from "Hewlett Packard Unix") is Hewlett Packard Enterprise's proprietary implementation of the Unix operating system, based on Unix System V (initially System III) and first released in 1984. Current versions support HPE Integrit ...

, while Innotek GmbH offered versions 4 and 5 for

OS/2 OS/2 (Operating System/2) is a series of computer operating systems, initially created by Microsoft and IBM under the leadership of IBM software designer Ed Iacobucci. As a result of a feud between the two companies over how to position OS/2 ...

. Other versions of the player have been available at some point for

BeOS BeOS is an operating system for personal computers first developed by Be Inc. in 1990. It was first written to run on BeBox hardware. BeOS was positioned as a multimedia platform that could be used by a substantial population of desktop users a ...

Mobile platforms

In 2011, Flash Player had emerged as the de facto standard for online video publishing on the desktop, with adaptive bitrate video streaming, DRM, and fullscreen support.Flash and the HTML5 <video> tag
, YouTube BlogPardon Our Dust
, Hulu Blog On mobile devices, however, after

refused to allow the Flash Player within the inbuilt iOS web browser, Adobe changed strategy, enabling Flash content to be delivered as native mobile applications using the Adobe Integrated Runtime. Up until 2012, Flash Player 11 was available for the

(ARM Cortex-A8 and above), although in June 2012, Google announced that Android 4.1 (codenamed Jelly Bean) would not support Flash by default. In August 2012, Adobe stopped updating Flash for Android. Flash Player was supported on a select range of mobile and tablet devices, from

Acer Acer may refer to: * ''Acer'' (plant), the genus of trees and shrubs commonly known as maples * Acer Inc., a computer company in Taiwan ** Acer Laboratories Incorporated, a subsidiary company of Acer, Inc., that designs and manufactures integrate ...

BlackBerry 10 BlackBerry 10 is a discontinued proprietary mobile operating system for the BlackBerry line of smartphones, both developed by BlackBerry Limited (formerly Research In Motion). BlackBerry 10 is based on QNX, a Unix-like operating system that was ...

Dell Dell is an American based technology company. It develops, sells, repairs, and supports computers and related products and services. Dell is owned by its parent company, Dell Technologies. Dell sells personal computers (PCs), servers, data ...

, HTC,

Lenovo Lenovo Group Limited, often shortened to Lenovo ( , ), is a Chinese multinational technology company specializing in designing, manufacturing, and marketing consumer electronics, personal computers, software, business solutions, and related se ...

Logitech Logitech International S.A. ( ; often shortened to Logi) is a Swiss multinational manufacturer of computer peripherals and software, with headquarters in Lausanne, Switzerland, and Newark, California. The company has offices throughout Europe ...

, LG,

Motorola Motorola, Inc. () was an American multinational telecommunications company based in Schaumburg, Illinois, United States. After having lost $4.3 billion from 2007 to 2009, the company split into two independent public companies, Motorola ...

Samsung The Samsung Group (or simply Samsung) ( ko, 삼성 ) is a South Korean multinational manufacturing conglomerate headquartered in Samsung Town, Seoul, South Korea. It comprises numerous affiliated businesses, most of them united under the ...

, Sharp,

SoftBank is a Japanese multinational conglomerate holding company headquartered in Minato, Tokyo which focuses on investment management. The Group primarily invests in companies operating in technology, energy, and financial sectors. It also runs the ...

Sony , commonly stylized as SONY, is a Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan. As a major technology company, it operates as one of the world's largest manufacturers of consumer and professional ...

(and

Sony Ericsson Sony Mobile Communications Inc. ( ja, ソニーモバイルコミュニケーションズ株式会社) was a multinational telecommunications company founded on October 1, 2001, as a joint venture between Sony Group Corporation and Ericsson. I ...

), and

Toshiba , commonly known as Toshiba and stylized as TOSHIBA, is a Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan. Its diversified products and services include power, industrial and social infrastructure systems ...

. As of 2012, Adobe has stopped browser-based Flash Player development for mobile browsers in favor of

HTML5 HTML5 is a markup language used for structuring and presenting content on the World Wide Web. It is the fifth and final major HTML version that is a World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) recommendation. The current specification is known as the HT ...

,Adobe abandons Flash Player on mobile browsers for HTML5
, CBS News
; The Telegraph however, Adobe continues to support Flash content on mobile devices with the Adobe Integrated Runtime, which allows developers to publish content that runs as native applications on certain supported mobile phone platforms. Adobe said it will optimize Flash for use on

ARM architecture ARM (stylised in lowercase as arm, formerly an acronym for Advanced RISC Machines and originally Acorn RISC Machine) is a family of reduced instruction set computer (RISC) instruction set architectures for computer processors, configure ...

(ARMv7 and ARMv6 architectures used in the Cortex-A series of processors and in the ARM11 family) and release it in the second half of 2009. The company also stated it wants to enable Flash on NVIDIA Tegra, Texas Instruments OMAP 3, and Samsung ARMs. Beginning 2009, it was announced that Adobe would be bringing Flash to

TV set A television set or television receiver, more commonly called the television, TV, TV set, telly, tele, or tube, is a device that combines a tuner, display, and loudspeakers, for the purpose of viewing and hearing television broadcasts, or using ...

s via

Intel Intel Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Santa Clara, California, Santa Clara, California. It is the world's largest semiconductor chip manufacturer by revenue, and is one of the devel ...

Media Processor CE 3100 before mid-2009.

ARM Holdings Arm is a British semiconductor and software design company based in Cambridge, England. Its primary business is in the design of ARM processors (CPUs). It also designs other chips, provides software development tools under the DS-5, Real ...

later said it welcomes the move of Flash, because "it will transform mobile applications and it removes the claim that the desktop controls the Internet." However, as of May 2009, the expected ARM/Linux

netbook Netbook was a commonly used term that identified a product class of small and inexpensive laptops which were sold from 2007 to around 2013. These machines were designed primarily as cost-effective tools for consumers to access the Inte ...

devices had poor support for Web video and fragmented software base. Among other devices,

LeapFrog Enterprises LeapFrog Enterprises, Inc. (commonly known as LeapFrog) is an educational entertainment and electronics company based in Emeryville, California. LeapFrog designs, develops, and markets technology-based learning products and related content for ...

provides Flash Player with their Leapster Multimedia Learning System and extended the Flash Player with touch-screen support. Version 9 was the most recent version available for the Linux/ ARM-based Nokia 770/ N800/ N810 Internet tablets running

Maemo Maemo is a software platform originally developed by Nokia, now developed by the community, for smartphones and Internet tablets. The platform comprises both the Maemo operating system and SDK. Maemo played a key role in Nokia's strategy to c ...

OS2008.Web Players
. Adobe. Retrieved on March 11, 2011. Other versions of the player have been available at some point for

Symbian OS Symbian is a discontinued mobile operating system (OS) and computing platform designed for smartphones. It was originally developed as a proprietary software OS for personal digital assistants in 1998 by the Symbian Ltd. consortium. Symbian O ...

and

Palm OS Palm OS (also known as Garnet OS) was a mobile operating system initially developed by Palm, Inc., for personal digital assistants (PDAs) in 1996. Palm OS was designed for ease of use with a touchscreen-based graphical user interface. It is provi ...

. The Kodak Easyshare One includes Flash Player. The following table documents historical support for Flash Player on

mobile operating system A mobile operating system is an operating system for mobile phones, tablet computer, tablets, smartwatches, smartglasses, or other non-laptop personal computing, personal mobile computing devices. While computers such as typical laptops are "mobi ...

Other hardware

Some CPU

emulator In computing, an emulator is hardware or software that enables one computer system (called the ''host'') to behave like another computer system (called the ''guest''). An emulator typically enables the host system to run software or use peri ...

s have been created for Flash Player, including Chip8, Commodore 64,

ZX Spectrum The ZX Spectrum () is an 8-bit home computer that was developed by Sinclair Research. It was released in the United Kingdom on 23 April 1982, and became Britain's best-selling microcomputer. Referred to during development as the ''ZX81 Colou ...

, and the

Nintendo Entertainment System The Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) is an 8-bit third-generation home video game console produced by Nintendo. It was first released in Japan in 1983 as the commonly known as the The NES, a redesigned version, was released in American ...

. They enable video games created for such platforms to run within Flash Player.

End of life

Adobe announced on July 25, 2017, that it would end support for the normal/global variant of Flash Player on January 1, 2021, and encouraged developers to use

standards in place of Flash. The announcement was coordinated with

Facebook Facebook is an online social media and social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. Founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with fellow Harvard College students and roommates Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin ...

Google Google LLC () is an American Multinational corporation, multinational technology company focusing on Search Engine, search engine technology, online advertising, cloud computing, software, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, ar ...

Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational corporation, multinational technology company, technology corporation producing Software, computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at th ...

, and

Mozilla Mozilla (stylized as moz://a) is a free software community founded in 1998 by members of Netscape. The Mozilla community uses, develops, spreads and supports Mozilla products, thereby promoting exclusively free software and open standards, w ...

. Adobe announced that all major web browsers planned to officially remove the Adobe Flash Player component on December 31, 2020, and Microsoft removed it from the Windows OS in January 2021 via

Windows Update Windows Update is a Microsoft service for the Windows 9x and Windows NT families of operating system, which automates downloading and installing Microsoft Windows software updates over the Internet. The service delivers software updates for Wind ...

. In a move to further reduce the number of Flash Player installations, Adobe added a "time bomb" to Flash to disable existing installations after January 12, 2021. In mid-2020, Flash Player started prompting users to uninstall itself. Adobe removed all existing download links for Flash installers. After January 26, 2021, all major web browsers including Apple Safari,

Microsoft Edge Microsoft Edge is a proprietary, cross-platform web browser created by Microsoft. It was first released in 2015 as part of Windows 10 and Xbox One and later ported to other platforms as a fork of Google's Chromium open-source project: Android ...

, and

Mozilla Firefox Mozilla Firefox, or simply Firefox, is a free and open-source web browser developed by the Mozilla Foundation and its subsidiary, the Mozilla Corporation. It uses the Gecko rendering engine to display web pages, which implements current a ...

have already permanently removed Flash support. However,

Flash Flash, flashes, or FLASH may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Fictional aliases * Flash (DC Comics character), several DC Comics superheroes with super speed: ** Flash (Barry Allen) ** Flash (Jay Garrick) ** Wally West, the first Kid F ...

content continues to be accessible on the web through emulators such as Ruffle, with varying degrees of compatibility and performance, although this is not endorsed by

Adobe Adobe ( ; ) is a building material made from earth and organic materials. is Spanish for '' mudbrick''. In some English-speaking regions of Spanish heritage, such as the Southwestern United States, the term is used to refer to any kind of ...

Web browsers

= Google Chrome

= Starting from Chrome 76, Flash is disabled by default without any prompts to activate Flash content. Users who wanted to play Flash content had to manually set a browser to prompt for Flash content, and then during each browser session enable Flash plugin for every site individually. Microsoft Edge, which is based on Chromium, followed the same plan as Google Chrome. Google Chrome blocked the Flash plugin as "out of date" in January 2021, and fully removed it from the browser with Chrome version 88, released on January 20, 2021.

= Mozilla Firefox

= Starting with Firefox 85, Flash is disabled by default without any prompts to activate Flash content. To play Flash content, users had to manually set a browser to prompt for Flash content, and then during each browser session enable Flash plugin for every site individually. Firefox 85, released on January 26, 2021, completely removed support for the Flash plugin.

Firefox ESR Mozilla Firefox, or simply Firefox, is a free and open-source web browser developed by the Mozilla Foundation and its subsidiary, the Mozilla Corporation. It uses the Gecko rendering engine to display web pages, which implements current and ...

dropped support on November 2, 2021 (Firefox 78 ESR was the last version with support).

= Microsoft Windows

= On October 27, 2020, Microsoft released an update (named KB4577586) for Windows 10 and 8.1 which removes the embedded Adobe Flash Player component from IE11 and

Edge Legacy Microsoft Edge is a proprietary, cross-platform web browser created by Microsoft. It was first released in 2015 as part of Windows 10 and Xbox One and later ported to other platforms as a fork of Google's Chromium open-source project: Android ...

. In July 2021, this update was automatically installed as a security patch. However, an

ActiveX ActiveX is a deprecated software framework created by Microsoft that adapts its earlier Component Object Model (COM) and Object Linking and Embedding (OLE) technologies for content downloaded from a network, particularly from the World Wide Web. ...

Flash Player plugin may still be used with IE after this update is applied.

= Apple Safari

= Apple dropped Flash Player support from Safari 14 alongside the release of

macOS Big Sur macOS Big Sur (version 11) is the seventeenth software versioning, major release of macOS, Apple Inc.'s operating system for Macintosh computers. It was announced at Apple's Apple Worldwide Developers Conference, Worldwide Developers Conferen ...

Fallout

Despite the years of notice, several websites still were using Flash following December 31, 2020, including the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Many of these were resolved in the weeks after the deadline. However, many educational institutions still relied on Flash for educational material and did not have a path forward for replacement.

Post-EOL support

= Mainland China

= The China-specific variant of Flash will be supported beyond 2020, by a company known as Zhongcheng. The Projector (standalone) versions of this variant also work outside of China and do not include the "Flash Helper Service"; however, some tracking code still seems to be present. They are available on a somewhat hidden "Debug" page. In addition, as the global variant of the plugin was discontinued, some users have figured how to modify and repack the China-specific variant to bring it more in line with the global variant. This includes removing the "Flash Helper Service" and removing the China only installation restriction, along with all other geo-restrictions and tracking code. A "time bomb", similar to the one found in later versions of the global variant, is also present in the unmodified China variant; this is also removed in most repacks. In theory, these repacks should provide users outside of China with the latest security updates to Flash Player, without having to deal with invasive advertisements or worry about privacy risks. One such project, "Clean Flash Installer", was served a DMCA takedown from Adobe in October 2021.

= Enterprise

= Adobe has partnered with

Harman Harman may refer to: People * Harman (surname) Places * Harman, Australian Capital Territory * Hărman, Romania * Harman, West Virginia * Harmans, Maryland * Harman, Virginia * Harman's Cross, Dorset, England Other uses * Harman Intern ...

to support enterprise Flash Player users until at least 2023. The Harman Flash player variant is labeled as version 50.x, to avoid confusion with other variants.

= Web browsers

= Internet Explorer 11, along with IE mode in

Edge Edge or EDGE may refer to: Technology Computing * Edge computing, a network load-balancing system * Edge device, an entry point to a computer network * Adobe Edge, a graphical development application * Microsoft Edge, a web browser developed b ...

, will continue with ActiveX support, and by extension Flash Player support. Firefox forks that plan to continue NPAPI support, and by extension Flash Player support, include Waterfox,

Basilisk In European bestiaries and legends, a basilisk ( or ) is a legendary reptile reputed to be a serpent king, who causes death to those who look into its eyes. According to the ''Naturalis Historia'' of Pliny the Elder, the basilisk of Cyrene ...

, Pale Moon, and

K-Meleon K-Meleon is a free and open-source, lightweight web browser for Microsoft Windows. Unlike cross-platform browsers, it uses the native Windows API to create its user interface. K-Meleon can use the secure Goanna layout engine based on Mozilla's ...

. Various

Chromium Chromium is a chemical element with the symbol Cr and atomic number 24. It is the first element in group 6. It is a steely-grey, lustrous, hard, and brittle transition metal. Chromium metal is valued for its high corrosion resistance and h ...

-based Chinese browsers will also continue to support Flash Player in PPAPI and/or NPAPI form, including, but not limited to,

360 Secure Browser 360 Secure Browser (360 Security Browser) or 360 Safe Browser () is a web browser developed by the Qihoo company of Beijing, China. It was first released in September 2008. The browser by default renders the webpage using the WebKit-based eng ...

. Shortly after Flash EOL,

South African Revenue Service The South African Revenue Service (SARS) is the revenue service of the South African government. It administers the country's tax system and customs service, and enforces compliance with related legislation. It is governed by the SARS Act 34 o ...

(SARS) released a custom version of Chromium browser with the Adobe Flash Player "time bomb" removed. This browser can access only a small set of SARS online pages containing Flash-based forms required for filing financial reports.

= Adobe Flash Player Projector

= Although no longer available directly from Adobe, all versions of Adobe Flash Player Projector (also known as Adobe Flash Player Standalone) lack the "time bomb" present in the newer plug-in variants, and thus continue to be able to play all supported Flash

file format A file format is a Computer standard, standard way that information is encoded for storage in a computer file. It specifies how bits are used to encode information in a digital storage medium. File formats may be either proprietary format, pr ...

s, including

SWF SWF ( ) is an Adobe Flash file format used for multimedia, vector graphics and ActionScript.Open Screen Pr ...

files, without modification.

= Content preservation projects

= The

Internet Archive The Internet Archive is an American digital library with the stated mission of "universal access to all knowledge". It provides free public access to collections of digitized materials, including websites, software applications/games, music ...

hosts some Flash content and makes it playable in modern browsers via emulators, Ruffle and Emularity. Other emulators, such as CheerpX, also exist as options for Flash Player emulation on other websites. BlueMaxima's Flashpoint project claims to have collected more than 38,000 Adobe Flash Player games and animations and made them available for download.

Open source

Adobe has released some components of Adobe Flash products as open source software via Open Screen Project or donated them to open source organizations. As of 2021, most of these technologies are considered obsolete. This includes:

ActionScript Virtual Machine 2 Tamarin is a discontinued free software virtual machine with just-in-time compilation (JIT) support intended to implement the 4th edition of the ECMAScript (ES4) language standard. Tamarin source code originates from ActionScript Virtual Machine 2 ...

(AVM2) which implements ActionScript 3 (donated as open-source to

Mozilla Foundation The Mozilla Foundation (stylized as moz://a) is an American non-profit organization that exists to support and collectively lead the open source Mozilla project. Founded in July 2003, the organization sets the policies that govern development, ...

), Adobe Flex Framework (donated as open-source to the Apache Software Foundation and rebranded as Apache Flex, superseded by Apache Royale), CrossBridge C++

cross-compilation A cross compiler is a compiler capable of creating executable code for a platform other than the one on which the compiler is running. For example, a compiler that runs on a PC but generates code that runs on an Android smartphone is a cross ...

toolset (released on

GitHub GitHub, Inc. () is an Internet hosting service for software development and version control using Git. It provides the distributed version control of Git plus access control, bug tracking, software feature requests, task management, co ...

).Open Source Flash C++ Compiler, CrossBridge
, Adobe Blogs, June 25, 2013

Criticism

Accessibility and usability

In some browsers, prior Flash versions have had to be uninstalled before an updated version could be installed. However, as of version 11.2 for Windows, there are now automatic updater options. Linux is partially supported, as Adobe is cooperating with Google to implement it via Chrome web browser on all Linux platforms. Mixing Flash applications with HTML leads to inconsistent input handling leading to poor user experience with the site (keyboard and mouse not working as they would in an HTML-only document).

Privacy

Flash Player supports persistent local storage of data (also referred to as Local Shared Objects), which can be used similarly to

HTTP cookie HTTP cookies (also called web cookies, Internet cookies, browser cookies, or simply cookies) are small blocks of data created by a web server while a user is browsing a website and placed on the user's computer or other device by the user's ...

s or Web Storage in

web application A web application (or web app) is application software that is accessed using a web browser. Web applications are delivered on the World Wide Web to users with an active network connection. History In earlier computing models like client-serve ...

s. Local storage in Flash Player allows websites to store non-executable data on a user's computer, such as authentication information, game high scores or web browser games, server-based session identifiers, site preferences, saved work, or temporary files. Flash Player will only allow content originating from exactly the same website

domain Domain may refer to: Mathematics *Domain of a function, the set of input values for which the (total) function is defined ** Domain of definition of a partial function **Natural domain of a partial function **Domain of holomorphy of a function *Do ...

to access data saved in local storage. Because local storage can be used to save information on a computer that is later retrieved by the same site, a site can use it to gather user statistics, similar to how HTTP cookies and Web Storage can be used. With such technologies, the possibility of building a profile based on user statistics is considered by some a potential privacy concern. Users can disable or restrict use of local storage in Flash Player through a "Settings Manager" page. These settings can be accessed from the Adobe website or by right-clicking on Flash-based content and selecting "Global Settings". Local storage can be disabled entirely or on a site-by-site basis. Disabling local storage will block any content from saving local user information using Flash Player, but this may disable or reduce the functionality of some websites, such as saved preferences or high scores and saved progress in games. Flash Player 10.1 and upward honor the

privacy mode Private browsing is a privacy feature in some web browsers. When operating in such a mode, the browser creates a temporary session that is isolated from the browser's main session and user data. Browsing history is not saved, and local data as ...

settings in the latest versions of the Chrome, Firefox, Internet Explorer, and Safari web browsers, such that no local storage data is saved when the browser's privacy mode is in use.

Security

Adobe security bulletins and advisories announce security updates, but Adobe Flash Player release notes do not disclose the security issues addressed when a release closes security holes, making it difficult to evaluate the urgency of a particular update. A version test page allows the user to check if the latest version is installed, and uninstallers may be used to ensure that old-version plugins have been uninstalled from all installed browsers. In February 2010, Adobe officially apologized for not fixing a known vulnerability for over a year. In June 2010 Adobe announced a "critical vulnerability" in recent versions, saying there are reports that this vulnerability is being actively exploited in the wild against both Adobe Flash Player, and Adobe Reader and Acrobat. Later, in October 2010, Adobe announced another critical vulnerability, this time also affecting

-based mobile devices. Android users have been recommended to disable Flash or make it only on demand. Subsequent security vulnerabilities also exposed Android users, such as the two critical vulnerabilities published in February 2013 or the four critical vulnerabilities published in March 2013, all of which could lead to arbitrary code execution.

Symantec Symantec may refer to: *An American consumer software company now known as Gen Digital Inc. *A brand of enterprise security software purchased by Broadcom Inc. Broadcom Inc. is an American designer, developer, manufacturer and global supplier ...

's Internet Security Threat Report states that a remote code execution in

Adobe Reader Adobe Acrobat is a family of application software and Web services developed by Adobe Inc. to view, create, manipulate, print and manage Portable Document Format (PDF) files. The family comprises Acrobat Reader (formerly Reader), Acrobat (former ...

and Flash Player was the second most attacked vulnerability in 2009. The same report also recommended using

browser extension A browser extension is a small software module for customizing a web browser. Browsers typically allow a variety of extensions, including user interface modifications, cookie management, ad blocking, and the custom scripting and styling of web pa ...

s to disable Flash Player usage on untrusted websites.

McAfee McAfee Corp. ( ), formerly known as McAfee Associates, Inc. from 1987 to 1997 and 2004 to 2014, Network Associates Inc. from 1997 to 2004, and Intel Security Group from 2014 to 2017, is an American global computer security software company head ...

predicted that Adobe software, especially Reader and Flash, would be primary target for attacks in 2010. Adobe applications had become, at least at some point, the most popular client-software targets for attackers during the last quarter of 2009. The Kaspersky Security Network published statistics for the third quarter of 2012 showing that 47.5% of its users were affected by one or more critical vulnerabilities. The report also highlighted that "Flash Player vulnerabilities enable cybercriminals to bypass security systems integrated into the application." Steve Jobs criticized the security of Flash Player, noting that "Symantec recently highlighted Flash for having one of the worst security records in 2009". Adobe responded by pointing out that "the Symantec Global Internet Threat Report for 2009, found that Flash Player had the second lowest number of vulnerabilities of all Internet technologies listed (which included both web plug-ins and browsers)." On April 7, 2016, Adobe released a Flash Player patch for a zero-day memory corruption vulnerability that could be used to deliver

malware Malware (a portmanteau for ''malicious software'') is any software intentionally designed to cause disruption to a computer, server, client, or computer network, leak private information, gain unauthorized access to information or systems, de ...

via the Magnitude exploit kit. The vulnerability could be exploited for remote code execution.

Vendor lock-in

Flash Player 11.2 does not play certain kinds of content unless it has been digitally signed by Adobe, following a license obtained by the publisher directly from Adobe. This move by Adobe, together with the abandonment of Flex to Apache was criticized as a way to lock out independent tool developers, in favor of Adobe's commercial tools. This has been resolved as of January 2013, after Adobe no longer requires a license or royalty from the developer. All premium features are now classified as general availability, and can be freely used by Flash applications.

Apple controversy

In April 2010,

, at the time CEO of Apple Inc. published an open letter explaining why Apple would not support Flash on the iPhone,

iPod Touch The iPod Touch (stylized as iPod touch) is a discontinued line of iOS-based mobile devices designed and marketed by Apple Inc. with a touchscreen-controlled user interface. As with other iPod models, the iPod Touch can be used as a music pl ...

, and

iPad The iPad is a brand of iOS and iPadOS-based tablet computers that are developed by Apple Inc. The iPad was conceived before the related iPhone but the iPhone was developed and released first. Speculation about the development, operati ...

. In the letter he blamed problems with the "openness", stability, security, performance, and

touchscreen A touchscreen or touch screen is the assembly of both an input ('touch panel') and output ('display') device. The touch panel is normally layered on the top of an electronic visual display of an information processing system. The display is ofte ...

integration of the Flash Player as reasons for refusing to support it. He also claimed that when one of Apple's

Macintosh The Mac (known as Macintosh until 1999) is a family of personal computers designed and marketed by Apple Inc. Macs are known for their ease of use and minimalist designs, and are popular among students, creative professionals, and software en ...

computers crashes, "more often than not" the cause can be attributed to Flash, and described Flash as "buggy". Adobe's CEO Shantanu Narayen responded by saying, "If Flash sthe number one reason that Macs crash, which I'm not aware of, it has as much to do with the Apple operating system." Steve Jobs also claimed that a large percentage of the video on the Internet is supported on iOS, since many popular video sharing websites such as YouTube have published video content in an

compatible format, enabling videos to playback in mobile web browsers even without Flash Player.

Mainland China-specific variant

Starting with version 30, Adobe stopped distributing Flash Player directly to users from mainland China. Instead, they selected 2144.cn as a partner and released a special variant of Flash Player on a specific website, which contains a non-closable process, known as the "Flash Helper Service", that collects private information and pops up advertisement window contents, by receiving and running encrypted programs from a remote server. The partnership started in about 2017, but in version 30, Adobe disabled the usage of vanilla (global) variant of Flash Player in mainland China, forcing users to use that specific variant, which may pose a risk to its users due to

Internet censorship Internet censorship is the legal control or suppression of what can be accessed, published, or viewed on the Internet. Censorship is most often applied to specific internet domains (such as Wikipedia.org) but exceptionally may extend to all Int ...

Chinese Communist Party The Chinese Communist Party (CCP), officially the Communist Party of China (CPC), is the founding and sole ruling party of the People's Republic of China (PRC). Under the leadership of Mao Zedong, the CCP emerged victorious in the Chinese Ci ...

(CCP). This only affected Chinese

based browser users, Firefox users, and Internet Explorer users using

Windows 7 Windows 7 is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft. It was released to manufacturing on July 22, 2009, and became generally available on October 22, 2009. It is the successor to Windows Vista, released nearl ...

and below, as Microsoft still directly distributed Flash Player for Internet Explorer and

through

in Windows 8 and upward at the time. Starting in 2021, however, this variant is the only publicly supported version of Flash Player.

Release history

* FutureSplash Player 1.1 ** New scripting features ** Option to disable the menu and memory management optimizations * Macromedia Flash Player 2 (June 17, 1997) ** Mostly vectors and motion, some

s, limited audio ** Support of stereo sound, enhanced bitmap integration, buttons, the Library, and the ability to

tween Preadolescence is a stage of human development following middle childhood and preceding adolescence.New Oxford American Dictionary. 2nd Edition. 2005. Oxford University Press. It commonly ends with the beginning of puberty. Preadolescence is ...

color changes * Macromedia Flash Player 3 (May 31, 1998) ** Added alpha transparency, licensed MP3 compression ** Brought improvements to animation, playback, digital art, and publishing, as well as the introduction of simple script commands for interactivity * Macromedia Flash Player 4 (June 15, 1999) ** Saw the introduction of

MP3s and the Motion Tween. Initially, the Flash Player plug-in was not bundled with popular web browsers and users had to visit Macromedia website to download it. As of 2000, however, the Flash Player was already being distributed with all AOL,

Netscape Netscape Communications Corporation (originally Mosaic Communications Corporation) was an American independent computer services company with headquarters in Mountain View, California and then Dulles, Virginia. Its Netscape web browser was on ...

and Internet Explorer browsers. Two years later it shipped with all releases of

Windows XP Windows XP is a major release of Microsoft's Windows NT operating system. It was release to manufacturing, released to manufacturing on August 24, 2001, and later to retail on October 25, 2001. It is a direct upgrade to its predecessors, Wind ...

. The install-base of the Flash Player reached 92 percent of all Internet users. * Macromedia Flash Player 5 (August 24, 2000) ** A major advance in ability, with the evolution of Flash's scripting abilities as released as ActionScript ** Saw the ability to customize the authoring environment's

interface Interface or interfacing may refer to: Academic journals * ''Interface'' (journal), by the Electrochemical Society * '' Interface, Journal of Applied Linguistics'', now merged with ''ITL International Journal of Applied Linguistics'' * '' Int ...

** Macromedia Generator was the first initiative from Macromedia to separate design from content in Flash files. Generator 2.0 was released in April 2001, and featured real-time server-side generation of Flash content in its Enterprise Edition. Generator was discontinued in 2002, in favor of new technologies such as Flash Remoting, which allows for seamless transmission of data between the server and the client, and

ColdFusion Adobe ColdFusion is a commercial rapid web-application development computing platform created by J. J. Allaire in 1995. (The programming language used with that platform is also commonly called ColdFusion, though is more accurately known as ...

Server. ** In October 2000,

usability Usability can be described as the capacity of a system to provide a condition for its users to perform the tasks safely, effectively, and efficiently while enjoying the experience. In software engineering, usability is the degree to which a sof ...

guru

Jakob Nielsen Jacob or Jakob Nielsen may refer to: * Jacob Nielsen, Count of Halland (died c. 1309), great grandson of Valdemar II of Denmark * , Norway (1768-1822) * Jakob Nielsen (mathematician) (1890–1959), Danish mathematician known for work on automorphi ...

wrote a polemic article regarding usability of Flash content entitled
Flash: 99% Bad
. (Macromedia later hired Nielsen to help them improve Flash usability.) Flash logo

* Macromedia Flash Player 6 (version 6.0.21.0, codenamed ''

Exorcist In some religions, an exorcist (from the Greek „ἐξορκιστής“) is a person who is believed to be able to cast out the devil or performs the ridding of demons or other supernatural beings who are alleged to have possessed a person ...

'') (March 15, 2002) ** Support for the consuming Flash Remoting ( AMF) and Web Service (SOAP) ** Supports ondemand/live audio and video streaming ( RTMP) ** Support for screenreaders via Microsoft Active Accessibility ** Added Sorenson Spark video

for

** Support for video, application components, shared libraries, and accessibility ** Macromedia Flash Communication Server MX, also released in 2002, allowed video to be streamed to Flash Player 6 (otherwise the video could be embedded into the Flash movie). * Macromedia Flash Player 7 (version 7.0.14.0, codenamed ''Mojo'') (September 10, 2003) ** Supports progressive audio and video streaming (

) ** Supports ActionScript 2.0, an object-oriented programming language for developers ** Ability to create charts, graphs and additional text effects with the new support for extensions (sold separately), high fidelity import of

PDF Portable Document Format (PDF), standardized as ISO 32000, is a file format developed by Adobe in 1992 to present documents, including text formatting and images, in a manner independent of application software, hardware, and operating systems. ...

and

Adobe Illustrator Adobe Illustrator is a vector graphics editor and design program developed and marketed by Adobe Inc. Originally designed for the Apple Macintosh, development of Adobe Illustrator began in 1985. Along with Creative Cloud (Adobe's shift to month ...

10 files, mobile and device development and a forms-based development environment. ActionScript 2.0 was also introduced, giving developers a formal object-oriented approach to ActionScript. V2 Components replaced Flash MX's components, being rewritten from the ground up to take advantage of ActionScript 2.0 and object-oriented principles. ** In 2004, the "Flash Platform" was introduced. This expanded Flash to more than the Flash authoring tool.

Flex Flex or FLEX may refer to: Computing * Flex (language), developed by Alan Kay * FLEX (operating system), a single-tasking operating system for the Motorola 6800 * FlexOS, an operating system developed by Digital Research * FLEX (protocol), a ...

1.0 and

Breeze Breeze often refers to: * A gentle to moderate wind * Sea breeze, an onshore afternoon wind, caused by warm air rising over the land in sunny weather Breeze or The Breeze may also refer to: * Breeze block a concrete masonry unit made from recov ...

1.0 were released, both of which used the Flash Player as a delivery method but relied on tools other than the Flash authoring program to create Flash applications and presentations. Flash Lite 1.1 was also released, enabling mobile phones to play Flash content. ** Last version for Windows 95/NT4 and Mac Classic * Macromedia Flash Player 8 (version 8.0.22.0, codenamed '' Maelstrom'') (September 13, 2005) ** Support for runtime loading of GIF and PNG images ** New video codec (

On2 On2 Technologies, formerly known as The Duck Corporation, was a small publicly traded company (on the American Stock Exchange), founded in New York City in 1992 and headquartered in Clifton Park, New York, that designed video codec technology. It ...

VP6) ** Improved runtime performance and runtime bitmap caching ** Live filters and blendmodes ** File upload and download abilities ** New text-rendering engine, the Saffron Type System ** ExternalAPI subsystem introduced to replace fscommand ** On December 3, 2005, Adobe Systems acquired Macromedia and its product portfolio (including Flash). * Macromedia Flash Player 8 (version 8.0.24.0) (April 23, 2006) * Adobe Flash Player 9 (version 9.0.15.0, codenamed '' Zaphod'' and formerly named Flash Player 8.5) (June 22, 2006) ** Introduction of

(AVM2) with AVM1 retained for compatibility ** ActionScript 3 (a superset of ECMAScript 3) via AVM2 ** E4X, which is a new approach to parsing XML ** Support for binary sockets ** Support for

regular expression A regular expression (shortened as regex or regexp; sometimes referred to as rational expression) is a sequence of characters that specifies a search pattern in text. Usually such patterns are used by string-searching algorithms for "find" ...

s and namespaces ** AVM2 donated to

as open-source virtual machine named

Tamarin The tamarins are squirrel-sized New World monkeys from the family Callitrichidae in the genus ''Saguinus''. They are the first offshoot in the Callitrichidae tree, and therefore are the sister group of a clade formed by the lion tamarins, Go ...

* Adobe Flash Player 9 Update 1 (version 9.0.28.0, codenamed '' Marvin'') (November 9, 2006) ** Support for fullscreen mode * Adobe Flash Player 9 (version 9.0.45.0) (March 27, 2007) ** Support for Creative Suite 3. * Adobe Flash Player 9 Update 2 (version Mac/Windows 9.0.47.0 and Linux 9.0.48.0, codenamed '' Hotblack'') (June 11, 2007) ** Security update * Adobe Flash Player 9 Update 3 (version 9.0.115.0, codenamed ''Moviestar'' or ''Frogstar'') (December 2007) ** H.264 **

AAC AAC may refer to: Aviation * Advanced Aircraft, a company from Carlsbad, California * Alaskan Air Command, a radar network * American Aeronautical Corporation, a company from Port Washington, New York * American Aviation, a company from Cleveland, ...

(

HE-AAC High-Efficiency Advanced Audio Coding (HE-AAC) is an audio coding format for lossy data compression of digital audio defined as an MPEG-4 Audio profile in ISO/ IEC 14496–3. It is an extension of Low Complexity AAC (AAC-LC) optimized f ...

, AAC Main Profile, and AAC-LC) ** New Flash Video file format F4V based on the ISO base media file format (MPEG-4 Part 12) ** Support for container formats based on the ISO base media file formatAdobe Systems Incorporated (December 3, 2007
List of codecs supported by Adobe Flash Player
, Retrieved on August 5, 2009 ** Last version for Windows 98/ME and other platforms * Adobe Flash Player 10 (version 10.0.12.36, codenamed ''Astro'') (October 15, 2008) ** ''New features'' *** 3D object transformations *** Custom filters via Pixel Bender *** Advanced text support ***

Speex Speex is an audio compression codec specifically tuned for the reproduction of human speech and also a free software speech codec that may be used on VoIP applications and podcasts. It is based on the CELP speech coding algorithm.Xiph.OrIntro ...

audio codec *** Real Time Media Flow Protocol (RTMFP) *** Dynamic sound generation *** Vector data type ** ''Enhanced features'' *** Larger bitmap support *** Graphics drawing API *** Context menu *** Hardware acceleration *** Anti-aliasing engine (Saffron 3.1) *** Read/write clipboard access *** WMODE * Adobe Flash Player 10 (version 10.0.32.18) (July 27, 2009) * Adobe Flash Player 10 (version 10.0.42.34) (November 16, 2009) * Adobe Flash Player 10 (version 10.0.45.2) (February 21, 2010) * Adobe Flash Player 10.1 (version 10.1.53.64, codenamed '' Argo'') (June 10, 2010) ** Reuse of bitmap data copies for better memory management ** Improved garbage collector ** Hardware-based H.264 video decoding ** HTTP Dynamic Streaming ** Peer-assisted networking and multicast ** Support for browser

s ** Multi-touch APIs ** ''For Macs/OSX 10.4 ppc or later'' *** Using Cocoa UI for Macs *** Use of double-buffered OpenGL context for fullscreen *** Use of Core Animation * Adobe Flash Player 10.2 (version 10.2.152.26, codenamed ''Spicy'') (February 8, 2011) ** Stage Video, a full hardware-accelerated video pipeline **

Internet Explorer 9 Internet Explorer 9 or IE9 (officially Windows Internet Explorer 9) is a web browser for Windows. It was released by Microsoft on March 14, 2011, as the ninth version of Internet Explorer and the successor to Internet Explorer 8, and can replace p ...

hardware-accelerated rendering support ** Custom native mouse cursors ** Multiple monitor fullscreen support ** Enhanced

subpixel rendering Subpixel rendering is a way to increase the apparent resolution of a computer's liquid crystal display (LCD) or organic light-emitting diode (OLED) display by rendering pixels to take into account the screen type's physical properties. It takes a ...

for text * Adobe Flash Player 10.2 (version 10.2.152.32) (February 28, 2011) * Adobe Flash Player 10.2 (version 10.2.153.1) (March 21, 2011) * Adobe Flash Player 10.2 (version 10.2.159.1) (April 15, 2011) * Adobe Flash Player 10.3 (version 10.3.181.14, codenamed ''

Wasabi Wasabi ( Japanese: , , or , ; ''Eutrema japonicum'' or ''Wasabia japonica'') or Japanese horseradish is a plant of the family Brassicaceae, which also includes horseradish and mustard in other genera. The plant is native to Japan and the Russ ...

'') (May 12, 2011) ** Media measurement (video analytics for websites; desktop only) ** Acoustic Echo Cancellation (acoustic echo cancellation, noise suppression, voice activity detection, automatic compensation for microphone input levels; desktop only) ** Integration with browser privacy controls for managing local storage (ClearSiteData NPAPI) ** Native control panel ** Auto-update notification for Mac OS X ** Last version for Mac OS X 10.5 and Windows 2000 (unofficially bypassing the XP installer) ** Adobe replaced Extended Support Release 10.3 by 11.7 on July 9, 2013. * Adobe Flash Player 10.3 (version 10.3.181.23) (June 5, 2011) * Adobe Flash Player 10.3 (version 10.3.181.26) (June 14, 2011) * Adobe Flash Player 10.3 (version 10.3.181.34) (June 29, 2011) * Adobe Flash Player 10.3 (version 10.3.183.5) (August 14, 2011) * Adobe Flash Player 10.3 (version 10.3.183.7) (August 24, 2011) * Adobe Flash Player 10.3 (version 10.3.183.10) (September 21, 2011) * Adobe Flash Player 10.3 (version 10.3.183.11) (November 11, 2011) * Adobe Flash Player 10.3 (version 10.3.183.25) (September 18, 2012) * Adobe Flash Player 10.3 (version 10.3.183.29) (October 8, 2012) * Adobe Flash Player 11 (version 11.0.1.152, codenamed '' Serrano'') (October 4, 2011) ** ''Desktop only'' *** Stage 3D accelerated graphics rendering **** Desktop: Windows (

DirectX Microsoft DirectX is a collection of application programming interfaces (APIs) for handling tasks related to multimedia, especially game programming and video, on Microsoft platforms. Originally, the names of these APIs all began with "Direc ...

9), OS X ( Intel processor only) and Linux (

1.3), SwiftShader fallback **** Mobile: Android and iOS (

OpenGL ES OpenGL for Embedded Systems (OpenGL ES or GLES) is a subset of the OpenGL computer graphics rendering application programming interface (API) for rendering 2D and 3D computer graphics such as those used by video games, typically hardware-ac ...

2) *** H.264/AVC software encoding for cameras *** Native 64-bit *** Asynchronous bitmap decoding *** TLS secure sockets ** ''Desktop and mobile'' *** Stage Video hardware acceleration *** Native extension libraries **** Desktop: Windows (.dll), OS X (.framework) **** Mobile: Android (.jar, .so), iOS (.a) *** JPEG XR decoding *** G.711 audio compression for telephony *** Protected HTTP Dynamic Streaming (HDS) *** Unlimited bitmap size *** LZMA SWF compression ** ''Mobile only'' *** H.264/AAC playback *** Front-facing camera *** Background audio playback *** Device speaker control *** 16- and 32-bit color depth * Adobe Flash Player 11.1 (version 11.1.102.55, codenamed '' Anza'') (November 10, 2011) ** Last version of the web browser plug-in for mobile devices (made for Android 2.2 to 4.0.3) ** iOS 5 native extensions for AIR ** StageText: Native text input UI for Android ** Security enhancements, last official version for Windows 2000 * Adobe Flash Player 11.1 (version 11.1.102.62) (March 5, 2012) * Adobe Flash Player 11.2 (version 11.2.202.228) (March 28, 2012) * Adobe Flash Player 11.2 (version 11.2.202.233) (April 12, 2012) * Adobe Flash Player 11.2 (version 11.2.202.235, codenamed ''Brannan'') (May 3, 2012) ** The Windows version offers automatic updater options ** Dropped support of the browser plug-in for mobile devices (Android). Android app developers are encouraged to use Adobe Air and Android web developers should switch to HTML5. ** Extended support for Flash player 11.2 on Solaris as it is the last version to be supported. ** Adobe replaced Extended Support Release 11.2 on Linux with 24.0 on December 13, 2016. * Adobe Flash Player 11.3 (version 11.3.300.257) (June 8, 2012) * Adobe Flash Player 11.3 (version 11.3.300.262) (June 21, 2012) * Adobe Flash Player 11.3 (version 11.3.300.265) (July 11, 2012) * Adobe Flash Player 11.3 (version 11.3.300.268) (July 26, 2012) * Adobe Flash Player 11.3 (version 11.3.300.270) (August 4, 2012) ** ''Desktop and mobile'' *** Fullscreen interactive mode (keyboard input during fullscreen) *** Native bitmap encoding and compression (PNG, JPEG, JPEG-XR) *** Draw bitmaps with quality (low, medium, high, best) *** Texture streaming for Stage3D *** Dropped support for Linux and Solaris ** ''Mobile-only'' *** Auto-orientation on specific devices *** USB debugging for AIR on iOS * Adobe Flash Player 11.3 (version 11.3.300.271) (September 18, 2012) * Adobe Flash Player 11.3 (version 11.3.300.273) (October 3, 2012) * Adobe Flash Player 11.4 (version 11.4.402.259) (August 10, 2012) ** ''Flash Player only'' *** ActionScript workers *** SandboxBridge support *** Licensing support: Flash Player Premium features for gaming ** ''Flash Player and AIR'' *** Stage3D "constrained" profile for increased GPU reach *** LZMA support for ByteArray *** StageVideo attachCamera/Camera improvements *** Compressed texture with alpha support for Stage3D *** DXT encoding ** ''AIR only'' *** Deprecated Carbon APIs for AIR *** Direct AIR deployment using ADT *** Push notifications for iOS *** Ambient AudioPlaybackMode *** Exception support in Native Extensions for iOS * Adobe Flash Player 11.4 (version 11.4.402.265) (August 21, 2012) * Adobe Flash Player 11.4 (version 11.4.402.278) (September 18, 2012) * Adobe Flash Player 11.4 (version 11.4.402.287) (October 8, 2012) * Adobe Flash Player 11.5 ** Shared ByteArray ** Invoke Event enhancement (for openurl) ** Packaging multiple libraries in an ANE (iOS) ** Debug stack trace in release builds of Flash Player ** Statically link DRM (desktop only) * Adobe Flash Player 11.6 (codenamed '' Folsom'') ** Lossless video export from standalone and authplay.dll ** Support for flash.display.graphics.readGraphicsData() that returns a Vector of IGraphicsData ** Improve permissions UI related to full screen keyboard access ** Prevent ActiveX abuse in Office documents ** Support file access in cloud on Windows ** Enhance multi-SWF support ** Migration certification for ANEs ** RectangleTexture ** File API update so AIR apps conform to Apple data storage guidelines ** Separate sampler state for Stage3D ** Set device specific Retina Display resolution (iOS) * Adobe Flash Player 11.7 (version 11.7.700.169, codenamed '' Geary'') (April 9, 2013) ** SharedObject.preventBackup property ** forceCPURenderModeForDevices ** Remote hosting of SWF files in case of multiple SWFs ** Support for uploading 16-bit texture formats ** GameInput updates ** Android – create captive runtime apps ** Adobe replaced Extended Support Release 11.7 on Mac and Windows with 13.0 on May 13, 2014. * Adobe Flash Player 11.8 (codenamed ''Harrison'') ** Stage3D baselineExtended profile ** Recursive stop on MovieClip ** Flash Player & AIR Desktop Game Pad Support ** Support for large textures (extendedBaseline, 4096) ** Rectangle texture ** DatagramSocket ** ServerSocket ** Substitute a redirected URL from a source URLRequest for part of the URL in a new URLRequest * Adobe Flash Player 11.9 (codenamed ''Irving'') **

OS X Mavericks OS X Mavericks (version 10.9) is the 10th major release of macOS, Apple Inc.'s desktop and server operating system for Macintosh computers. OS X Mavericks was announced on June 10, 2013, at WWDC 2013, and was released on October 22, 2013, ...

Support ** Mac .pkg Installation Support * Adobe Flash Player 12 (codenamed ''Jones'') (November 14, 2013) ** Improved Mac .pkg Installation Support for the work flow and UI ** Support for Internet Explorer 11 on Windows 7 ** Support for Safe Mode in

Safari A safari (; ) is an overland journey to observe wild animals, especially in eastern or southern Africa. The so-called "Big Five" game animals of Africa – lion, leopard, rhinoceros, elephant, and Cape buffalo – particularly form an importa ...

6.1 and higher ** 64-bit PPAPI Flash Player for

** Graphics: Buffer Usage flag for Stage3D * Adobe Flash Player 13 (codenamed ''King'') ** Supplementary Characters Enhancement Support for Text Field ** Full Screen video message tweak ** this is the ''Extended Support Release''. * Adobe Flash Player 14 (version 14.0.0.125, codenamed '' Lombard'') (June 10, 2014) ** Stage 3D Standard profile * Adobe Flash Player 14 (version 14.0.0.145) (July 8, 2014) * Adobe Flash Player 14 (version 14.0.0.179) (August 12, 2014) * Adobe Flash Player 15 (version 15.0.0.152, codenamed '' Market'') (September 9, 2014) ** Improved support for browser zoom levels * Adobe Flash Player 15 (version 15.0.0.167) (September 23, 2014) * Adobe Flash Player 15 (version 15.0.0.223) (November 11, 2014) * Adobe Flash Player 16 (version 16.0.0.235, codenamed ''Natoma'') (December 9, 2014) ** Stage3D – Standard Constrained Profile ** PPAPI Installers for Windows and Mac * Adobe Flash Player 16 (version 16.0.0.257) (January 13, 2015) * Adobe Flash Player 16 (version 16.0.0.287) (January 22, 2015) * Adobe Flash Player 16 (version 16.0.0.296) (January 27, 2015) * Adobe Flash Player 16 (version 16.0.0.305) (February 5, 2015) * Adobe Flash Player 17 (version 17.0.0.134, codenamed '' Octavia'') (March 12, 2015) ** Control Panel improvements ** Installer improvements for Mac * Adobe Flash Player 17 (version 17.0.0.169) (April 14, 2015) * Adobe Flash Player 17 (version 17.0.0.188) (May 12, 2015) * Adobe Flash Player 18 (version 18.0.0.160, codenamed ''

Presidio A presidio ( en, jail, fortification) was a fortified base established by the Spanish Empire around between 16th and 18th centuries in areas in condition of their control or influence. The presidios of Spanish Philippines in particular, were ce ...

'') (June 9, 2015) ** Contains fixes for Adobe Security Bulletin APSB 15–11 * Adobe Flash Player 18 (version 18.0.0.194) (June 23, 2015) * Adobe Flash Player 18 (version 18.0.0.203) (July 8, 2015) * Adobe Flash Player 18 (version 18.0.0.209) (July 14, 2015) * Adobe Flash Player 18 (version 18.0.0.232) (August 11, 2015) * Adobe Flash Player 19 (version 19.0.0.185, codenamed ''Quint'') (September 21, 2015) * Adobe Flash Player 19 (version 19.0.0.207) (October 13, 2015) * Adobe Flash Player 19 (version 19.0.0.226) (October 16, 2015) * Adobe Flash Player 19 (version 19.0.0.245) (November 10, 2015) * Adobe Flash Player 20 (version 20.0.0.228, codenamed ''Rankin'') (December 8, 2015) * Adobe Flash Player 20 (version 20.0.0.267) (December 28, 2015) * Adobe Flash Player 20 (version 20.0.0.270) (January 1, 2016) * Adobe Flash Player 20 (version 20.0.0.286) (January 19, 2016) * Adobe Flash Player 20 (version 20.0.0.306) (February 9, 2016) * Adobe Flash Player 21 (version 21.0.0.182, codenamed ''Sutter'') (March 10, 2016) * Adobe Flash Player 21 (version 21.0.0.197) (March 23, 2016) * Adobe Flash Player 21 (version 21.0.0.213) (April 7, 2016) * Adobe Flash Player 21 (version 21.0.0.216) (April 8, 2016) * Adobe Flash Player 21 (version 21.0.0.226) (April 21, 2016) * Adobe Flash Player 21 (version 21.0.0.242) (May 12, 2016) * Adobe Flash Player 22 (version 22.0.0.185, codenamed ''Townsend'') (June 16, 2016) * Adobe Flash Player 22 (version 22.0.0.209) (July 12, 2016) * Adobe Flash Player 22 (version 22.0.0.210) (July 14, 2016) * Adobe Flash Player 23 (version 23.0.0.162, codenamed ''Underwood'') (September 13, 2016) * Adobe Flash Player 23 (version 23.0.0.185) (October 11, 2016) * Adobe Flash Player 23 (version 23.0.0.205) (October 26, 2016) * Adobe Flash Player 23 (version 23.0.0.207) (November 8, 2016) * Adobe Flash Player 24 (version 24.0.0.186, codenamed '' Van Ness'') (December 13, 2016) * Adobe Flash Player 24 (version 24.0.0.194) (January 10, 2017) * Adobe Flash Player 24 (version 24.0.0.221) (February 14, 2017) * Adobe Flash Player 25 (version 25.0.0.127, codenamed ''Webster'') (March 14, 2017) * Adobe Flash Player 25 (version 25.0.0.148) (April 11, 2017) * Adobe Flash Player 25 (version 25.0.0.163) (April 20, 2017) * Adobe Flash Player 25 (version 25.0.0.171) (May 9, 2017) * Adobe Flash Player 26 (version 26.0.0.126, codenamed ''York'') (June 13, 2017) * Adobe Flash Player 26 (version 26.0.0.131) (June 16, 2017) * Adobe Flash Player 26 (version 26.0.0.137) (July 11, 2017) * Adobe Flash Player 26 (version 26.0.0.151) (August 8, 2017) * Adobe Flash Player 27 (version 27.0.0.130, codenamed ''Zoe'') (September 12, 2017) * Adobe Flash Player 27 (version 27.0.0.159) (October 10, 2017) * Adobe Flash Player 27 (version 27.0.0.170) (October 16, 2017) * Adobe Flash Player 27 (version 27.0.0.183) (October 25, 2017) * Adobe Flash Player 27 (version 27.0.0.187) (November 14, 2017) * Adobe Flash Player 28 (version 28.0.0.126, codenamed ''Atka'') (December 12, 2017) * Adobe Flash Player 28 (version 28.0.0.137) (January 9, 2018) * Adobe Flash Player 28 (version 28.0.0.161) (February 6, 2018) * Adobe Flash Player 29 (version 29.0.0.113) (March 13, 2018) * Adobe Flash Player 29 (version 29.0.0.140) (April 10, 2018) * Adobe Flash Player 29 (version 29.0.0.171) (May 8, 2018) * Adobe Flash Player 30 (version 30.0.0.113) (June 7, 2018) * Adobe Flash Player 30 (version 30.0.0.134) (July 10, 2018) * Adobe Flash Player 30 (version 30.0.0.154) (August 14, 2018) * Adobe Flash Player 31 (version 31.0.0.108) (September 11, 2018) * Adobe Flash Player 31 (version 31.0.0.122) (October 9, 2018) * Adobe Flash Player 31 (version 31.0.0.148) (November 13, 2018) * Adobe Flash Player 32 (version 32.0.0.101) (December 5, 2018) * Adobe Flash Player 32 (version 32.0.0.114) (January 8, 2019) * Adobe Flash Player 32 (version 32.0.0.142) (February 12, 2019) * Adobe Flash Player 32 (version 32.0.0.156) (March 12, 2019) * Adobe Flash Player 32 (version 32.0.0.171) (April 9, 2019) * Adobe Flash Player 32 (version 32.0.0.192) (May 14, 2019) * Adobe Flash Player 32 (version 32.0.0.207) (June 11, 2019) * Adobe Flash Player 32 (version 32.0.0.223) (July 9, 2019) * Adobe Flash Player 32 (version 32.0.0.238) (August 13, 2019) * Adobe Flash Player 32 (version 32.0.0.255) (September 10, 2019) * Adobe Flash Player 32 (version 32.0.0.270) (October 9, 2019) * Adobe Flash Player 32 (version 32.0.0.293) (November 12, 2019) * Adobe Flash Player 32 (version 32.0.0.303) (December 10, 2019) * Adobe Flash Player 32 (version 32.0.0.314) (January 14, 2020) * Adobe Flash Player 32 (version 32.0.0.321) (January 21, 2020) * Adobe Flash Player 32 (version 32.0.0.330) (February 11, 2020) * Adobe Flash Player 32 (version 32.0.0.344) (March 10, 2020) * Adobe Flash Player 32 (version 32.0.0.363) (April 14, 2020) * Adobe Flash Player 32 (version 32.0.0.371) (May 12, 2020) * Adobe Flash Player 32 (version 32.0.0.387) (June 9, 2020) ** Refuses to play Flash content after January 12, 2021, and instead displays a static warning message. * Adobe Flash Player 32 (version 32.0.0.403) (July 14, 2020) * Adobe Flash Player 32 (version 32.0.0.414) (August 11, 2020) * Adobe Flash Player 32 (version 32.0.0.433) (September 8, 2020) * Adobe Flash Player 32 (version 32.0.0.445) (October 13, 2020) * Adobe Flash Player 32 (version 32.0.0.453) (November 10, 2020) * Adobe Flash Player 32 (version 32.0.0.465) (December 8, 2020) ** Final global variant update.

References

External links

* * *
Flash Tester
(explains official old working version check) {{Adobe Systems 1996 software Flash Player Classic Mac OS media players Computer-related introductions in 1996 IRIX software Linux media players MacOS media players Flash Player OS/2 software Proprietary cross-platform software Solaris media players Windows components Windows media players Obsolete technologies

Features

Data formats

Multimedia formats

Streaming protocols

Performance

Hardware acceleration

Compilation

Development methods

Development tools

Game development

Availability

Desktop platforms

Mobile platforms

Other hardware

End of life

Web browsers

= Google Chrome

= Mozilla Firefox

= Microsoft Windows

= Apple Safari

Fallout

Post-EOL support

= Mainland China

= Enterprise

= Web browsers

= Adobe Flash Player Projector

= Content preservation projects

Open source

Criticism

Accessibility and usability

Privacy

Security

Vendor lock-in

Apple controversy

Mainland China-specific variant

Release history

See also

References

Further reading

External links