What is Adobe Flash?

Adobe Flash is a software program that is used to create and play sound, video, and graphics on computers and the Internet. Often referred to as just "flash" for short, it's a software product that is developed and owned by Adobe, one of the largest software companies in the world.

Flash allows you to watch video, listen to music and play games on your web browser. This can be on a Web site over the Internet, on a computer file in a program, such as a game or video. These types of files are often referred to as "media files" and Adobe Flash is often referred to as a "media" program. Video, audio, music, and games are often referred to as media because they take time to play back. Think of when you listen to a song. You could listen to just one point in time, but it wouldn't be music. It's the fact that it does take time to play that makes it "media." Just a tip since you'l come across this when reading about Flash.

To be clear, I'm not referring to flash memory, which is a type of memory hardware. In this article, I'm discussing Flash software and media files. Someone might use the word flash in conversation to refer to flash memory, not Flash software or media files, so don't be afraid to ask them to clarify. In the process you'll impress them with your expertise and technical knowledge.

Some Specifics About Flash

Flash refers to two types of software. The first type is the Flash software program used by developers to create Flash files. The other is the Flash player software, which is needed to display and playback any file created in Adobe Flash. The player program is free while the content creation program requires the purchase or licensing from Adobe.

Developed in the mid 1990's, Flash became a popular way for Web sites to display and play videos on the Internet. The reason is that video files are much larger in size than files with just text or photos. Flash takes the original video file and creates a smaller video file from which takes less time to send over the Internet from the Web site to your computer. As a result, a Flash video can be played faster since it's a smaller file. At the time, Flash solved a real problem and allowed many Web sites to use video. Since that time, however, other formats for video have been developed and Internet speeds have become faster. As a result, Flash isn't the only solution available now.

Games

Adobe Flash has also become important when playing online games. Many Web sites allow users to play games, and there are thousands of games for computers and dedicated game player devices. Since games use moving graphics and video, the game developers often use Flash to create the game, so Flash is required to play it. Game developers use Flash because in addition to video, it provides animation to text, drawings and still images. Flash media files can be developed which allow communication from the viewer. By using this capability, a Flash media file can respond to feedback like a mouse click. In fact, what makes Adobe's Flash software unique is this capability to create media that can respond to a mouse click, keyboard stroke, or game controller command.

Flash and Apple

Flash can also be used on many mobile devices with the notable exception of Apple's iPhone and iPad. Apple devices will not play Flash files. If you see a large black space on a Web site while viewing it with an Apple iPhone or iPad, you are looking at a Flash video. It just won't play. Sometimes you'll see an error message instead, or in addition to this, telling you that you need Adobe Flash to playback and view the Web site. There's nothing you can do about this, except wait until you can access another computer. Apple's Mac computers will play Flash files, just not the mobile devices.

Here's what happened. When Apple developed the iPhone and iPad, they decided that allowing flash to play on their devices was not the best way to playback video or media files. Although Flash was used on many Web sites, Apple took a chance that people would want their devices more than they cared about playing flash video from Web sites. So what happened?

Apple managed to do OK in selling iPhones and iPads. Flash use on Web sites has been declining, and in the past year it went down from 24% of Web sites to 18.5% according to W3 Techs. New Web standards have been developed in the meantime that don't require the use of Flash. Apple probably had lots of reasons, but it's not that important.

To accommodate Apple mobile devices, Web sites often use both Flash video and another copy of the video in a format that plays back on Apple devices. Web sites are capable of identifying your device's hardware and software, then sending your device or computer the best version for playback. So you might play a Flash video from YouTube on your computer because YouTube can tell that you are using a computer that can run Flash. While the video file that YouTube sends to your iPhone or iPad would be a different format that plays on Apple devices.

Android devices will play flash, so if you have an Android device, you can play flash and enjoy many of the same features that are accessible from the Internet version of websites.

Flash Player and Updates

In order to display a Flash file on your computer or from a Web site, you'll need to install the Adobe Flash player software, which is free. Adobe will periodically require downloads of updates to Flash in order to work properly with the latest improvements to Web sites using Flash media. Adobe Flash is right there to help you experience the site to its fullest.

So What's the Future?

For browsing the Web, it's becoming less important to have Flash, but it's still used on a fair number of Web sites. If you want to use a Web site that uses Flash, you'll need Flash. Since so many Web sites are offering Apple friendly alternatives in addition to Flash, it's less of a problem, and you may never come across the need for Flash at all.

Software developers that become familiar with a software program just don't like to give it up, since they can usually work faster and include capabilities that might not be available in other software. Adobe Flash is still used when Web site and software developers feel that Flash's capabilities and features will create a better solution than another software program. Because Adobe Flash has many developers, as long as Adobe continues to add capabilities and features, Flash will be around. Rather than emphasizing Flash's use for video, Adobe's Web site promotes Flash as an animation tool for creating games, where it's a popular software development tool among game developers.