Re: Latest Version Of Adobe Flash Player For Mac Free Download
Latrisha Adan
Adobe Flash Player (known in Internet Explorer, Firefox, and Google Chrome as Shockwave Flash)[10] is discontinued[note 1] computer software for viewing multimedia content, executing rich Internet applications, and streaming audio and video content created on the Adobe Flash platform. It can run from a web browser as a browser plug-in or independently on supported devices. Originally created by FutureWave under the name FutureSplash Player, it was renamed to Macromedia Flash Player after Macromedia acquired FutureWave in 1996. It was then developed and distributed by Adobe as Flash Player after Adobe acquired Macromedia in 2005. It is currently developed and distributed by Zhongcheng for users in China, and by Harman International for enterprise users outside of China, in collaboration with Adobe.
Flash Player runs SWF files that can be created by Adobe Flash Professional, Adobe Flash Builder, or by third-party tools such as FlashDevelop. Flash Player supports vector graphics, 3D graphics, embedded audio, video and raster graphics, and a scripting language called ActionScript, which is based on ECMAScript (similar to JavaScript) and supports object-oriented code. Internet Explorer 11 and Microsoft Edge Legacy, in Windows 8 and later, along with Google Chrome on all versions of Windows, came bundled with a sandboxed Adobe Flash plug-in.[11][12][13][14][15]
Flash Player once had a large user base, and was a common format for web games, animations, and graphical user interface (GUI) elements embedded in web pages. Adobe stated in 2013 that more than 400 million out of over 1 billion connected desktops updated to new versions of Flash Player within six weeks of release.[16] However, Flash Player became increasingly criticized for its performance, consumption of battery on mobile devices, the number of security vulnerabilities that had been discovered in the software, and its closed platform nature. Apple co-founder Steve Jobs was highly critical of Flash Player, having published an open letter detailing Apple's reasoning for not supporting Flash on its iOS device family. Its usage also waned because of modern web standards that allow some of Flash's use cases to be fulfilled without third-party plugins.[17][18][19] This led to the eventual deprecation of the platform by Adobe. Flash Player was officially discontinued on 31 December 2020, and its download page was removed two days later. Since 12 January 2021, Flash Player (original global variants) versions newer than 32.0.0.371, released in May 2020, refuse to play Flash content and instead display a static warning message.[20] The software remains supported in mainland China and in some enterprise variants.[21]
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 the web cameras and microphones, after permission for the same has been granted by the user.
Flash Player was used internally by the Adobe Integrated Runtime (AIR), to provide a cross-platform runtime environment for desktop applications and mobile applications. AIR supports installable applications on Windows, 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.[22]
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 play back.
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.[41] 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.[42][43] (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.[44][45])
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 HTML video playback.[46][47] Also, Flash Player has been used on multiple mobile devices as a primary user interface renderer.[48]
Although code written in ActionScript 3 executes up to 10 times faster than the prior ActionScript 2,[49] 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.[50][51][52][53][54]
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.[52][53][54]
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.[55]
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.
A few commercial game engines target Flash Player (Stage3D) as run-time environment, such as Unity 3D[65] and Unreal Engine 3.[65][66] Before the introduction of Stage3D, a number of older 2D engines or isometric engines like Flixel saw their heyday.[67]
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.[68] CrossBridge is targeted toward the game development industry, and includes tools for building, testing, and debugging C/C++ projects in Flash Player.
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.[72][73][74] In August 2016, Adobe announced that, beginning with version 24, it would resume offering of Flash Player for Linux for other browsers.[75]
The Extended Support Release (ESR) of Flash Player on macOS and Windows was a version of Flash Player kept up to date with security updates, but none of the new features or bug fixes available in later versions. In August 2016, Adobe discontinued the ESR branch and instead focused solely on the standard release.[76]
Version 10 can be run under Windows 98/Me using KernelEx.[89] HP offered Version 6 of the player for HP-UX,[90] while Innotek GmbH offered versions 4 and 5 for OS/2.[91] Other versions of the player have been available at some point for BeOS.[citation needed]
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.[30][31] On mobile devices, however, after Apple refused to allow the Flash Player within iOS's integrated web browser, Adobe changed its 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),[92] although in June 2012, Google announced that Android 4.1 (codenamed Jelly Bean) would not support Flash by default. In August 2012, Adobe stopped updating Flash for Android.[93]
Flash Player was 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.[94][95][96] As of 2012, Adobe has stopped browser-based Flash Player development for mobile browsers in favor of HTML5;[97][98] however, Adobe continues to support Flash content on mobile devices with the Adobe Integrated Runtime, which allows developers to publish content that runs as native applications on certain supported mobile phone platforms.
Adobe said it will optimize Flash for use on ARM architecture (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.[99][100] Beginning 2009, it was announced that Adobe would be bringing Flash to TV sets via Intel Media Processor CE 3100 before mid-2009.[101] 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."[102] However, as of May 2009, the expected ARM/Linux netbook devices had poor support for Web video and fragmented software base.[103]
Among other devices, LeapFrog Enterprises provides Flash Player with their Leapster Multimedia Learning System and extended the Flash Player with touch-screen support.[104] Version 9 was the most recent version available for the Linux/ARM-based Nokia 770/N800/N810 Internet tablets running Maemo OS2008.[90] Other versions of the player have been available at some point for Symbian OS and Palm OS.[105] The Kodak Easyshare One includes Flash Player.[106]
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