As many of you know, Adobe Flash Player's support was cut on December 31, 2020. Flash content will continue to run for now, but when January 12th comes around Adobe will block Flash content from running entirely. Not only that, Microsoft plans to issue an update that will remove Flash from your system. Adobe Flash was a platform used extensively especially in the early 2000's, for a large variety of games and animations. People grew up on it. They expressed themselves with it. That entire era of internet culture is about to be lost... or is it? I found three "alternatives" to Flash that I will list here, so that these games and animations can continue to be viewed long after Flash's death.
1. BlueMaxima's Flashpoint
Site: https://bluemaxima.org/flashpoint/
Flashpoint is the best option overall, as this is a standalone application that doesn't require a browser. Flashpoint contains an archive of over 70,000(!!!) games and 8,000 animations, most of which were made with Flash. It supports a few other technologies as well, but it's all web-based content. You can download their entire archive which is over 500GB, or just the launcher so you may pick and choose which files you'd like to run. They're saved to your computer so they can be played offline as well. There's a decent chance that flash game you played as a kid is on there, if you can remember the name of it
2. Ruffle
Site: https://ruffle.rs/
Ruffle is a Flash Player emulator which allows for secure playing of Flash content in modern browsers. At the time of writing it isn't yet finished, but it shows quite a bit of promise and even has iOS and Android versions planned! Plus, it's sponsored by Newgrounds, CoolMath Games, and Armor Games, some of the biggest hosts of Flash content out there! The only downside to this is that many websites will be taking down their Flash content since support is being pulled. However, at least one site won't be doing that...
3. Newgrounds Player
Site: https://www.newgrounds.com/flash/player
That's right, Newgrounds' extensive Flash library isn't going anywhere. They've built their own Flash player so that all of the Flash content on their site will continue to work. The downside is that this player only seems to work on content from Newgrounds, but hey, most flash stuff comes from there anyway.
I'd also like to mention that older browsers and Internet Explorer might still work with Flash, at least for now, but please don't do that, it's a huge security risk to be using outdated software like that.
Even though Flash is dying off, its content can still be enjoyed in a couple of different ways. There's probably some programs I've missed, and I'm sure there will be more to come. For now, Flash won't be truly going away any time soon. Hopefully is thread isn't too hard to read, I'm not good at formatting or really English in general :/ enjoy!
1. BlueMaxima's Flashpoint
Site: https://bluemaxima.org/flashpoint/
Flashpoint is the best option overall, as this is a standalone application that doesn't require a browser. Flashpoint contains an archive of over 70,000(!!!) games and 8,000 animations, most of which were made with Flash. It supports a few other technologies as well, but it's all web-based content. You can download their entire archive which is over 500GB, or just the launcher so you may pick and choose which files you'd like to run. They're saved to your computer so they can be played offline as well. There's a decent chance that flash game you played as a kid is on there, if you can remember the name of it
2. Ruffle
Site: https://ruffle.rs/
Ruffle is a Flash Player emulator which allows for secure playing of Flash content in modern browsers. At the time of writing it isn't yet finished, but it shows quite a bit of promise and even has iOS and Android versions planned! Plus, it's sponsored by Newgrounds, CoolMath Games, and Armor Games, some of the biggest hosts of Flash content out there! The only downside to this is that many websites will be taking down their Flash content since support is being pulled. However, at least one site won't be doing that...
3. Newgrounds Player
Site: https://www.newgrounds.com/flash/player
That's right, Newgrounds' extensive Flash library isn't going anywhere. They've built their own Flash player so that all of the Flash content on their site will continue to work. The downside is that this player only seems to work on content from Newgrounds, but hey, most flash stuff comes from there anyway.
I'd also like to mention that older browsers and Internet Explorer might still work with Flash, at least for now, but please don't do that, it's a huge security risk to be using outdated software like that.
Even though Flash is dying off, its content can still be enjoyed in a couple of different ways. There's probably some programs I've missed, and I'm sure there will be more to come. For now, Flash won't be truly going away any time soon. Hopefully is thread isn't too hard to read, I'm not good at formatting or really English in general :/ enjoy!
Last edited by supergamer368,
