The plug-in build we are using is based on the Pepper API, which is a modern plug-in API (implemented only by Chrome) and originally designed for NaCl modules. A plug-in host: The Flash plug-in expects to run inside a browser, so we need to write a native x86 host application that will provide a comfortable environment for it.The plug-in will be “installed” in the browser using IndexedDB or another persistence API.
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The Flash plug-in itself: Redistributing the Flash binary is not normally allowed, so we are going to directly download it over HTTP the first time our system is started.Even with this key piece in place, several more components are needed. For now, just assume that we have a magic WebAssembly black box that can run x86 binaries. We plan to release more details on how we achieve this as our technology matures. We will be talking more about this technology in the near future.Īs you have probably guessed by this point, our solution to preserve Flash in the long term is to run the full, unmodified, Flash plug-in from Adobe in WebAssembly. This technology is currently in the alpha stage but is good enough to experiment with fully executing unmodified applications in the browser. We engineered a WebAssembly virtual machine with a fast interpreter and a JIT engine capable of dynamically recompiling x86 binary to WebAssembly code. Over the last few months, here at Leaning Technologies, we have been working on a breakthrough technology - codenamed CheerpX - to run unmodified x86 binaries in the browser in WebAssembly. We believe that a different approach is required, and we are working on it right now. That’s why I am certain that the only practical, robust way to accurately preserve Flash content in the medium and long term is not through a reimplementation. If there is one lesson that I learned from working on Lightspark, it is that reimplementing Flash is a very, very, very hard and time-consuming task. Ruffle: a newly announced Rust re-implementation.Īmong these, my favorite is Lightspark, in part because I wrote a big chunk of it many years ago, but also because Lightspark happens to be, as far as I know, the implementation with the highest level of support for “modern” SWF files - those using ActionScript 3.Shumway: a Mozilla sponsored attempt taking advantage of the new (at the time) HTML5 features like Canvas.Since Gnash ultimately has not lived up to its promises, there has been no shortage of serious attempts at re-implementing Flash. Unfortunately, Gnash soon fell behind Adobe’s player in terms of features.
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The popularity of Flash and the doubts over its legacy were significant enough that the Gnash project, one of the first Free Software attempts at re-implementing Flash, was considered one of the Free Software Foundation high priority projects. Since Flash is a proprietary technology, people have always been wondering how this content was going to be preserved when, in due time, that technology was going to become obsolete. Find out more in this postįor quite a long time, and until recently, Adobe Flash has been the tool of choice to create interactive web applications, especially video games. Note: We have recently announced CheerpX for Flash, a solution to extend the life of Flash applications post-2020.