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Open Source Flash Alternatives

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  Open Source Flash Alternatives Kenneth Parker <sea7kenp@gmail.com> - 2021-01-01 16:40 +0100
    Re: Open Source Flash Alternatives Kenneth Parker <sea7kenp@gmail.com> - 2021-01-02 00:20 +0100
      Re: Open Source Flash Alternatives Patrick Bartek <nemommxiv@gmail.com> - 2021-01-02 01:50 +0100
      Re: Open Source Flash Alternatives Ming <ming@pgp.cool> - 2021-01-02 07:00 +0100
      Re: Open Source Flash Alternatives <tomas@tuxteam.de> - 2021-01-02 10:00 +0100
        Re: Open Source Flash Alternatives Kenneth Parker <sea7kenp@gmail.com> - 2021-01-02 10:10 +0100
          Re: Open Source Flash Alternatives <tomas@tuxteam.de> - 2021-01-02 11:30 +0100
            Re: Open Source Flash Alternatives Curt <curty@free.fr> - 2021-01-02 15:50 +0100
              Re: Open Source Flash Alternatives The Wanderer <wanderer@fastmail.fm> - 2021-01-02 16:00 +0100
      Re: Open Source Flash Alternatives deloptes <deloptes@gmail.com> - 2021-01-02 13:00 +0100
        Re: Open Source Flash Alternatives The Wanderer <wanderer@fastmail.fm> - 2021-01-02 14:20 +0100
        Re: Open Source Flash Alternatives <tomas@tuxteam.de> - 2021-01-02 14:20 +0100
          Re: Open Source Flash Alternatives deloptes <deloptes@gmail.com> - 2021-01-02 16:40 +0100
    Re: Open Source Flash Alternatives didier gaumet <didier.gaumet@gmail.com> - 2021-01-02 23:50 +0100
      Re: Open Source Flash Alternatives The Wanderer <wanderer@fastmail.fm> - 2021-01-03 01:00 +0100
    Re: Open Source Flash Alternatives didier gaumet <didier.gaumet@gmail.com> - 2021-01-04 12:00 +0100
      Re: Open Source Flash Alternatives Curt <curty@free.fr> - 2021-01-04 14:30 +0100

#230194 — Open Source Flash Alternatives

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Since Adobe Flash is going the way of the Dodo Bird, I thought I'd check up
on Open Source Alternatives, since I have some Standalone .swf files
(games, etc).

Two came up in my searches, Lightspark (which seems to be, mainly a
Plug-in), and Ghu Gnash, which I like better, since it works as a
Standalone Program.  Unfortunately, it doesn't seem available in Bullseye
(and Search didn't find it for Buster either).  It DOES show up in Stretch,
but that's on a different machine than where my .swf files are.

What's up?

Thanks!

Kenneth Parker

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#230213

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On Fri, Jan 1, 2021, 10:29 AM Kenneth Parker <sea7kenp@gmail.com> wrote:

> Since Adobe Flash is going the way of the Dodo Bird, I thought I'd check
> up on Open Source Alternatives, since I have some Standalone .swf files
> (games, etc).
>
> Two came up in my searches, Lightspark (which seems to be, mainly a
> Plug-in), and Ghu Gnash, which I like better, since it works as a
> Standalone Program.  Unfortunately, it doesn't seem available in Bullseye
> (and Search didn't find it for Buster either).  It DOES show up in Stretch,
> but that's on a different machine than where my .swf files are.
>

Update:  I just installed Stretch in QEMU-KVM in my "Knockabout" Mint 20
system and was able to install Gnash on it.  I did a bit of research into
Gnu Gnash, seeing that it may not be currently maintained.  I wonder if
that decision was made before Flash was going Extinct?

I don't consider this closed, because of the large number of Standalone
.swf files. But I have something to test and, may contact gnu.org about
Gnash.

Kenneth Parker

>

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#230215

On Fri, 1 Jan 2021 18:17:32 -0500
Kenneth Parker <sea7kenp@gmail.com> wrote:

> On Fri, Jan 1, 2021, 10:29 AM Kenneth Parker <sea7kenp@gmail.com>
> wrote:
> 
> > Since Adobe Flash is going the way of the Dodo Bird, I thought I'd
> > check up on Open Source Alternatives, since I have some
> > Standalone .swf files (games, etc).
> >
> > Two came up in my searches, Lightspark (which seems to be, mainly a
> > Plug-in), and Ghu Gnash, which I like better, since it works as a
> > Standalone Program.  Unfortunately, it doesn't seem available in
> > Bullseye (and Search didn't find it for Buster either).  It DOES
> > show up in Stretch, but that's on a different machine than where
> > my .swf files are. 
> 
> Update:  I just installed Stretch in QEMU-KVM in my "Knockabout" Mint
> 20 system and was able to install Gnash on it.  I did a bit of
> research into Gnu Gnash, seeing that it may not be currently
> maintained.  I wonder if that decision was made before Flash was
> going Extinct?
> 
> I don't consider this closed, because of the large number of
> Standalone .swf files. But I have something to test and, may contact
> gnu.org about Gnash.

Take a look at Ruffle, a "Flash player emulator" or so they say.
Open source. Available for Windows, Mac and Linux.  Haven't tried it
myself. No old Flash files laying around to test.

  https://ruffle.rs/

B

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#230216

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On Fri, Jan 01, 2021 at 06:17:32PM -0500, Kenneth Parker wrote:
> On Fri, Jan 1, 2021, 10:29 AM Kenneth Parker <sea7kenp@gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> > Since Adobe Flash is going the way of the Dodo Bird, I thought I'd check
> > up on Open Source Alternatives, since I have some Standalone .swf files
> > (games, etc).
> >
> > Two came up in my searches, Lightspark (which seems to be, mainly a
> > Plug-in), and Ghu Gnash, which I like better, since it works as a
> > Standalone Program.  Unfortunately, it doesn't seem available in Bullseye
> > (and Search didn't find it for Buster either).  It DOES show up in Stretch,
> > but that's on a different machine than where my .swf files are.
> >
> 
> Update:  I just installed Stretch in QEMU-KVM in my "Knockabout" Mint 20
> system and was able to install Gnash on it.  I did a bit of research into
> Gnu Gnash, seeing that it may not be currently maintained.  I wonder if
> that decision was made before Flash was going Extinct?
> 
> I don't consider this closed, because of the large number of Standalone
> .swf files. But I have something to test and, may contact gnu.org about
> Gnash.
> 

I just find the last commit of Gnash (almost two years ago)[1], It did
say "Gnash is currently not being actively maintained".

For an alternative to Adobe Flash, Ruffle[2] is indeed worth watching, but
they seem to have been in the proof-of-concept stage for a long time.

[1]: http://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/gnash.git/commit/?id=583ccbc1275c7701dc4843ec12142ff86bb305b4
[2]: https://github.com/ruffle-rs/ruffle

-- 
OpenPGP fingerprint: 3C47 5977 4819 267E DD64  C7E4 6332 5675 A739 C74E

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#230223

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On Fri, Jan 01, 2021 at 06:17:32PM -0500, Kenneth Parker wrote:

[...]

> Update:  I just installed Stretch in QEMU-KVM in my "Knockabout" Mint 20
> system and was able to install Gnash on it.  I did a bit of research into
> Gnu Gnash, seeing that it may not be currently maintained.  I wonder if
> that decision was made before Flash was going Extinct?
> 
> I don't consider this closed, because of the large number of Standalone
> .swf files. But I have something to test and, may contact gnu.org about
> Gnash.

Gnash has been removed June 2018 [1]. It depended on old libs and there
was nobody willing to take over the burden, it seems.

Such decisions are taken in the open. Everyone can chime in, this is
Debian. Folks, if you care about a piece of software, get together.
Help out. That's how the whole thing is supposed to work.

Cheers

[1] https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/gnash
  - t

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#230225

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On Sat, Jan 2, 2021 at 3:56 AM <tomas@tuxteam.de> wrote:

> On Fri, Jan 01, 2021 at 06:17:32PM -0500, Kenneth Parker wrote:
>
> [...]
>
> > Update:  I just installed Stretch in QEMU-KVM in my "Knockabout" Mint 20
> > system and was able to install Gnash on it.  I did a bit of research into
> > Gnu Gnash, seeing that it may not be currently maintained.  I wonder if
> > that decision was made before Flash was going Extinct?
> >
> > I don't consider this closed, because of the large number of Standalone
> > .swf files. But I have something to test and, may contact gnu.org about
> > Gnash.
>
> Gnash has been removed June 2018 [1]. It depended on old libs and there
> was nobody willing to take over the burden, it seems.
>
> Such decisions are taken in the open. Everyone can chime in, this is
> Debian. Folks, if you care about a piece of software, get together.
> Help out. That's how the whole thing is supposed to work.
>
> Cheers
>
> [1] https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/gnash
>   - t
>

I will contact gnu.org and see about taking it over.  It will be a
Challenge, but I've got more time on my hands now.

Thanks for the Link!

Kenneth Parker

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#230233

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On Sat, Jan 02, 2021 at 04:00:21AM -0500, Kenneth Parker wrote:

[...]

> I will contact gnu.org and see about taking it over.  It will be a
> Challenge, but I've got more time on my hands now.

This is awesome. I never used anything flash myself, but it's always
great to see someone caring.

Let me know if you need some help.

Cheers
 - t

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#230253

On 2021-01-02, <tomas@tuxteam.de> <tomas@tuxteam.de> wrote:
>
> This is awesome. I never used anything flash myself, but it's always
> great to see someone caring.

Adobe Flash officially died at the tail-end of 2020, so I wonder
what need exists to prolong it's life in open source.

> Let me know if you need some help.
>

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#230254

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On 2021-01-02 at 09:23, Curt wrote:

> On 2021-01-02, <tomas@tuxteam.de> <tomas@tuxteam.de> wrote:
> 
>> This is awesome. I never used anything flash myself, but it's
>> always great to see someone caring.
> 
> Adobe Flash officially died at the tail-end of 2020, so I wonder what
> need exists to prolong it's life in open source.

There is, or should be, no need to prolong the life of the Flash Player
browser plugin. Outside of specialty cases mostly involving enterprise
environments, at-least-nearly everything that still needs it can and
should be updated to use something else.

There may, however, be a case for prolonging the ability to play back
things stored in a Flash format, *outside* of a browser. That context
would eliminate a lot of the security concerns involved in the browser
plugin, and would make it a whole lot more possible to preserve the
content of existing Flash media for posterity, whether by making it
possible to play in its existing form or by making translating it into
another form easier.

The SWF format is like any other dead / outdated file format. We may not
want to generate it anymore, and there may be good reason for no longer
using it in production - but there's nothing wrong with perpetuating the
ability to read and work with it, and there may be advantages to doing
so in certain contexts.

(For a comparison in another context, I don't know of anyone who
generates MOV or RM files anymore; Apple's QuickTime Player has been
dead for a long time, and RealPlayer is sufficiently niche to be
actively worth ignoring IMO. But MPlayer et al. still play files in
those formats just fine.)

-- 
   The Wanderer

The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one
persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all
progress depends on the unreasonable man.         -- George Bernard Shaw

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#230243

Kenneth Parker wrote:

> On Fri, Jan 1, 2021, 10:29 AM Kenneth Parker <sea7kenp@gmail.com> wrote:
> 
>> Since Adobe Flash is going the way of the Dodo Bird, I thought I'd check
>> up on Open Source Alternatives, since I have some Standalone .swf files
>> (games, etc).
>>
>> Two came up in my searches, Lightspark (which seems to be, mainly a
>> Plug-in), and Ghu Gnash, which I like better, since it works as a
>> Standalone Program.  Unfortunately, it doesn't seem available in Bullseye
>> (and Search didn't find it for Buster either).  It DOES show up in
>> Stretch, but that's on a different machine than where my .swf files are.
>>
> 
> Update:  I just installed Stretch in QEMU-KVM in my "Knockabout" Mint 20
> system and was able to install Gnash on it.  I did a bit of research into
> Gnu Gnash, seeing that it may not be currently maintained.  I wonder if
> that decision was made before Flash was going Extinct?
> 
> I don't consider this closed, because of the large number of Standalone
> .swf files. But I have something to test and, may contact gnu.org about
> Gnash.
> 
> Kenneth Parker
> 
>>

Why would you need this. update your sites to HTML5. until then use the
official flash - otherwise how would you guarantee that it is working on
each browser and platform - for example mobile phone, tablets etc.?

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#230247

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On 2021-01-02 at 06:45, deloptes wrote:

> Kenneth Parker wrote:
> 
>> On Fri, Jan 1, 2021, 10:29 AM Kenneth Parker <sea7kenp@gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>> 
>>> Since Adobe Flash is going the way of the Dodo Bird, I thought
>>> I'd check up on Open Source Alternatives, since I have some
>>> Standalone .swf files (games, etc).
>>> 
>>> Two came up in my searches, Lightspark (which seems to be, mainly
>>> a Plug-in), and Ghu Gnash, which I like better, since it works as
>>> a Standalone Program.  Unfortunately, it doesn't seem available
>>> in Bullseye (and Search didn't find it for Buster either).  It
>>> DOES show up in Stretch, but that's on a different machine than
>>> where my .swf files are.
> 
> Why would you need this. update your sites to HTML5. until then use
> the official flash

The official Flash Player is reportedly going to stop working, abruptly
and en masse, on January 12th. Adobe built in a "time bomb" for this
purpose with the last several released versions.

> - otherwise how would you guarantee that it is working on each
> browser and platform - for example mobile phone, tablets etc.?

You can't, any more than you can guarantee that those have the Player
installed to begin with.

That said, the question was not about Websites, but about standalone
local SWF files, for which it's a much more reasonable question; I have
a few of those myself which I'd like to be able to continue playing when
the whim strikes me. For those, I haven't found any better suggestion
than Ruffle, linked elsewhere in the thread - and I haven't gotten that
working yet myself, apparently in part because of its hardware requirements.

-- 
   The Wanderer

The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one
persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all
progress depends on the unreasonable man.         -- George Bernard Shaw

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#230249

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On Sat, Jan 02, 2021 at 12:45:55PM +0100, deloptes wrote:

[...]

> Why would you need this. update your sites to HTML5 [...]

If I read correctly, the OP hasn't a "site" (s)he coule "update". Rather
some .swf files of value to him/her.

Who are we to judge whether it's feasible to rewrite them? And whether
html5 is a viable replacement?

Cheers
 - t

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#230257

tomas@tuxteam.de wrote:

> [...]
> 
>> Why would you need this. update your sites to HTML5 [...]
> 
> If I read correctly, the OP hasn't a "site" (s)he coule "update". Rather
> some .swf files of value to him/her.
> 
> Who are we to judge whether it's feasible to rewrite them? And whether
> html5 is a viable replacement?

OK, sorry, I came OT with that, but it was announced like 2y ago that Flash
will be decommissioned.

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#230270

Le vendredi 1 janvier 2021 à 16:40:07 UTC+1, Kenneth Parker a écrit :
> Since Adobe Flash is going the way of the Dodo Bird, I thought I'd check up on Open Source Alternatives, since I have some Standalone .swf files (games, etc).
> 
> Two came up in my searches, Lightspark (which seems to be, mainly a Plug-in), and Ghu Gnash, which I like better, since it works as a Standalone Program. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem available in Bullseye (and Search didn't find it for Buster either). It DOES show up in Stretch, but that's on a different machine than where my .swf files are.
> 
> What's up?
> 
> Thanks!
> 
> Kenneth Parker

Hello,

>From what I understand from the lightspark website (1) and the wikipedia page about lightspark (2),
- Gnash is both a free standalone flash player and flash plugin for Actionscript 1&2 
- Lightspark is also both a free standalone flash player and flash plugin but primarily for Actionscript 3. For Actionscript 1&2, it relies on Gnash.
- Lightspark, while older than Ruffle, is, right now, more advanced and your best bet albeit being not fully functional

In order to test it, I just downloaded the Lightspark Windows installer in a Windows 10 VM. The standalone client crashed when trying to play the swf sample file I passed as a parameter, complaining about OpenGL. To test it in Linux, it has to be built it from source

(1) https://lightspark.github.io/
(2) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lightspark

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#230274

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On 2021-01-02 at 17:26, didier gaumet wrote:

> Hello,
> 
> From what I understand from the lightspark website (1) and the
> wikipedia page about lightspark (2),
> - Gnash is both a free standalone flash player and flash plugin for
> Actionscript 1&2
> - Lightspark is also both a free standalone flash player and flash
> plugin but primarily for Actionscript 3. For Actionscript 1&2, it
> relies on Gnash.

The release notes for one of the recent versions say that this gnash
dependency is not present anymore; it's reportedly now capable of
handling such files on its own. How good the support is, relatively
speaking, I don't know. For what it's worth, the results below are
without gnash involved.

> - Lightspark, while older than Ruffle, is, right now, more advanced 
> and your best bet albeit being not fully functional
> 
> In order to test it, I just downloaded the Lightspark Windows
> installer in a Windows 10 VM. The standalone client crashed when
> trying to play the swf sample file I passed as a parameter,
> complaining about OpenGL. To test it in Linux, it has to be built it
> from source
> 
> (1) https://lightspark.github.io/
> (2) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lightspark

I grabbed the 0.8.3 source and built with little difficulty; once I got
the necessary detected-at-build-time packages installed, the biggest
hiccup was the fact that the build script explicitly calls 'sudo make
install' at the end, when I A: don't want to install as part of the
build process and B: wouldn't use sudo to do it anyway. (I'm not sure I
have sudo configured in such a way that it'd even work.)

Running lightspark from the built objdir, I tested it with four
relatively-well-known SWF files I happen to have on hand, In all four
cases, the audio played without apparent issues; however, the video
results were at least slightly different in each case.


With a copy of the famous albinoblacksheep "French Erotic Film"
animutation sequence, the image went blank / black basically immediately.

With a copy of the "end of the world" sequence ("dang! that is a sweet
earth, you might say"), the image displayed a loading progress bar up to
about 9%, then hung, while the audio continued.

With a copy of the "Badger Badger Badger" looping sequence, the video
displayed almost normally, except that the badgers were visibly
flickering between visible and non-visible. I didn't let it run long
enough to see whether it would lose audio/video sync, and if so, how
quickly; it does lose sync very slightly on every iteration in the
official Adobe player, although it takes a fair number of iterations for
the desync to accumulate far enough for an ordinary observer to be sure
it's real.

With a copy of the "The Llama Song" sequence, the display seemed to be
100% normal, but was running a little bit too fast relative to the
audio; the images which match the audio lines were getting out of sync
before the first verse was half over, and the desync was significant
before the end of the first iteration.


Whether those behaviors are the current state of the program or in some
way specific to the condition of my computer I don't know, but that's
actually fairly good relative to what I've seen from such standalone
players in the past. (Though it's been quite a few years since I've
tried any.)

The biggest issue I experienced in testing playback was trying to quit
the program; q, Esc, Ctrl+C, and basic kill all failed. kill -9 worked,
and later investigation revealed that Ctrl+Q is the key sequence to
close the program normally.

-- 
   The Wanderer

The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one
persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all
progress depends on the unreasonable man.         -- George Bernard Shaw

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#230317

A little bit out-of-subject because it also mentions proprietary software, but there is a very recent article precisely on this subject:
 https://www.fastcompany.com/90590201/how-to-use-flash-to-play-old-games-after-adobe-discontinues-it

(and being not intersted in games, I did not know archive.org gives access to old flash games) 

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#230324

On 2021-01-04, didier gaumet <didier.gaumet@gmail.com> wrote:
> A little bit out-of-subject because it also mentions proprietary
> software, but there is a very recent article precisely on this
> subject:
> https://www.fastcompany.com/90590201/how-to-use-flash-to-play-old-games-after-adobe-discontinues-it
>
> (and being not intersted in games, I did not know archive.org gives
> access to old flash games) 

I was reading that gnash-dump (or dump-gnash?) can convert a swf to raw
format, which is then amenable to manipulation by ffmpeg.

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