Adobe Flash Player - wikipedia Adobe Flash Player Adobe Flash Player Original author ( s ) FutureWave Macromedia Developer ( s ) Adobe Systems Initial release 1996 ; 21 years ago ( 1996 ) Stable release ( s ) ( ± ) Windows, macOS, Linux, Chrome OS 28.0. 0.126 / December 12, 2017 ; 19 days ago ( 2017 - 12 - 12 ) Android 4.0. x 11.1. 115.81 / September 10, 2013 ; 4 years ago ( 2013 - 09 - 10 ) Android 2. x and 3. x 11.1. 111.73 / September 10, 2013 ; 4 years ago ( 2013 - 09 - 10 ) Solaris 11.2. 202.223 / March 28, 2012 ; 5 years ago ( 2012 - 03 - 28 ) Preview release ( s ) ( ± ) Windows, macOS, Linux, Chrome OS 28.0. 0.133 Beta / December 13, 2017 ; 18 days ago ( 2017 - 12 - 13 ) Written in C++ Operating system Windows, macOS, Linux, Chrome OS, Solaris, BlackBerry Tablet OS, Android, and Pocket PC Platform Web browsers and ActiveX - based software Available in Chinese Simplified, Chinese Traditional, English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Polish, Russian, Spanish, Korean, and Turkish Type Run - time environment, Media player, and Browser extension License Freeware Website www.adobe.com/products/flashplayer.html Adobe Flash Player ( labeled Shockwave Flash in Internet Explorer and Firefox ) is freeware software for using content created on the Adobe Flash platform, including viewing multimedia, executing rich Internet applications, and streaming video and audio. Flash Player can run from a web browser as a browser plug - in or on supported mobile devices. Flash Player was created by Macromedia and has been developed and distributed by Adobe Systems since Adobe acquired Macromedia. Flash Player runs SWF files that can be created by the Adobe Animate and Adobe Flash Professional authoring tools, by Adobe Flash Builder or by third party tools such as FlashDevelop. Flash Player supports vector and raster graphics, 3D graphics, an embedded scripting language called ActionScript, and streaming of video and audio. ActionScript is based on ECMAScript, and supports object - oriented code, and is similar to JavaScript. Flash Player has a wide user base, and is a common format for games, animations, and graphical user interfaces ( GUIs ) embedded in web pages. Adobe stated in 2013 that more than 400 million out of over 1 billion connected desktops update to the new version of Flash Player within six weeks of release. Flash Player is distributed for free and its plug - in versions are available for every major web browser and operating system. Google Chrome comes bundled with the sandboxed Adobe Flash plug - in and Windows 8 and later come with their own integrated Flash Player ( for Internet Explorer and Edge ). Flash Player has become increasingly criticized for its performance, consumption of battery on mobile devices, the number of security vulnerabilities that had been discovered in the software, and that Flash is a closed platform. Apple co-founder Steve Jobs was highly critical of Flash Player, having published an open letter detailing Apple 's reasoning for banning the Flash platform from being used on its iOS device family. Its usage has also waned due to modern web standards that allow some of Flash 's use cases to be fulfilled without third - party plugins. In July 2017, Adobe announced that it would end support for Flash Player in 2020, and continued to encourage the use of open HTML5 standards in place of Flash. The announcement was coordinated with Apple, Facebook, Google, Microsoft, and Mozilla. Contents 1 Features 1.1 Data formats 1.2 Multimedia formats 1.3 Streaming protocols 1.4 Performance 1.4. 1 Hardware acceleration 1.4. 2 Compilation 2 Development methods 3 Development tools 3.1 Game development 4 Availability 4.1 Desktop platforms 4.2 Mobile platforms 4.3 Other hardware 5 Open source 6 Criticism 6.1 Usability 6.2 Privacy 6.3 Security 6.4 Vendor lock - in 6.5 Apple controversy 7 Release history 8 See also 9 References and notes 10 Further reading 11 External links Features Adobe Flash Player is a runtime that executes and displays content from a provided SWF file, although it has no in - built features to modify the SWF file at runtime. It can execute software written in the ActionScript programming language which enables the runtime manipulation of text, data, vector graphics, raster graphics, sound and video. The player can also access certain connected hardware devices, including web cameras and microphones, after permission for the same has been granted by the user. Flash Player is 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, Linux, macOS, and some mobile operating systems such as iOS and Android. 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 and GPS devices. Data formats Flash Player includes native support for many different data formats, some of which can only be accessed through the ActionScript scripting interface. XML : Flash Player has included native support for XML parsing and generation since version 8. XML data is held in memory as an XML Document Object Model, 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 ) format, which allows interoperability with web services and JavaScript 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, 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 or XML, reducing the need for parsing and validating such data. SWF : The specification for the SWF 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 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 raster graphics and vector graphics since its earliest version. It supports the following different multimedia formats which it can natively decode and playback. MP3 : Support for decoding and playback of streaming MPEG - 2 Audio Layer III ( MP3 ) audio was introduced in Flash Player 4. MP3 files can be accessed and played back from a server via HTTP, 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 ( FLV and F4V ) files, a format developed by Adobe Systems and Macromedia. Flash Video is only a container format and supports multiple different video codecs, 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 and OpenGL to do so. Flash Video is used by YouTube, Hulu, Yahoo ! Video, BBC Online and other news providers. FLV files can be played back from a server using HTTP 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 images. Flash Player 10 added support for the JPEG - XR advanced image compression standard developed by Microsoft Corporation, which results in better compression and quality than JPEG. JPEG - XR enables lossy and lossless compression with or without alpha channel 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 ( 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 servers using HTTP 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 scripting, DNS rebinding and denial - of - service attacks. Websites must host a certain XML file termed a cross domain policy, allowing or denying Flash content from specific websites to connect to them. Certain websites, such as Digg, Flickr, 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 ( RTMP ) developed by Macromedia. RTMP supports a non-encrypted version over the Transmission Control Protocol ( TCP ) or an encrypted version over a secure Transport Layer Security ( SSL ) connection. RTMPT can also be encapsulated within HTTP requests to traverse firewalls that only allow HTTP traffic. TCP : Support for Transmission Control Protocol ( TCP ) Internet socket communication to communicate with any type of server, using stream sockets. Sockets can be used only via ActionScript, and can transfer plain text, XML 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 XML - based cross domain policy file, served on Port 843. Sockets enable AS3 programs to interface with any kind of server software, such as MySQL. 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 shaders 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 for video playback and 3D graphics rendering on many devices, including desktop computers. Performance is similar to HTML5 video 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, and produces inefficient bytecode in the resulting SWF, when compared to toolkits such as CrossBridge. CrossBridge, a toolkit that targets C++ code to run within the Flash Player, uses the LLVM 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, improving its performance at runtime. As of 2012, the Haxe 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 Framework is an integrated collection of stylable Graphical User Interface, 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 500 KB. 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, vector graphics, bitmap graphics, video, audio, 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 Flash Builder : enterprise application development and debugging Adobe Animate : graphic design, animation and scripting toolset 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 : a commercial ActionScript IDE CodeDrive : an extension to Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 for ActionScript 3 development and debugging MTASC : a compiler Haxe : a multi-platform language Game development Adobe offers the free Adobe Gaming SDK, consisting ( as of August 2014 ) 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 : 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 library A few commercial game engines target Flash Player ( Stage3D ) as run - time environment, such as Unity 3D and Unreal Engine 3. Before the introduction of Stage3D, a number of older 2D engines or isometric engines like Flixel saw their heyday. Adobe also developed the CrossBridge toolkit which cross-compiles C / C++ code to run within the Flash Player, using LLVM and GCC as compiler backends, and high - performance memory - access opcodes in the Flash Player ( termed `` Domain Memory '' ) to work with in - memory data quickly. CrossBridge is targeted toward the game development 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, FarmVille and FarmVille 2, and AdventureQuest ( started in 2002, and still active as of 2011 ). Availability Desktop platforms The latest version of Flash Player is available for Windows XP and later, Mac OS X 10.6 and later and Linux. Adobe Flash Player is available in four flavors : The `` Internet Explorer -- ActiveX '' version is an ActiveX control for use in Internet Explorer, its shells, and other Windows applications that support ActiveX technology. This plugin can not be installed on Windows 8 and later, because these OSes come with their own integrated Flash Player ActiveX. The `` Firefox -- NPAPI '' version is available for Firefox as well as other applications that support NPAPI technology. The `` Opera and Chromium -- PPAPI '' version is available for Chromium and browsers based on Chromium ( such as Opera ) as well as other applications that support PPAPI technology. This plugin can not be installed on Google Chrome as it comes with its own built - in Flash component. The `` projector '' version is a standalone player that can open SWF 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. It has been on version 11.7 as of July 9, 2013, version 13 as of May 13, 2014, and version 18 as of August 11, 2015. Adobe has decided to discontinue the ESR branch and instead focus solely on the standard release as of August 2016. Availability on desktop operating systems Platform Latest version Browser support Windows XP and later Windows Server 2003 and later 28.0. 0.126 Firefox, Chrome, Chromium, Safari, Opera, Internet Explorer, Microsoft Edge Windows 2000 11.1. 102.55 ? Windows 98 and ME 9.0. 115.0 ? Windows 95 and NT 4 7.0. 14.0 ? Mac OS X 10.6 or later 28.0. 0.126 Firefox, Chrome, Chromium, Safari, Opera Mac OS X 10.5 10.3. 183.90 ? Classic Mac OS, PowerPC 7.0. 14.0 ? Classic Mac OS, 68k 5.0 ? Linux 28.0. 0.126 Firefox, Chrome, Chromium, Opera Solaris 11.2. 202.223 ? Mobile platforms Main article : Adobe Integrated Runtime 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. On mobile devices however, after Apple 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 Android ( ARM Cortex - A8 and above ), although in June 2012, Google announced that Android 4.1 ( codenamed Jelly Bean ) would not support Flash by default. Starting in August 2012, Adobe no longer updates Flash for Android. In spite of this, Adobe Flash is still available to install on Android devices via Adobe 's update archives ( up to Android 4.3 ). Flash Player is certified to be supported on a select range of mobile and tablet devices, from Acer, BlackBerry 10, Dell, HTC, Lenovo, Logitech, LG, Motorola, Samsung, Sharp, SoftBank, Sony ( and Sony Ericsson ), and Toshiba. As of 2012, Adobe has stopped browser - based Flash Player development for mobile browsers in favor of HTML5, 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. Version 9 is the most recent version currently available for the Linux / ARM - based Nokia 770 / N800 / N810 Internet tablets running Maemo OS2008, classic Mac OS and Windows 95 / NT. Version 10 can be run under Windows 98 / Me using KernelEx. HP offers Version 6 of the player for HP - UX. Other versions of the player have been available at some point for OS / 2, Symbian OS, Palm OS, BeOS and IRIX. The Kodak Easyshare One includes Flash Player. Adobe said it will optimize Flash for use on ARM architecture ( 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 sets via Intel Media Processor CE 3100 before mid-2009. ARM Holdings 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 devices had poor support for Web video and fragmented software base. Among other devices, LeapFrog Enterprises provides Flash Player with their Leapster Multimedia Learning System and extended the Flash Player with touch - screen support. Sony has integrated Flash Player 6 into the PlayStation Portable 's web browser via firmware version 2.70 and Flash Player 9 into the PlayStation 3 's web browser in firmware version 2.50. Nintendo has integrated Flash Lite 3.1, equivalent to Flash 8, in the Internet Channel on the Wii. The following table documents Flash Player and AIR support on mobile operating systems : Platform Latest version Android 2.2 -- 4.1, ARM Cortex - A8 + Flash Player 11.1, AIR 3.1 Android 2.1 Flash Lite 3.0 iOS Flash Player 11.1, AIR 3.1 BlackBerry 10. 0 -- 10.3. 1 Flash Player 11.1, AIR 3.1 BlackBerry Tablet OS Flash Player 11.1, AIR 3.1 Maemo Flash Player 9.4 PlayStation 3 with Firmware 2.50, NetFront 2.81 Flash Player 9.1 ( update 3 ) PSP with Firmware 2.70 Flash Player 6 Symbian OS Flash Lite 4.0 Wii ( Internet Channel ) Flash Lite 3.1 Pocket PC 2003 Flash Player 7 Windows Mobile 5 Flash Player 7 Other hardware Some CPU emulators have been created for Flash Player, including Chip8, Commodore 64, ZX Spectrum and the Nintendo Entertainment System. They enable video games created for such platforms to run within Flash Player. Open source Adobe has taken steps to reduce or eliminate Flash licensing costs. For instance, the SWF file format documentation is provided free of charge after they relaxed the requirement of accepting a non-disclosure agreement to view it in 2008. Adobe also created the Open Screen Project which removes licensing fees and opens data protocols for Flash. Adobe has also open - sourced many components relating to Flash. In 2006, the ActionScript Virtual Machine 2 ( AVM2 ) which implements ActionScript 3 was donated as open - source to Mozilla Foundation, to begin work on the Tamarin virtual machine that will finally implement the ECMAScript 4 language standard with the help of the Mozilla community. It was released under the terms of a MPL / GPL / LGPL tri-license and includes the specification for the ActionScript bytecode format ; Tamarin Project jointly managed by Mozilla and Adobe Systems It is now considered obsolete by Mozilla. In 2011, the Adobe Flex Framework was donated as open - source to the Apache Software Foundation and rebranded as Apache Flex. Some saw this move as Adobe abandoning Flex, and stepping away from the Flash Platform as a whole. Sources from Apache say that `` Enterprise application development is no longer a focus at Adobe. At least as Flash is concerned, Adobe is concentrating on games and video. '', and they conclude that `` Flex Innovation is Exploding ! ''. The donated source code included a partly developed AS3 compiler ( dubbed `` Falcon '' ) and the BlazeDS set of technologies. In 2013, the CrossBridge C++ cross-compilation toolset was open sourced by Adobe and released on GitHub. The project was formerly termed `` Alchemy '' and `` Flash Runtime C++ Compiler '', and targeted the game development market to enable C++ video games to run in Adobe Flash Player. However, Adobe has not been willing to make complete source code of the Flash Player available for free software development. Free and open source alternatives to the Adobe Flash Player such as Shumway and Gnash have been built, but are no longer under active development and therefore not a viable alternative. The only fully functional open - source third - party Flash Player is the commercially available Scaleform GFx Player, which is game development middleware designed for integration into non-Flash video games. Criticism 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 behavior with respect to input handling ( keyboard and mouse not working as they would in an HTML - only document ). This is often done in web sites and can lead to poor user experience with the site. The February 20, 2014 update to 12.0. 0.70 introduced a reported bug, producing green video with sound only. This defect is related to hardware acceleration and may be overcome by disabling hardware acceleration via the Adobe settings in Firefox ( accessed by right clicking within the video ) or in Internet Explorer ( within the Tools settings ). This defect may be related to widely used graphics hardware, AMD Radeon HD video cards, and similar visual defects have occurred in earlier Flash updates, with the same workaround. Privacy See also : Adobe Flash § Flash cookies Flash Player supports persistent local storage of data ( also referred to as Local Shared Objects ), which can be used similarly to HTTP cookies or Web Storage in web applications. 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 saved 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 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 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 See also : Adobe Flash § 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 Android - 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 's Internet Security Threat Report states that a remote code execution in Adobe Reader and Flash Player was the second most attacked vulnerability in 2009. The same report also recommended using browser extensions to disable Flash Player usage on untrusted websites. McAfee 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 ). '' April 7, 2016, Adobe released a Flash Player patch for a zero - day memory corruption vulnerability CVE - 2016 - 1019 that could be used to deliver malware 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 Main article : Apple and Adobe Flash controversy In April 2010, Steve Jobs, at the time CEO of Apple Inc. published an open letter explaining why Apple would not support Flash on the iPhone, iPod touch and iPad. In the letter he blamed problems with the `` openness '', stability, security, performance, and touchscreen integration of the Flash Player as reasons for refusing to support it. He also claimed that when one of Apple 's Macintosh 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 ( is ) the 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 HTML5 compatible format, enabling videos to playback in mobile web browsers even without Flash Player. Release history Adobe Flash Player version history Macromedia Flash Player 2 ( June 17, 1997 ) Mostly vectors and motion, some bitmaps, limited audio Support of stereo sound, enhanced bitmap integration, buttons, the Library, and the ability to tween color changes Macromedia Flash Player 3 ( May 31, 1998 ) Added alpha transparency, licensed MP3 compression Brought improvements to animation, playback, and publishing, as well as the introduction of simple script commands for interactivity Macromedia Flash Player 4 ( June 15, 1999 ) Saw the introduction of streaming 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 and Internet Explorer browsers. Two years later it shipped with all releases of Windows XP. 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 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 Server. In October 2000, usability guru Jakob Nielsen wrote a polemic article regarding usability of Flash content entitled `` Flash : 99 % Bad ''. ( Macromedia later hired Nielsen to help them improve Flash usability. ) The old Macromedia Flash Player logo Macromedia Flash Player 6 ( version 6.0. 21.0, codenamed Exorcist ) ( 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 codec for Flash Video 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 ( HTTP ) 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 and Adobe Illustrator 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 1.0 and Breeze 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 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 ActionScript Virtual Machine 2 ( 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 expressions and namespaces AVM2 donated to Mozilla Foundation as open - source virtual machine named Tamarin 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 ( HE - AAC, 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 format 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 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 privacy modes 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 hardware - accelerated rendering support Custom native mouse cursors Multiple monitor fullscreen support Enhanced subpixel rendering 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 ) ( 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 9 ), OS X ( Intel processor only ) and Linux ( OpenGL 1.3 ), SwiftShader fallback Mobile : Android and iOS ( OpenGL ES 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 Support Mac. pkg Installation Support Adobe Flash Player 12 ( codenamed Jones ) 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 6.1 and higher 64 - bit PPAPI Flash Player for Google Chrome Graphics : Buffer Usage flag for Stage3D Adobe Flash Player 13 ( codenamed King ) Supplementary Characters Enhancement Support for Text Field Full Screen video message tweak As of 13 May 2014 this is the Extended Support Release. Adobe Flash Player 14 ( version 14.0. 0.125, codenamed ( Lombard Street ( San Francisco ) 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 Street ( San Francisco ) Market ) ) ( September 9, 2014 ) Improved support for browser zoom levels Adobe Flash Player 15 ( version 15.0. 0.167 ) ( September 24, 2014 ) Adobe Flash Player 15 ( version 15.0. 0.223 ) ( November 11, 2014 ) Adobe Flash Player 15 ( version 15.0. 0.239 ) ( November 25, 2014 ) Adobe Flash Player 16 ( version 16.0. 0.235, codenamed Natoma ) ( December 12, 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 17 ( version 17.0. 0.134, codenamed Octavia ) ( March 12, 2015 ) Control Panel improvements Installer improvements for Mac Adobe Flash Player 18 ( version 18.0. 0.160, codenamed ( Presidio of San Francisco Presidio ) ) ( June 9, 2015 ) Contains fixes for Adobe Security Bulletin APSB 15 -- 11 Adobe Flash Player 19 ( version 19.0. 0.185, codenamed Quint ) ( September 21, 2015 ) Adobe Flash Player 20 ( version 20.0. 0.228, codenamed Rankin ) ( December 8, 2015 ) Adobe Flash Player 21 ( version 21.0. 0.182, codenamed Sutter ) ( March 10, 2016 ) Adobe Flash Player 22 ( version 22.0. 0.192, codenamed Townsend ) ( June 16, 2016 ) Adobe Flash Player 23 ( version 23.0. 0.164, codenamed Underwood ) ( September 13, 2016 ) Adobe Flash Player 24 ( version 24.0. 0.186, codenamed ( Van Ness Avenue Van Ness ) ) ( December 13, 2016 ) Adobe Flash Player 24 ( version 24.0. 0.194 ) ( January 10, 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 26 ( version 26.0. 0.131, codenamed York ) ( June 13, 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 28 ( version 28.0. 0.11, codenamed ( Atka ) ) ( November 16, 2017 ) See also Adobe AIR Adobe Shockwave Apache Flex Microsoft Silverlight References and Notes ^ Jump up to : `` Adobe - Flash Player ''. Adobe.com. Adobe Systems. Retrieved 12 December 2017. ^ Jump up to : `` Archived Flash Player versions ''. Adobe.com. Adobe Systems. Retrieved 20 October 2015. Jump up ^ `` Download Flash Player 28 Beta ''. labs.adobe.com. Adobe Systems. Retrieved 2017 - 12 - 13. Jump up ^ `` Adobe Flash Player Download ''. Adobe Systems. Retrieved August 10, 2016. Jump up ^ `` Why You Should Ditch Adobe Shockwave ''. Krebs on Security. May 14, 2014. Retrieved February 21, 2015. Jump up ^ `` Adobe Flash Runtimes Statistics ''. Adobe Systems Incorporated. Retrieved January 2, 2013. Jump up ^ Integrated Adobe Flash Player Plug - in, Chrome team blog Jump up ^ Porting Flash to sandboxed PPAPI platform, Official Chromium Blog Jump up ^ `` Flash Player issues Windows 8 ''. Adobe Systems. Retrieved December 15, 2016. Jump up ^ `` Flash Player Issues Windows 10 Internet Explorer ''. Adobe Systems. Retrieved December 15, 2016. Jump up ^ `` Flash Player issues Windows 10 Microsoft Edge ''. Adobe Systems. Retrieved December 15, 2016. Jump up ^ Barrett, Brian ( 15 July 2015 ). `` Flash. Must. Die ''. Wired.com. Condé Nast. Jump up ^ Vaughan - Nichols, Steven J. ( 16 June 2016 ). `` How to really fix the latest Adobe Flash security hole ''. ZDNet. CBS Interactive. Jump up ^ Collins, Katie ( 11 March 2016 ). `` Adobe rushes out emergency update for ' critical ' Flash security flaw ''. CNET. Jump up ^ `` Flash & The Future of Interactive Content ''. 2017 - 07 - 25. Jump up ^ Lardinois, Frederic. `` Get ready to finally say goodbye to Flash -- in 2020 ''. TechCrunch. Retrieved 2017 - 07 - 25. Jump up ^ Warren, Tom ( 2017 - 07 - 25 ). `` Adobe will finally kill Flash in 2018 ''. The Verge. Retrieved 2017 - 07 - 25. Jump up ^ `` Adobe Announces Flash Distribution and Updates to End ''. 2017 - 07 - 25. Jump up ^ Pudełek, Jakub ( 2017 - 07 - 25 ). `` Migrating Games from Flash to Open Web Standards on Facebook ''. Jump up ^ Laforge, Anthony ( 2017 - 07 - 25 ). `` Saying goodbye to Flash in Chrome ''. Jump up ^ `` The End of an Era -- Next Steps for Adobe Flash ''. 2017 - 07 - 25. Jump up ^ Smedberg, Benjamin ( 2017 - 07 - 25 ). `` Firefox Roadmap for Flash End - of - Life ''. Jump up ^ AIR 3, Adobe Jump up ^ `` What are local shared objects ? ''. Security and privacy. Adobe Systems. Archived from the original on May 29, 2010. Retrieved December 5, 2007. Jump up ^ SWX : SWF Data Format, official website Jump up ^ swxjava -- SWX RPC implementation in Java, Google Code Jump up ^ swx - format -- Data Format, Google Code Jump up ^ SWX Contest Winners Archived August 18, 2012, at the Wayback Machine., SWX Format Website Jump up ^ Introducing SWXml, Aral Balkan Jump up ^ `` Flash H. 264 ''. MainConcept. Archived from the original on November 18, 2010. Retrieved September 24, 2010. ^ Jump up to : Flash and the HTML5 < video > tag, YouTube Blog ^ Jump up to : Pardon Our Dust, Hulu Blog Jump up ^ Future Media Standards & Guidelines -- AV Addendum v1. 5 BBC Jump up ^ Protocols : HTTP vs. RTMP > Beginner 's Guide to Distributing Flash Video, Adobe Press Jump up ^ Cross-domain policy file usage recommendations for Flash Player, Adobe ^ Jump up to : Policy file changes in Flash Player 9 and Flash Player 10, Adobe Jump up ^ `` Sites which support crossdomain. xml to allow Flash and Silverlight access ''. Retrieved March 25, 2017. Jump up ^ Socket, Adobe ActionScript 3 API Reference Jump up ^ Sockets, ActionScript 3.0 Developer 's Guide Jump up ^ Setting up a socket policy file server, Adobe Jump up ^ AsSQL -- MySQL Driver for AS3, Google Code Jump up ^ Remi Arnaud ( 2011 ). `` 3D in a Web Browser ''. In Eric Lengyel. Game Engine Gems 2. CRC Press. pp. 208 -- 212. ISBN 978 - 1 - 56881 - 437 - 7. Jump up ^ Christer Kaitila ( 2011 ). Adobe Flash 11 Stage3D ( Molehill ) Game Programming Beginner 's Guide. Packt Publishing Ltd. p. 9. ISBN 978 - 1 - 84969 - 169 - 7. Jump up ^ `` Stage3D vs WebGL Performance -- Airtight Interactive ''. Airtightinteractive.com. October 28, 2011. Retrieved August 4, 2014. Jump up ^ `` Stage3D ''. scratch.mit.edu. Retrieved August 5, 2014. Jump up ^ Adobe Flash Player 11.8 -- Bug 3591185 : Pixel Bender shader performance drastically degraded in FP11. 8. Closed as `` NeverFix '' Archived April 22, 2014, at the Wayback Machine. Jump up ^ Comparing Flash, HTML5 Performance, OS News Jump up ^ Battery Performance with Flash Player 10.1 on Nexus One, Flash Mobile Blog Jump up ^ Reference Designs and Demos, QNX Jump up ^ ActionScript 3.0 overview, `` ActionScript 3.0 code executes up to 10 times faster than legacy ActionScript code. '', Adobe Jump up ^ `` Alchemy : FAQ ''. Archived from the original on May 5, 2012. Retrieved May 5, 2012., Adobe Labs, `` ASC performs few optimizations at this time '' Jump up ^ Zotov, Peter ( May 6, 2012 ). `` Reaching the Limits of Adobe Stupidity -- whitespace ''. Whitequark.org. Retrieved October 27, 2012. ^ Jump up to : Alchemy : FAQ Archived May 5, 2012, at the Wayback Machine., Adobe Labs ^ Jump up to : Optimizing ActionScript Bytecode using LLVM, Adobe ^ Jump up to : Adobe Alchemy, is it ActionScript heresy ?, Unit Zero One Jump up ^ Introducing ASC 2.0, Thibault Imbert, ByteArray.com Jump up ^ AS3 vs haXe performance, SplashDust website Archived January 5, 2013, at the Wayback Machine. Jump up ^ Optimizing performance of applications for connected TVs, Adobe Developer Connection Jump up ^ Top 10 Performance Killers in your AIR Application, FlexWiz Jump up ^ Flex versus ActionScript -- the debate gets new life, Greg 's Ramblings Jump up ^ Pure ActionScript + MadComponents vs. Flash Builder 4.5, MobileAppDev Jump up ^ Flex 4.5 vs Pure AS3, Michael Crosby ^ Jump up to : `` Adobe donates Flex to Apache ''. Techworld. Retrieved November 17, 2011. Jump up ^ Response to `` Thoughts on Flash '', True Gryc Blog Jump up ^ `` Adobe Gaming SDK ''. creative.adobe.com. Adobe. Retrieved August 4, 2014. ^ Jump up to : Wagner James Au ( 2012 ). Game Design Secrets. John Wiley & Sons. p. 130. ISBN 978 - 1 - 118 - 46391 - 8. Jump up ^ `` Adobe Flash 11 adopts Unreal Engine 3 for better browser games The Verge ''. theverge.com. Retrieved August 4, 2014. Jump up ^ `` List of Flash Gaming Engines ''. FlashRealtime.com. April 23, 2011. Archived from the original on April 6, 2013. Retrieved February 21, 2015. Jump up ^ CrossBridge for Flash Player, GitHub Jump up ^ `` Adobe Finally kills Adobe Flash Player in 2020 - Article Pub ''. Retrieved 26 July 2017. Jump up ^ Remi Arnaud ( 2011 ). `` 3D in a Web Browser ''. In Eric Lengyel. Game Engine Gems 2. CRC Press. p. 205. ISBN 978 - 1 - 56881 - 437 - 7. Jump up ^ `` Downloads ''. Adobe Flash Player Support Center. Retrieved October 29, 2011. Jump up ^ `` Adobe and Google Partnering for Flash Player on Linux ''. Retrieved November 25, 2012. Jump up ^ Noyes, Katherine ( April 6, 2012 ). `` For Flash on Linux, Chrome Will Be Users ' Only Choice PCWorld Business Center ''. Pcworld.com. Retrieved April 10, 2012. Jump up ^ `` Adobe Releases Last Linux Version of Flash Player -- Slashdot ''. Linux.slashdot.org. Retrieved April 10, 2012. Jump up ^ `` Beta News -- Flash Player NPAPI for Linux ''. Adobe AIR and Adobe Flash Player Team Blog. August 31, 2016. Retrieved November 17, 2016. ^ Jump up to : Tareq Aljaber ( May 17, 2013 ). `` Extended Support Release Updated to Flash Player 11.7 ''. Adobe AIR and Adobe Flash Player Team Blog. Adobe. Retrieved February 15, 2014. ^ Jump up to : `` Upcoming changes to Flash Player 's extended support release ''. Adobe. March 5, 2014. Retrieved December 17, 2014. Jump up ^ `` Upcoming changes to Flash Player 's extended support release ''. Adobe. May 15, 2015. Retrieved September 30, 2015. Jump up ^ Campbell, Chris ( August 23, 2016 ). `` Where can I find the `` Extended Support Release '' of Flash Player for Windows or Macintosh ? ``. forums.adobe.com. Adobe Systems. ^ Jump up to : Adobe Flash Player Versions, Adobe.com ^ Jump up to : `` Archived Flash Player versions ''. Adobe. Retrieved February 18, 2014. Jump up ^ `` Flash Player 5 ''. System 7 Today. Retrieved October 15, 2016. ^ Jump up to : iOS features in Adobe AIR 2.6, Adobe Devnet ^ Jump up to : `` Flash Player 10.1 -- Installations and updates ''. Archived from the original on October 8, 2010. Retrieved November 19, 2010. Jump up ^ Arthur, Charles ( June 29, 2012 ). `` Flash Player for Android : Adobe calls time, declares it dead ''. The Guardian. Retrieved June 30, 2012. Jump up ^ Flash Platform Certified Devices, Adobe Jump up ^ Flash Platform Certified Devices : Smartphones, Adobe Jump up ^ Flash Platform Certified Devices : Tablets, Adobe Jump up ^ Adobe abandons Flash Player on mobile browsers for HTML5, CBS News Jump up ^ Adobe abandons Flash for mobile devices, The Telegraph Jump up ^ Web Players. Adobe. Retrieved on March 11, 2011. Jump up ^ ( 1 ) Jump up ^ MACROMEDIA INTRODUCES FREE FLASH PLAYERS FOR LINUX, SOLARIS, IRIX USERS. Technology > Software Services & Applications from. AllBusiness.com. Retrieved on March 11, 2011. Jump up ^ Macromedia -- Flash Player SDK http://www.adobe.com/products/flashplayer_sdk/ ( Taken July 7, 2006 ). Jump up ^ Press Room : For immediate release Archived August 5, 2014, at the Wayback Machine... Adobe. Retrieved on March 11, 2011. Jump up ^ Adobe Flash 10 to be ARM - optimized in 2009. Electronista ( November 17, 2008 ). Retrieved on March 11, 2011. Jump up ^ Press Room : For immediate release Archived August 16, 2014, at the Wayback Machine... Adobe. Retrieved on March 11, 2011. Jump up ^ ARM welcomes Adobe 's mobile Flash move -- 5 / 2 / 2008. Electronics Weekly ( May 2, 2008 ). Retrieved on March 11, 2011. Jump up ^ ARM netbooks struggle with video, apps. Eetimes.com ( April 14, 2009 ). Retrieved on March 11, 2011. Jump up ^ Adobe Success Story : LeapFrog Enterprises http://www.adobe.com/cfusion/showcase/index.cfm?event=casestudydetail&casestudyid=21019&loc=en_us ( Taken July 7, 2006 ). Jump up ^ `` New info on the firmware updates for PS3 and PSP ''. ThreeSpeech. October 14, 2008. Jump up ^ Adobe Flash Player Archived October 13, 2011, at the Wayback Machine., Android Market ^ Jump up to : Announcing Flash Player 11 and AIR 3 Archived May 4, 2012, at the Wayback Machine., Adobe Flash Platform Blog Jump up ^ Flash Player 10.1 : Live and Ready for Android `` Adobe Flash Player Team Blog. Blogs.adobe.com. Retrieved on March 11, 2011. Jump up ^ ( 2 ) Retrieved on September 19, 2011. Jump up ^ Maemo software Nokia '' Maemo Browser Archived December 29, 2009, at the Wayback Machine... Maemo.nokia.com. Retrieved on March 11, 2011. Jump up ^ Mobile and Devices Developer Center : Sony PSP. Adobe ( July 16, 2007 ). Retrieved on March 11, 2011. Jump up ^ Symbian ^ 3. Adobe Flash Lite ( April 27, 2010 ). Retrieved on March 11, 2011. Jump up ^ Scott Janousek '' Blog Archive '' Nintendo Wii Flash Player supported via Opera updated to Flash Lite 3.1 ( Flash 8 / 9 ) Archived September 13, 2011, at the Wayback Machine... Flashmobile.scottjanousek.com ( September 1, 2009 ). Retrieved on March 11, 2011. ^ Jump up to : Download Macromedia Flash Player 7 for Pocket PC Archived February 7, 2014, at the Wayback Machine., Adobe ^ Jump up to : Flash Player 7 For Pocket PC Archived January 19, 2014, at the Wayback Machine... Adobe ( July 14, 2009 ). Retrieved on March 11, 2011. Jump up ^ rich Internet applications Adobe Flash Platform runtimes. Adobe.com ( July 14, 2009 ). Retrieved on March 11, 2011. Jump up ^ `` Flip8 -- the World 's First Flash Emulator -- v0. 9 ''. Newsdee.com. Retrieved September 12, 2009. Jump up ^ Claus Wahlers. `` FC64 -- Flash Commodore 64 Emulator -- Demo -- c 么 deazur brasil lab ''. Codeazur.com.br. Retrieved September 12, 2009. Jump up ^ `` FlashZXSpectrum48k, Sinclair ZX Spectrum Emulator written in Flash ''. Jorin.com. Archived from the original on February 3, 2008. Retrieved September 12, 2009. Jump up ^ `` aminnes -- Project Hosting on Google Code ''. www.aminlab.com/. May 17, 2010. Jump up ^ SWF Technology Center Adobe Developer Connection. Adobe.com ( July 14, 2009 ). Retrieved on March 11, 2011. Jump up ^ `` Adobe Open Screen Project ''. Starting today, there will be no restrictions on the use of the SWF specification or the FLV and F4V specifications that make up video in Flash. Formerly, to look at the SWF specification users had to sign a licensing agreement not to use it to create competing players Jump up ^ `` Adobe and Mozilla Foundation to Open Source Flash Player Scripting Engine ''. Mozilla Foundation Press Center. San Francisco. November 7, 2006. Retrieved September 3, 2010. Jump up ^ Tamarin Project Archived February 10, 2007, at the Wayback Machine... Mozilla.org ( October 5, 2010 ). Retrieved on March 11, 2011. ^ Jump up to : Tim Anderson ( November 15, 2015 ). `` Adobe Flex SDK bombshell STUNS developers ''. ^ Jump up to : Joab Jackson, IDG News Service ( November 16, 2011 ). `` Adobe Donates Flex to Apache ''. PCWorld. ^ Jump up to : Flex ! = Flash, PrintUI, January 27, 2013 Jump up ^ Open Source Flash C++ Compiler, CrossBridge, Adobe Blogs, June 25, 2013 Jump up ^ CrossBridge, Adobe Gaming GitHub Website Jump up ^ Adobe Open - Sources Flash C / C++ Compiler, Phoronix, Michael Larabel, June 26, 2013 Jump up ^ `` Gnash Reference Manual ''. gnu.org. Retrieved November 12, 2011. Jump up ^ `` Flash Player Help / Installation problems ''. Jump up ^ `` Help / Uninstall ( old - version ) Flash Player ( if installation is unsuccessful ) ''. ^ Jump up to : `` Patch for Adobe Flash ''. The H. March 29, 2012. Retrieved February 18, 2014. Jump up ^ `` Adobe roadmap for the Flash Player ''. Adobe. Retrieved January 14, 2013. Jump up ^ Usage Statistics of Flash for Websites, December 2013. W3techs.com ( July 22, 2013 ). Retrieved on December 9, 2013. Jump up ^ Bug 3712099, at `` bugbase.adobe.com '' Archived February 27, 2014, at the Wayback Machine... Retrieved on February 22, 2014. Jump up ^ `` What Is a Local Shared Object ? ''. Adobe Systems. Archived from the original on May 29, 2010. Retrieved July 1, 2010. Jump up ^ `` Adobe Flash Player Settings Manager ''. Adobe Systems. Archived from the original on June 20, 2010. Retrieved July 1, 2010. Jump up ^ `` Web Storage Settings Panel ''. Adobe Systems. Retrieved April 4, 2012. Jump up ^ `` Private browsing in Flash Player 10 ''. Adobe Systems. Archived from the original on May 28, 2010. Retrieved July 1, 2010. Jump up ^ `` Flash Bug Report ''. February 6, 2010. Archived from the original on February 10, 2010. Retrieved March 27, 2010. Jump up ^ `` Security Advisory for Flash Player, Adobe Reader and Acrobat ''. Adobe Systems. Retrieved June 8, 2010. Jump up ^ `` Adobe acknowledges critical security flaw in software ''. BBC News. June 7, 2010. Jump up ^ `` Security Advisory for Adobe Flash Player, Adobe Reader and Acrobat ''. Adobe Systems. Archived from the original on October 31, 2010. Retrieved October 31, 2010. Jump up ^ `` Flash vulnerability revealed for Android, fix coming November 9th ''. MobileCrunch. Archived from the original on October 31, 2010. Retrieved October 31, 2010. Jump up ^ `` Security updates available for Adobe Flash Player ''. Adobe Systems. February 7, 2013. Retrieved July 7, 2013. Jump up ^ `` Security updates available for Adobe Flash Player ''. Adobe Systems. March 12, 2013. Retrieved July 7, 2013. Jump up ^ `` Internet Security Threat Report : Volume XV : April 2010 ''. Symantec. April 2010. pp. 37, 40, 42. Archived from the original on April 25, 2010. Retrieved May 9, 2010. Jump up ^ `` Adobe Acrobat, Reader, and Flash Player Remote Code Execution Vulnerability ''. October 15, 2009. Retrieved May 9, 2010. Jump up ^ `` 2010 Threat Predictions '' ( PDF ). McAfee Labs. December 2009. p. 2. Retrieved May 9, 2010. Jump up ^ `` McAfee Threats Report : Fourth quarter 2009 '' ( PDF ). McAfee Avert Labs. February 2010. p. 16. Archived from the original ( PDF ) on February 15, 2010. Retrieved May 9, 2010. ^ Jump up to : `` IT Threat Evolution : Q3 2012 ''. Kaspersky Lab ZAO. November 1, 2012. Retrieved November 2, 2012. ^ Jump up to : Steve Jobs ( April 29, 2010 ). `` Thoughts on Flash ''. Apple. Archived from the original on May 1, 2010. Retrieved May 9, 2010. Jump up ^ future of Flash. Adobe ( July 14, 2009 ). Retrieved on March 11, 2011. Jump up ^ Symantec Global Internet Threat Report for 2009, page 40, `` In 2009, Symantec documented 321 vulnerabilities affecting plug - ins for Web browsers ( figure 9 ). ActiveX technologies were affected by 134 vulnerabilities, which was the highest among the plug - in technologies examined. Of the remaining technologies, Java SE had 84 vulnerabilities, Adobe Reader had 49 vulnerabilities, QuickTime had 27 vulnerabilities, and Adobe Flash Player was subject to 23 vulnerabilities. The remaining four vulnerabilities affected extensions for Firefox. '' Jump up ^ `` Adobe Patches Flash Zero - Day Exploited by Magnitude EK ''. April 7, 2016. Retrieved April 25, 2016. Jump up ^ `` Security Advisory for Adobe Flash Player ''. April 5, 2016. Retrieved April 25, 2016. Jump up ^ Update : Premium Features for Flash Player, Adobe AIR and FP Blog Jump up ^ `` Why will Premium Flash Player Features Kill Flash ? ''. ASVGuy. March 10, 2012. Archived from the original on February 5, 2015. Retrieved February 21, 2015. Jump up ^ Shankland, Stephen ( March 28, 2014 ). `` Adobe to charge Flash coders to use ' premium ' features ''. CNET. Retrieved February 21, 2015. Jump up ^ `` And Then Premium Features Arrived... ''. ASVGuy. April 5, 2012. Archived from the original on February 5, 2015. Retrieved February 21, 2015. Jump up ^ Adobe Premium Features for Flash Player, Flash Player Dev Center, Adobe Jump up ^ Cassella, Dena ( February 1, 2010 ). `` Steve Jobs Unleashes His Fury During Town Hall Meeting ''. Archived from the original on February 6, 2010. Retrieved February 22, 2010. Jump up ^ Richmond, Shane. ( April 30, 2010 ) Adobe hits back at Apple 's ' smokescreen ' -- Telegraph Blogs. Blogs.telegraph.co.uk. Retrieved on March 11, 2011. Jump up ^ YouTube Mobile gets a kick start, Official YouTube Blog Jump up ^ Macromedia, Inc. ( March 4, 2002 ) Macromedia and Sorenson Media bring video to Macromedia Flash content and applications, Retrieved on August 9, 2009 Jump up ^ `` Adobe Completes Acquisition of Macromedia ''. Adobe Systems. December 5, 2005. Archived from the original on June 2, 2007. Retrieved June 18, 2007. Jump up ^ Huang, Emmy ( November 15, 2006 ). `` Flash Player 9 Update ( 9.0. 28.0 ) release now available for Windows and Macintosh ''. Archived from the original on June 25, 2007. Retrieved January 23, 2014. Jump up ^ `` Exploring full - screen mode in Flash Player 9 ''. Adobe Developer Center. December 3, 2007. Retrieved April 10, 2012. Jump up ^ Melanson, Mike ( December 4, 2007 ). `` Flash Player 9 Update 3 ( Final ) ''. Archived from the original on September 7, 2010. Retrieved January 23, 2014. Jump up ^ Adobe press release : `` Archived copy ''. Archived from the original on December 12, 2007. Retrieved December 14, 2007. Jump up ^ Adobe Systems Incorporated ( December 3, 2007 ) List of codecs supported by Adobe Flash Player, Retrieved on August 5, 2009 Jump up ^ Halfast, Todd. `` Flash Player 10.1 Now Available for Windows, Mac, and Linux '' Adobe AIR and Adobe Flash Player Team Blog ``. Blogs.adobe.com. Retrieved April 10, 2012. Jump up ^ `` features Flash Player 10.3 Release Notes ''. Kb2.adobe.com. Retrieved April 10, 2012. Jump up ^ `` Flash Player 11 and AIR 3 Release Notes : 10 / 04 / 11 ''. Kb2.adobe.com. Retrieved April 10, 2012. Jump up ^ Introducing Molehill : 3D APIs for Adobe Flash Player and Adobe AIR Archived July 8, 2012, at the Wayback Machine., Adobe Edge Jump up ^ Extending AIR, Adobe Devnet Jump up ^ `` Flash Player 11.1 and AIR 3.1 User Release Notes : 11 / 09 / 11 ''. Kb2.adobe.com. Retrieved April 10, 2012. Jump up ^ `` Adobe Introduces Premium Features for Gaming with Flash Player 11.2 ; Announces Collaboration with Unity Technologies ''. adobe.com. Retrieved May 18, 2012. ^ Jump up to : `` Flash Player and Adobe AIR feature list ''. adobe.com. Retrieved May 9, 2013. Jump up ^ `` Flash Player 12.0. 0.3 ''. Adobe Systems. November 14, 2013. Retrieved December 22, 2013. Jump up ^ `` Adobe Labs Downloads ''. Adobe. April 22, 2015. Retrieved April 25, 2015. Jump up ^ `` Flash Player 13.0. 0.80 ''. Adobe Systems. January 28, 2014. Retrieved February 18, 2014. Jump up ^ `` 8 / 12 / 2014 -- Release -- Flash Player 14 ''. Adobe Systems. August 12, 2014. Retrieved January 12, 2015. Jump up ^ `` 11 / 11 / 2014 -- Release -- Flash Player 15 ''. Adobe Systems. November 11, 2014. Retrieved January 12, 2015. Jump up ^ `` 12 / 9 / 2014 -- Release -- Flash Player 16 ''. Adobe Systems. December 9, 2014. Retrieved January 12, 2015. Jump up ^ `` 12 / 3 / 2015 -- Release -- Flash Player 17 ''. Adobe Systems. March 12, 2014. Retrieved March 13, 2015. Jump up ^ `` Adobe Security Bulletin ''. Retrieved March 25, 2017. Further reading Understanding Flash Player with Adobe Scout -- an article discussing the internals of the player and the Adobe Scout profiling tool External links Adobe Flash Player Flash Tester ( explains official old working version check ) Adobe Flash File formats ActionScript ( AS ) Action Message Format ( AMF ) Flash Video ( FLV ) Flash XML Graphics ( FXG ) Local shared objects ( LSOs ) MXML Flash Movie ( SWF ) Flash Code Library ( SWC ) Software ( list ) Players Adobe AIR Adobe Flash Player OpenFL Gnash Lightspark Gameswf Tamarin Animation tools Adobe Animate Toon Boom Moho GoAnimate Stencyl Programming tools FlashDevelop Powerflasher FDT Apache Flex Haxe CrossBridge Adobe Scout FlashFirebug Libraries Starling Framework Away3D Flare3D Stage3D PureMVC Ming List of Flex frameworks Converters Adobe Flash Media Live Encoder SWFTools swfmill Google Swiffy Adobe Wallaby Server - side Adobe Flash Media Server Obsolete software Adobe Flash Builder Adobe Flash Catalyst Adobe Flash Lite SWFAddress SWFObject MTASC Scaleform GFx SWiSH Max Swift 3D Papervision3D Ajax Animator Shumway Swfdec OpenLaszlo Related topics Comparison of HTML5 and Flash Apple and Adobe Flash controversy Flash animation films television Protected Streaming Real - Time Messaging Protocol Real - Time Media Flow Protocol Developers FutureWave Software Macromedia Adobe Systems Adobe Systems Software Suites Creative Cloud ( Creative Suite ) eLearning Suite Technical Communication Suite Desktop Animate Acrobat After Effects Brackets Edge Code Edge Reflow Digital Editions Director Dreamweaver FrameMaker FreeHand Flash Player Flex Builder GoLive Illustrator InDesign Media Encoder Media Player Muse PageMaker Photoshop Photoshop Lightroom Premiere Pro Reader Shockwave Player Server LiveCycle Flash Media Server BlazeDS ColdFusion JRun PhoneGap Build Technologies ActionScript Adobe AIR Adobe Flash Adobe Flex Adobe Shockwave Adobe Font Folio Digital Negative ( DNG ) Authorware FlashPaper Portable Document Format ( PDF ) PostScript Web services Acrobat.com Adobe Solutions Network Adobe Photoshop Express Adobe Premiere Express Adobe Spark Adobe Stock Acquisitions Aldus Macromedia Scene7 Omniture Behance Fotolia People Bruce Chizen Charles Geschke Shantanu Narayen John Warnock Del Yocam Commons Retrieved from `` https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Adobe_Flash_Player&oldid=817863084 '' Categories : Adobe Flash Adobe software Linux media players MacOS media players Macromedia software Proprietary cross-platform software Windows media players Proprietary freeware for Linux 1996 software Computer - related introductions in 1996 Products and services discontinued in 2020 Hidden categories : Webarchive template wayback links All articles with dead external links Articles with dead external links from December 2017 Articles with permanently dead external links Articles with dead external links from March 2011 Articles with dead external links from October 2016 Use mdy dates from February 2017 All articles lacking reliable references Articles lacking reliable references from August 2014 Articles containing potentially dated statements from August 2014 All articles containing potentially dated statements Articles containing potentially dated statements from May 2014 Talk Contents About Wikipedia Asturianu Català Čeština Español فارسی Français 한국어 Հայերեն Bahasa Indonesia עברית Basa Jawa ქართული मराठी Bahasa Melayu Nederlands Polski Português Română Slovenčina Suomi Svenska தமிழ் ไทย Türkçe Tiếng Việt 中文 Edit links This page was last edited on 31 December 2017, at 00 : 37. 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Question: what is adobe flash player plugin used for
Answer: SWF files that can be created by the Adobe Animate and Adobe Flash Professional authoring tools, by Adobe Flash Builder or by third party tools such as FlashDevelop