Tuesday, February 28, 2012
A dedicated Flash player is not the only way to view Flash content. Here are two of the major open source alternatives that offer Flash access to Linux users.
If you prefer to stay away from Windows and support the open source Linux platform then Adobe's Flash might create troubles for you now. With Adobe announcing plans to discontinue its standalone Flash Player for Linux, its updated versions will be available to Linux users only through Google's Chrome browser.
It would also be interesting to note how much longer Flash will be important to Adobe as HTML5 grows. Till then, do not lose heart! A dedicated Flash player is not the only way to view Flash content. A report by PCWorld lists down two of the major open source alternatives that offer Flash access to Linux users.
Gnash:
It is a free and open source Flash movie player based on GameSWF. The best part of this tool is that it is available both as a standalone player and as a browser plug-in for Firefox and all other Gecko-based browsers. The latest version Gnash 0.8.10 can be downloaded from GNU.org site. According to its developers, Gnash flawlessly plays videos from popular video sites such as YouTube, Vimeo and others.
Lightspark:
Apart from Gnash, another free and open source alternative is Lightspark. It is a Flash player and doubles up as browser plug-in too. According to its developers, it "supports YoutTube well enough for daily use". The latest release of Lightspark, 0.5.4.1, was just launched at the beginning of February. It can be downloaded free of cost from the Launchpad site.
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