47 Facts About Adobe Flash

1.

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

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2.

Adobe Flash Player enables end users to view Flash content using web browsers.

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3.

Adobe Flash Lite enabled viewing Flash content on older smartphones, but since has been discontinued and superseded by Adobe AIR.

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4.

Adobe AIR enables full-featured desktop and mobile applications to be developed with Flash and published for Windows, macOS, Android, iOS, Xbox One, PlayStation 4, Wii U, and Nintendo Switch.

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5.

Adobe Flash was initially used to create fully-interactive websites, but this approach was phased out with the introduction of HTML5.

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6.

Instead, Adobe Flash found a niche as the dominant platform for online multimedia content, particularly for browser games.

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7.

The Adobe Flash Player was deprecated in 2017 and officially discontinued at the end of 2020 for all users outside China, as well as non-enterprise users, with many web browsers and operating systems scheduled to remove the Adobe Flash Player software around the same time.

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8.

Between 2000 and 2010, numerous businesses used Adobe Flash-based websites to launch new products, or to create interactive company portals.

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9.

In 2015, YouTube switched to HTML5 technology on most devices by default; however, YouTube supported the Adobe Flash-based video player for older web browsers and devices until 2017.

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10.

Many Adobe Flash games were developed by individuals or groups of friends due to the simplicity of the software.

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11.

Precursor to Adobe Flash was SmartSketch, a product published by FutureWave Software in 1993.

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12.

Adobe Flash was founded by Charlie Jackson, Jonathan Gay, and Michelle Welsh.

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13.

Flash 10 improved animation capabilities within the Flash editor, adding a motion editor panel, inverse kinematics (bones), basic 3D object animation, object-based animation, and other text and graphics features.

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14.

Also in 2008, Adobe released the first version of Adobe Integrated Runtime, a runtime engine that replaced Flash Player, and provided additional capabilities to the ActionScript 3.

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15.

Adobe Flash AIR was upgraded to support 64-bit computers, and to allow developers to add additional functionality to the AIR runtime using AIR Native Extensions.

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16.

In May 2014, Adobe Flash announced that Adobe Flash AIR was used in over 100, 000 unique applications and had over 1 billion installations logged worldwide.

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17.

Adobe Flash AIR was voted the Best Mobile Application Development product at the Consumer Electronics Show on two consecutive years.

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18.

In 2016, Adobe renamed Flash Professional, the primary authoring software for Flash content, to Adobe Animate to reflect its growing use for authoring HTML5 content in favor of Flash content.

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19.

On May 1, 2008, Adobe Flash announced the Open Screen Project, with the intent of providing a consistent application interface across devices such as personal computers, mobile devices, and consumer electronics.

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20.

The Adobe Flash Cast protocol—now known as the Mobile Content Delivery Protocol—and AMF protocols have been made available, with AMF available as an open source implementation, BlazeDS.

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21.

List of mobile device providers who have joined the project includes Palm, Motorola, and Nokia, who, together with Adobe Flash, have announced a $10 million Open Screen Project fund.

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22.

One of Adobe Flash's primary uses on the Internet when it was first released was for building fully immersive, interactive websites.

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23.

Fully Adobe Flash-run sites fell out of favor for more strategic use of Adobe Flash plugins for video and other interactive features among standard HTML conventions, corresponding with the availability of HTML features like cascading style-sheets in the mid-00's.

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24.

In 2010, Apple's Steve Jobs famously wrote Thoughts on Flash, an open letter to Adobe criticizing the closed nature of the Flash platform and the inherent security problems with the application to explain why Flash was not supported on iOS.

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25.

Adobe Flash created the Adobe Flash AIR environment as a means to appease Apple's concerns, and spent time legally fighting Apple over terms of its App Store to allow AIR to be used on the iOS.

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26.

In November 2011, about a year after Jobs' open letter, Adobe announced it would no longer be developing Flash and advised developers to switch to HTML5.

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27.

In 2015, Adobe rebranded Flash Professional, the main Flash authoring environment, as Adobe Animate to emphasize its expanded support for HTML5 authoring, and stated that it would "encourage content creators to build with new web standards" rather than use Flash.

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28.

In July 2017, Adobe deprecated Flash, and announced its End-Of-Life at the end of 2020, and will cease support, distribution, and security updates for Flash Player.

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29.

Kongregate, one of the larger sites that offered Adobe Flash games, has been working with the Strong Museum of Play to preserve its games.

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30.

The Flash source file format was a proprietary format and Adobe Animate and Adobe Flash Pro were the only available authoring tools capable of editing such files.

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31.

Various 3D frameworks have been built for Adobe Flash using Stage3D, such as Away3D 4, CopperCube, Flare3D, and Starling.

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32.

Adobe Flash Video had been a popular choice for websites due to the large installed user base and programmability of Adobe Flash.

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33.

In 2010, Apple publicly criticized Adobe Flash, including its implementation of video playback for not taking advantage of hardware acceleration, one reason Flash was not to be found on Apple's mobile devices.

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34.

In tests done by Ars Technica in 2008 and 2009, Adobe Flash Player performed better on Windows than Mac OS X and Linux with the same hardware.

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35.

Adobe Flash Audio is most commonly encoded in MP3 or AAC; however, it can use ADPCM, Nellymoser (Nellymoser Asao Codec) and Speex audio codecs.

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36.

The final release of the Adobe Flash Player implementing some parts of MPEG-4 standards had become available in Fall 2007.

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37.

In June 2009, Adobe Flash launched the Open Screen Project, which made the SWF specification available without restrictions.

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38.

Adobe Flash Animate authoring program is primarily used to design graphics and animation and publish the same for websites, web applications, and video games.

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39.

Adobe Flash released Adobe Flash LiveMotion, designed to create interactive animation content and export it to a variety of formats, including SWF.

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40.

In February 2003, Macromedia purchased Presedia, which had developed a Adobe Flash authoring tool that automatically converted PowerPoint files into Adobe Flash.

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41.

Adobe Flash Player is the multimedia and application player originally developed by Macromedia and acquired by Adobe Systems.

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42.

Adobe Flash Player is currently only supported with the enterprise and China variants, it has been deprecated everywhere else.

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43.

In November 2011, Adobe announced the withdrawal of support for Flash Player on mobile devices.

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44.

In 2011 Adobe Flash reaffirmed its commitment to "aggressively contribute" to HTML5.

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45.

Adobe Flash Lite is a lightweight version of Adobe Flash Player intended for mobile phones and other portable electronic devices like Chumby and iRiver.

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46.

Adobe Flash content is usually embedded using the object or embed HTML element.

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47.

Adobe Flash often used the ability to dynamically change parts of the runtime on languages on OSX to improve their own performance, but caused general instability.

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