5 ms·

There's quite a few flash games/etc. that will be lost to the ages. Quite interesting if you think about it! A bit of an antithesis to the idea that what's on

There's quite a few flash games/etc. that will be lost to the ages. Quite interesting if you think about it! A bit of an antithesis to the idea that what's on the web is preserved forever.

asdfman123 7y ago
Isn't there some way to preserve them, kind of like what people did with DOS boxes?
- entropicdrifter 7y ago
  There are frameworks that let you compile flash games/apps/videos into native executables with pretty good compatibility (so minimal porting effort). That's probably the best we've got besides using an out-of-date insecure browser.
- rhinoceraptor 7y ago
  I'm sure there will be, there are a few implementations/emulators out there. Gnash, Shumway, Lightspark, and Ruffle. Ruffle seems to be pretty promising, it's being worked on by Newgrounds people and it's written in Rust to target the desktop and WASM. It looks like they can do animations and audio now, and they're working on the various versions of ActionScript.
  - azakai 7y ago
    Sadly Flash is incredibly hard to write a 100% implementation for. That's why there are so many attempts; they've all failed (but they can work well for specific Flash games/apps).
    - skissane 7y ago
      It would be great if Adobe could open source their existing Flash Player at some point. I struggle to see how doing so would harm them commercially. Even if an open source player is available, browser vendors have no interest in supporting it, so it won't be supported with browsers. It isn't going to take away interest in their newer pure HTML5 authoring tools.
kgwxd 7y ago
There's nothing to run Flash media outside a browser? Obviously that wouldn't help anything dependent on proprietary server functionality, but that's true of any software.
- EamonnMR 7y ago
  There's this: https://www.gnu.org/software/gnash/ https://www.gnu.org/software/gnash/ Looks like it got dropped from Ubuntu though.
- alisonatwork 7y ago
  I went through this a few weeks ago and found a site that explains how to run Flash games standalone: https://www.howtogeek.com/438141/how-to-play-adobe-flash-swf-files-outside-your-web-browser/ https://www.howtogeek.com/438141/how-to-play-adobe-flash-swf... Basically there is a program you can download from Adobe called Flash Player Projector Content Debugger, then you just point that at the .swf and go. An open source emulator would be better in the long term, but for now this is easier than trying to find a browser that still supports Flash natively.
  - Wowfunhappy 7y ago
    You really don't need a tutorial to use Flash Projector. :) • Windows: https://fpdownload.macromedia.com/pub/flashplayer/updaters/32/flashplayer_32_sa.exe https://fpdownload.macromedia.com/pub/flashplayer/updaters/3... • Mac: https://fpdownload.macromedia.com/pub/flashplayer/updaters/32/flashplayer_32_sa.dmg https://fpdownload.macromedia.com/pub/flashplayer/updaters/3... • Linux: https://fpdownload.macromedia.com/pub/flashplayer/updaters/32/flash_player_sa_linux.x86_64.tar.gz https://fpdownload.macromedia.com/pub/flashplayer/updaters/3... Download the version for your platform and open the swf file you want to run. That's it. Linux users can also use the community-packaged Flatpak: https://flathub.org/apps/details/com.adobe.Flash-Player-Projector https://flathub.org/apps/details/com.adobe.Flash-Player-Proj... All other links come from https://www.adobe.com/support/flashplayer/debug_downloads.html https://www.adobe.com/support/flashplayer/debug_downloads.ht...
- Kaiyou 7y ago
michaelbrave 7y ago
There is an emulation project trying to save as much as possible https://bluemaxima.org/flashpoint/ https://bluemaxima.org/flashpoint/

There's quite a few flash games/etc. that will be lost to the ages. Quite interesting if you think about it! A bit of an antithesis to the idea that what's on the web is preserved forever.

asdfman123 7y ago

Isn't there some way to preserve them, kind of like what people did with DOS boxes?

entropicdrifter 7y ago
There are frameworks that let you compile flash games/apps/videos into native executables with pretty good compatibility (so minimal porting effort). That's probably the best we've got besides using an out-of-date insecure browser.
rhinoceraptor 7y ago
I'm sure there will be, there are a few implementations/emulators out there. Gnash, Shumway, Lightspark, and Ruffle. Ruffle seems to be pretty promising, it's being worked on by Newgrounds people and it's written in Rust to target the desktop and WASM. It looks like they can do animations and audio now, and they're working on the various versions of ActionScript.
- azakai 7y ago
  Sadly Flash is incredibly hard to write a 100% implementation for. That's why there are so many attempts; they've all failed (but they can work well for specific Flash games/apps).
  - skissane 7y ago
    It would be great if Adobe could open source their existing Flash Player at some point. I struggle to see how doing so would harm them commercially. Even if an open source player is available, browser vendors have no interest in supporting it, so it won't be supported with browsers. It isn't going to take away interest in their newer pure HTML5 authoring tools.

kgwxd 7y ago

There's nothing to run Flash media outside a browser? Obviously that wouldn't help anything dependent on proprietary server functionality, but that's true of any software.

EamonnMR 7y ago
There's this: https://www.gnu.org/software/gnash/ https://www.gnu.org/software/gnash/ Looks like it got dropped from Ubuntu though.
alisonatwork 7y ago
I went through this a few weeks ago and found a site that explains how to run Flash games standalone: https://www.howtogeek.com/438141/how-to-play-adobe-flash-swf-files-outside-your-web-browser/ https://www.howtogeek.com/438141/how-to-play-adobe-flash-swf... Basically there is a program you can download from Adobe called Flash Player Projector Content Debugger, then you just point that at the .swf and go. An open source emulator would be better in the long term, but for now this is easier than trying to find a browser that still supports Flash natively.
- Wowfunhappy 7y ago
  You really don't need a tutorial to use Flash Projector. :) • Windows: https://fpdownload.macromedia.com/pub/flashplayer/updaters/32/flashplayer_32_sa.exe https://fpdownload.macromedia.com/pub/flashplayer/updaters/3... • Mac: https://fpdownload.macromedia.com/pub/flashplayer/updaters/32/flashplayer_32_sa.dmg https://fpdownload.macromedia.com/pub/flashplayer/updaters/3... • Linux: https://fpdownload.macromedia.com/pub/flashplayer/updaters/32/flash_player_sa_linux.x86_64.tar.gz https://fpdownload.macromedia.com/pub/flashplayer/updaters/3... Download the version for your platform and open the swf file you want to run. That's it. Linux users can also use the community-packaged Flatpak: https://flathub.org/apps/details/com.adobe.Flash-Player-Projector https://flathub.org/apps/details/com.adobe.Flash-Player-Proj... All other links come from https://www.adobe.com/support/flashplayer/debug_downloads.html https://www.adobe.com/support/flashplayer/debug_downloads.ht...
Kaiyou 7y ago

michaelbrave 7y ago

There is an emulation project trying to save as much as possible https://bluemaxima.org/flashpoint/ https://bluemaxima.org/flashpoint/