Adobe Flash is a legacy multimedia platform originally created for building interactive web animations, games, and rich content experiences. It allowed designers and developers to create vector-based graphics, animated sequences, and browser-based interactivity before modern web standards like HTML5, CSS3, and JavaScript became fully capable. Flash content ran through the Flash Player plugin, which eventually became a browser security concern and was deprecated in 2020.
Despite its obsolescence, Flash was highly influential in shaping interactive web media and early online games. Its component model, timeline-based animations, and ActionScript programming language gave creators unprecedented control over interactive web content for its era.
Quote
“Flash is incredibly based.” - Theo 24th December 2023
The Use Case
When to use (pros)
- Rich multimedia control: Flash allowed animations, audio, video, and interactivity in a unified environment long before HTML5 caught up.
- Timeline-based animation: Perfect for frame-by-frame control and orchestrating complex sequences.
- Legacy games and animations: Tons of classic web games, interactive tutorials, and art projects were built in Flash.
- Vector graphics efficiency: Scaled cleanly without pixelation, ideal for early web graphics.
When not to use (cons)
- Obsolete platform: Browsers no longer support Flash, making it effectively unusable for modern web deployment.
- Security concerns: Flash was notoriously prone to vulnerabilities, leading to widespread deprecation.
- Not mobile-friendly: Flash never worked reliably on iOS, Android, or e-readers, so any modern app cannot rely on it.
- Proprietary ecosystem: Reliance on Flash Player meant vendor lock-in and limited cross-platform support.
- Better modern alternatives exist: HTML5, CSS3, WebGL, and JavaScript frameworks (like Svelte, PixiJS, or Three.js) now handle interactive media safely and natively.
Quick note: Despite being “based” in a nostalgic sense, Flash is strictly a historical or archival choice today. For production work, modern web standards are mandatory. Do not attempt Flutter for web-based Flash replacements - e-readers and some browsers fail to handle it properly, and devs who recommend it for this use are misinformed.
Suitability by Project Scale
Large companies
- Pros: Only relevant for archiving legacy content or re-releasing historical media in controlled environments.
- Cons: Cannot be shipped to general users; modern browsers block it.
Smaller projects
- Pros: Nostalgia projects, educational retrospectives, or museums might run Flash via emulators like Ruffle.
- Cons: Limited audience; requires emulation or virtualization.
Personal / indie projects
- Pros: Fun for retro game development, animation experiments, or exploring historical web tech.
- Cons: Not viable for real-world deployment; better to port projects to HTML5, WebGL, or modern frameworks.