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Remains of ancient cultures end up in the museum. This is now happening even with dying software. The “Internet Archive” took pity and put around 1000 Flash animations in their online museum before the multimedia software was officially discontinued later this year.
Internet nostalgics should be happy with the rescue operation: in the 1990s and early 21st century, fun clips and browser games were almost always programmed in Flash. With the collection, the operators of the »Internet Archive« want to prevent these clips from being forgotten.
The collection contains many not-so-well-done examples of what Flash could produce. But some of the preserved Flash movies show how creative and fun the Internet was at the turn of the millennium. Without the Flash, trends like the “Yetisports” series, macabre stick figure games and the “Peanut Butter Jelly Time” meme with the dancing banana would never have been possible.
A flash flash without a flash
Flash has “created a gateway for many young artists to create near-professional games and animations in the early steps of their later careers,” writes technology historian Jason Scott in a blog post. “Flash risks disappearing into obscurity because a special player is needed.”
The best thing about the Flash collection: Browser applications look like Flash, but you don’t need to install a Flash plug-in in your browser. Animations are emulated. This means that even the latest versions of browsers like Chrome, Edge, Firefox and Safari will display clips even if they block Flash.
To make this possible, the »Internet Archive« uses the open source Flash emulator Ruffle, which was developed and run by a group of volunteers. Their goal, according to their own statements, is “to preserve the many websites and the abundance of content” that will disappear with the Flash player. Ruffle avoids a major problem with the original: the emulator “reliably bypasses all the security holes that Flash was known for,” according to the developer.
Infinite security holes
This is especially important because Flash is also famous for its many security flaws. Software company Adobe, which took ownership of Flash technology through the acquisition of its competitor Macromedia in 2005, could barely keep up with the closure of the many weaknesses. Since the Flash player is also very power hungry and thus reduces the battery life of mobile devices, Apple banned the software from iPhones and iPads ten years ago. It was then that the slow death of the software standard began. Years later, browser developers followed suit and blocked Flash out of Chrome, Firefox, and Internet Explorer forever.
The Flash player was a revolution for websites over 20 years ago. Suddenly, it was possible to do more than just text and images. Developers can easily play songs and videos on their pages, embed browser games, and publish 3D animations. The flash player made the net more colorful. In the meantime, however, the old technology has been replaced by modern networking languages such as HTML5.
If you still have Flash files lying around on your computer, you can get the files recognizable by the .SWF extension for posterity. The »Internet Archive« invites creatives to put their Flash projects in the online museum. But first you should test your data on this page.
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