Newgrounds has done a lot of work on preserving old Flash content. Some standouts are their own Flash player and an SWF to MP4 converter, but what I find most interesting is Ruffle.<p>Ruffle is a Flash emulator written in Rust that can be used as a browser extension, a desktop client, or a website polyfill. It's still a work in progress, but eventually websites with heavy use of Flash content (like many late-2000s webcomics, or even Newgrounds itself) could use the polyfill to replace Flash content with WASM blobs.<p>The roadmap was updated recently, and provides a good overview of Ruffle's current capabilities. There's also a demo instance that can run arbitary SWFs, with a few examples available.<p><a href="https://www.newgrounds.com/flash/player" rel="nofollow">https://www.newgrounds.com/flash/player</a><p><a href="https://github.com/Herschel/Swivel" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/Herschel/Swivel</a><p><a href="https://github.com/ruffle-rs/ruffle" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/ruffle-rs/ruffle</a><p>Roadmap: <a href="https://github.com/ruffle-rs/ruffle/wiki/Roadmap" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/ruffle-rs/ruffle/wiki/Roadmap</a><p>Demo: <a href="http://ruffle-rs.s3-website-us-west-1.amazonaws.com/builds/web-demo/index.html?file=synj1.swf" rel="nofollow">http://ruffle-rs.s3-website-us-west-1.amazonaws.com/builds/w...</a>
Flash became popular because of 2 things:<p>1/ Its IDE which made creating creative and interactive content mixing video/vector graphics sounds and code easier<p>2/ it's API that provided things that were not possible when browsers had none of these API (video streaming, socket programming...). At some point you could even write 2D shaders or inject C/C++ code with something called Alchemy.<p>Point 2 is now largely covered by browser web API, although one might argue that the performances might not be always as good as they were in flash, especially when it comes to vector graphics or realtime audio processing. But 3D and webgl are more performant than flash in the browser.<p>Point 1: well there isn't really an equivalent, and even Adobe Animate isn't really doing exactly what flash did when it comes to authoring content for browsers. So there is still a potential market here. I'd like to see something node based when it comes to coding. Artists love their nodes.<p>The real problem is obviously running old flash content like games. Some of these games were really good. I remember playing one which was a hotel management simulator and it was really really fun. But it's a bit like a these jar games in the 2000' one cannot run on modern mobile phones anymore. Without an effort to preserve these, they will all be lost.
I don't know if everyone here is familiar with this, but the decline of Flash began or was greatly influenced by Apple's decision to not let flash run on iPhones/iPads. Steve Jobs even wrote an open letter about it[1].<p>[1]<a href="https://www.apple.com/hotnews/thoughts-on-flash/" rel="nofollow">https://www.apple.com/hotnews/thoughts-on-flash/</a>
Someone please give this memo to Citibank which still uses Flash for their virtual credit card number feature! [1]<p>[1] <a href="https://www.cardbenefits.citi.com/Products/Virtual-Account-Numbers" rel="nofollow">https://www.cardbenefits.citi.com/Products/Virtual-Account-N...</a>
“Adobe will be removing Flash Player download pages from its site and Flash-based content will be blocked from running in Adobe Flash Player after the EOL Date.”<p>This blocking seems really dumb to me. At least throw up a warning. It will cause old web content to be completely inaccessible, throwing away years of human creativity. Most likely there will be some legacy systems somewhere that will then use a hacked version of flash laden with malware because it’s the only thing available so some legacy system written by long gone people can be used.
I didn’t have Flash on my computer for several years, but I installed it last week. I'm planning to take the GRE, which is being given remotely due to Covid. A proctor watches you through your webcam, which I find this completely creepy, but what can I do?<p>Anyway, this system apparently requires Flash.
I'm still confused by the statement 'Flash-based content will be blocked from running in Adobe Flash Player after the EOL Date.' are they literally going to stop the flash player loading SWF files on the 1st of January?
What are we to do about all the useful tools, pages and games that were either written in or utilized Flash? I realize some of this stuff will be rewritten in HTML5, but what about the things that are not?<p>How will we preserve all those classic flash games that we wasted our time playing in the early 2000s?
Why can't Adobe open source flash? It would be a massive help to people trying to create alternative implementations of flash to keep legacy websites working
I have <a href="http://www.vatican.va/various/cappelle/sistina_vr/index.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.vatican.va/various/cappelle/sistina_vr/index.html</a> in my bookmarks. A really beautiful depiction of the Sixtine Chapel. But I have no Idea how to load it on a modern OS. I have also no idea if the vatican has plans to update ist for more modern technologies.<p>There are even more <a href="http://www.vatican.va/various/basiliche/index_en.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.vatican.va/various/basiliche/index_en.html</a> if you dig around a little, but I have no clue how to preserve them...
Installing Flash used to be one of the very first things I did when configuring a new system. Now? I can't even remember the last time I actually used it.
Flash was a dumpster fire of performance and security issues and being a closed platform in direct competition with the web we have today, I won’t shed a tear over this.<p>What will be sorely missed though, are the brilliant authoring tools that Flash came with. For a very short time in history there was one tool that allowed designers and developers to truly collaborate on rich interactive experiences. It was amazing what that unlocked.
I don't get it why my Windows 10 installation is still downloading updates for Flash Player. I deselected it in some setting which was to be found somewhere (Windows 10 settings are a horrible maze), but for some reason it still thinks it needs to protect me from this deactivated piece of malware.
This has been a looooooong time coming. Very few websites still use flash.<p>The only sad thing about it is that it'll become much harder to play thousands of old-school flash games.
Gosh, I always think the websites in the FLASH era is the most versatile and really have no limitations, just see today's websites, all plain, simple, and boring as hell. Yeah I can understand the vulnerabilities and slowdown of Flash, but it really shines at that golden age! R.I.P
Just to share this archival project:<p><a href="https://bluemaxima.org/flashpoint/" rel="nofollow">https://bluemaxima.org/flashpoint/</a><p>Basically it's a massive bundle of flash (and other plugins) together with a curated list of games and animations. It spawns a local web server to trick the games into "thinking" they are still being run on their original servers (this doesn't work for games that required a multiplayer server obviously, it's only to workaround the common portal exclusivity rights that were common in the golden era of Flash games).<p>It's really a labor of love and an incredible window into a slice of web history from the early 2000's
Flash Player itself has a lot of security vulnerabilities but Adobe Flash as IDE still has no competitor even today IMHO. There is no such tool that combines code and graphics with ease like Adobe Flash. You can use it as an animator, you can use it as graphic designer, you can use it as developer. All these features just came together perfectly and it made sense. I am still missing this usability.
The internet would be a lot duller without some of the creativity Flash animations allowed, imagine a world without Cirno's Perfect Math Class.<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V_bQNPG2OyE&" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V_bQNPG2OyE&</a>
Good thing Haxe[1] and OpenFl[2] are around and doing well.<p>[1] - <a href="https://haxe.org/" rel="nofollow">https://haxe.org/</a><p>[2] - <a href="https://www.openfl.org/" rel="nofollow">https://www.openfl.org/</a>
In other words, they are implicitly telling us that we should archive their entire site... although I suspect the IA has already done so.<p>The only thing really bad about Flash was the security, but otherwise it is an extremely efficient vector/animation format that AFAIK none of the "open standards" have managed to come close to. Seeing Flash disappear, only to be replaced by SVG (yuck!), JavaScript, HTML, and CSS, was extremely disturbing.<p>(I have written a SWF to PDF converter. Parsing the format itself is quite straightforward, I could've probably written most of a player if I went further and added the interactive stuff too.)
Kongregate's John Cooney did a flash games postmortem @ GDC which seems appropriate here:<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=65crLKNQR0E" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=65crLKNQR0E</a>
Genuine question: if Flash weren't a security nightmare, would it be a better environment for producing games and dynamic content than what we have today? I've never done anything in Flash.
I never played any flash games and I never really understood the difference between the flash and shockwave plugins for games, but , I always installed flash because it was a wonderful video player. Before flash video was common most things were quicktime and the quicktime plugin was SLOW.<p>The other nice thing about flash is unlike quicktime there was a linux version.<p>Sure, flash is obsolete and unloved now, but it really was better than what came before it.
I just came here to say the Flash IDE was the best vector graphics editor I knew and I have not find a replacement. The way the color of two objects was used to determine the boolean operation between them was brilliant. You could add a bezier point by dragging a selection through a surface, you could remove a bezier point by narrowing the surface. The aligning gizmo always worked the way you needed it to work.
I wonder how much this will enable another wave of "Adobo Flash Player Browser Toolbar"-like adware since the official source will be removed.
Flash is a good candidate for webassembly as target.<p>Add updated controls for touch, discourage usage of hover, and compile the flash player to web assembly, targeting animations, ads, etc. Then provide a paid cdn for deliveeing content.<p>I remember using flash a long time ago, and what i loved most is the way you could do complex animations with such little effort.
I won't say it's not about time, but the decision to block the execution of flash content after said date and the removal of the downloads, complicates matters for system administrators.<p>We have a legacy blade enclosure at the office that needs an old version of flash for configuration, and also our vSphere web interface is flash based.
One of my fave Flash animations was a Stick Figure Animation, called "Time to Die."<p>I don't know if it can still be found anywhere, but it was a riot (and rather bloody).<p>You would pick which weapon they would "test," and one of the choices would result in a Snake Pliskin-type of character getting loose, and slaughtering everyone.
TIL Flash still exists on other platforms.<p>Flash was dropped around 10 years ago for Linux, and never existed on iOS.<p>I'd no idea it was still a thing on other platforms.<p>I do feel bad in that we've lost the ability to run lots of games, but most of them were to trivial to download/redistribute anyway, regrettably. Their fate was kinda already sealed.
Welcome news!<p>This guy is trying to emulate x86 in the browser and run the actual Flash player within that:<p><a href="https://medium.com/leaningtech/running-flash-in-webassembly-using-cheerpx-an-update-d500b6fbc44e" rel="nofollow">https://medium.com/leaningtech/running-flash-in-webassembly-...</a>
Discussion from 2017 when Adobe released the end-of-life information: <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14848786" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14848786</a> - “We will stop updating and distributing the Flash Player at the end of 2020”
I’ve got flashbacks to the time when I started creating my first website at a young age in the 2000s. Flash was this unreachable height for me and I just started testing HTML and how the internet even works. Now I’m a full time software engineer and happy on how far the web has gone until today :)
I miss Flash. It was fun. The web was fun. We got paid to make stuff move around and come up with crazy image masking animations and just experiment. The product had to go, but sadly, it would have no place in today’s much more serious web anyway.<p>Long live Macromedia and (F)uture Sp(lash) Animator.
I hoped to live to the day when Flash is dead, so at least something good has happened in my life (a few years ago already).<p>Now, looking forward to PDF being abandoned for scientific publication and ‘white papers’.
I remember around 2007 a tower defense came - desktop tower defense by hand drawn games... I guess that flash version is long gone but did find it nice wish someone would build an html5 version
Steve Jobs on Flash 10 years ago:<p><a href="https://www.apple.com/hotnews/thoughts-on-flash/" rel="nofollow">https://www.apple.com/hotnews/thoughts-on-flash/</a>
The little HN reader in me thinks this is great news, but the other part of me is worried because %DAYJOB% is providing support for a product that depends majorly on Adobe Flash (and IE11).
It would be nice if Adobe could release some of Flash player as open source, or at least help document the format to help preserve the content that made Adobe so much money in the past.
We still don’t have an easy way to make Flash-like games that work in the browser across platform.<p>Shame on Adobe for killing all Macromedia products. Fireworks, Macromedia, and Flash.
End of an era. I grew up learning how to use Flash and did little animations and even some websites in it. It was a lovely platform for non-programmer types.
Probably because no one uses it since most of the world is on Chrome. If G is maintaining the Pepper flash player for free, why would Adobe need to bother.
my biggest hope is that government entities stop making training content in flash. the freaking DISA cybersecurity training is in flash for crying out loud
So, there have been a pile of open source Flash emulation efforts - gnash, Shumway ...<p>They all seem to get half way then flounder.<p>What's up with that?