The Adobe Flash Player is software for viewing animations and movies using computer programs such as a web browser; in common usage, Flash lets you put animation and movies on a web site. Flash player is a widely distributed proprietary multimedia and application player created by Macromedia and now developed and distributed by Adobe after its acquisition. Flash Player runs SWF files that can be created by the Adobe Flash authoring tool, by Adobe Flex or by a number of other Macromedia and third party tools.

Adobe Flash, or simply Flash, refers to both a multimedia authoring program and the Adobe Flash Player, written and distributed by Adobe, that uses vector and raster graphics, a native scripting language called ActionScript and bidirectional streaming of video and audio. Strictly speaking, Adobe Flash is the authoring environment and Flash Player is the virtual machine used to run the Flash files, but in colloquial language these have become mixed: "Flash" can mean either the authoring environment, the player, or the application files.

Flash Player has support for an embedded scripting language called ActionScript (AS), which is based on ECMAScript. Since its inception, ActionScript has matured from a script syntax without variables to one that supports object-oriented code, and may now be compared in capability to JavaScript (another ECMAScript-based scripting language).

The Flash Player was originally designed to display 2-dimensional vector animation, but has since become suitable for creating rich Internet applications and streaming video and audio. It uses vector graphics to minimize file size and create files that save bandwidth and loading time. Flash is a common format for games, animations, and GUIs embedded into web pages.

The Flash Player is built into some browsers and is available as a plugin for recent versions of other browsers (such as Mozilla Firefox, Opera, Safari and Internet Explorer) on selected platforms. Each version of the plugin is backwards-compatible, with the exception of security changes.

Supported platforms

The latest version of Flash Player, Version 10, is available for Windows (2000 and newer, Win9x no longer supported), Linux, Solaris and Mac OS X. Version 7 is the most recent official version currently available for the Linux/ARM-based Nokia 770/N800 Internet Tablets, classic Mac OS, Pocket PC and Windows 95/NT. 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 Play. The Flash Player SDK was used to develop its on-screen menus, which are rendered and displayed using the included Flash Player. 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 Player 7 in the Internet Channel on the Wii.