What is Adobe Flash Player | FAQs

General questions

What is the difference between Adobe Animate CC and Adobe Flash Player software?

Adobe Animate CC (formerly Flash Professional) is an application for developing rich content, user interfaces and web applications. Adobe Flash Player is a multiplatform client runtime. Web users must download and install Flash Player to view and interact with SWF content.

What is the difference between Adobe AIR and Flash Player?

The two Adobe Flash Platform runtimes are Flash Player and Adobe AIR. Flash Player is a highly expressive cross-platform runtime that works consistently across browsers. Flash Player delivers innovation within the browser, while AIR, a superset of Flash Player, enables the delivery of stand-alone applications that run outside the browser. Together, they provide a consistent runtime for delivering content that can easily move between the browser and native operating system context.

In what languages is Flash Player available?

Flash Player is available in Brazilian Portuguese, Chinese Simplified, Chinese Traditional, Czech, Dutch, English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Polish, Russian, Spanish, Swedish and Turkish on most major browser platforms.

How can I file a bug for Flash Player?

File any bugs in the Adobe Flash Player public bugbase and the Flash Player team will investigate accordingly.

What is the Flash Player privacy and security policy?

Read more about Flash Player security and privacy.

I just received a dialogue box notifying me that a new version of Flash Player is available. What does this mean?

Periodically, Adobe updates Flash Player with new features or fixes to minor problems. The Automatic Notification and Update feature allows Adobe to automatically notify you when an updated version of Flash Player is available so that you can install it straightaway.

What versions of Flash Player does Adobe support and when will support end?

Adobe supports the latest version of Flash Player available. Older versions of Flash Player are not supported and all users are strongly recommended to update to the latest version to receive all security updates available. Support for Flash Player will continue until 31st December 2020. Please read our blog post for additional information.

Updates to Flash Player help ensure that Flash Player works properly and may contain important security changes. Adobe recommends that you update to the latest version of Flash Player whenever a new version is available, especially when a security update is mentioned. Although you may choose whether to receive automatic notification of updates and how frequently to receive them, Adobe is not responsible for errors or security problems that occur because the version of Flash Player on your computer is not the most current one available. To learn more, please visit our Background updates help page.

Support

To the top

I'm having trouble installing Flash Player. Where can I get support?

Visit Flash Player support for help with installation.

How do I deploy my SWF content on the Internet?

To provide a better user experience for your site, you can implement Flash Player detection when embedding SWF content. For more information about detection and installation, visit the Flash Player Developer Centre. Adobe also recommends the open source SWFObject project for embedding SWF content.

How can I tell if I have the latest version of Flash Player installed and whether it is working correctly?

Adobe provides online testing for Flash Player on the testing page. This page will tell you which version is currently installed and provides a list of the latest versions for each platform.

Where can I learn about changes to the Flash Player security model that might affect my content?

Information about security changes in Flash Player can be found in the Flash Player Developer Centre.

How much does Font Folio 11.1 cost?

How do I order Font Folio 11.1?

I own a previous version of Font Folio. How much does it cost to upgrade to Font Folio 11.1?

Licensing

To the top

Can I license Flash Player for distribution on my company's intranet?

If you've created intranet content that depends on Flash Player, you can distribute the software via your intranet so your users won't have to download it from the Internet. View Flash Player licensing options for more information.

Can I license Flash Player for distribution with my device, application, CD or other non-intranet use case?

Please contact our official distribution licensing partner, HARMAN for more information about licensing Flash Player and AIR.

What is the SWF file format specification?

The SWF file format delivers vector graphics, text, video and sound over the Internet and is supported by Flash Player and Adobe AIR. The SWF file format is available as an open specification to create products and technology that implement the specification.

What is the FLV/F4V video file format specification?

The FLV/F4V open specification documents the file formats for storing media content used to deliver streaming audio and video for playback in Flash Player and Adobe AIR. FLV and F4V are the de facto standard for web video today.

What are the licence terms for Flash Player?

Read the software licence agreement for full licence terms.

Why are the current distribution pages and links being decommissioned?

Third parties have been spoofing the Flash Player download pages in an attempt to spread malware. We are enabling Adobe ID log in on the page in order to improve security and ensure that only licensed users have access to the distribution binaries.

I don't have a Flash Player Distribution licence, how do I download the binaries?

Please apply for a new licence using the Flash Player Distribution application.

When are the existing download pages being decommissioned?

https://www.adobe.com/products/flashplayer/distribution3.html will be decommissioned in Fall, 2016.

https://www.adobe.com/products/flashplayer/distribution4.html will be decommissioned on 31 March, 2017.

I applied for a Flash Player distribution licence within the last year, how do I access the new download page?

In order to access this new page, you will need an Adobe ID that is registered with the same email address that was used to sign up for the Flash Player licence. You can create a new Adobe ID here.

I use Microsoft System Centre Updates Publisher/Microsoft Systems Management Server to distribute Flash Player. What changes can I expect?

No changes are being made to the TAXI file hosting on the Adobe servers.

These changes are breaking my Flash Player distribution workflow, who do I contact?

Please contact us via the Adobe Flash Player forums here: https://forums.adobe.com/community/flashplayer

What if I need further information on one of these questions or don't see my question listed here?

Learning

Game Developer Centre

User groups

Flash Player Developer Centre

Help

Help and support

User forums