When it comes to Adobe Flash Player, you must feel very familiar. However, if ask you what is Adobe Flash Player; how does Adobe Flash Player work on Windows or Mac; how to update Adobe Flash Player to the latest version; how to find other replacements of Adobe Flash Player on Windows Mac , even mobile (iPhone, iPad or Android), you may feel a little confused. So here we will discuss the issues that you will care about Adobe Flash Player in the following description.

Part 1. What is Adobe Flash Player

Adobe Flash Player is the standard for delivering high-impact and rich web content, created by Macromedia and has been developed and distributed by Adobe Systems. It can run from a web browser plug-in or on supported mobile devices like Android or iPad. With this software, you can view multimedia, executing rich Internet applications, and streaming video and audio. Before you want to use Adobe Flash Player on your device, check the details as below to see if your device can be compatible with Adobe Flash player:

Adobe Flash Player EOL General Information Page Since Adobe no longer supports Flash Player after December 31, 2020 and blocked Flash content from running in Flash Player beginning January 12, 2021, Adobe strongly recommends all users immediately uninstall Flash Player to help protect their systems. Advanced Free Flash Player Mac Now that SWF and FLV have been discontinued, it’s especially important to find a functioning flash video player Mac app. Elmedia Player is up to the task. Unlike your average Flash projector, Elmedia combines full SWF/FLV support with useful features that may be found in an ordinary Flash player.

Part 2. How to install Adobe Flash Player

Before you install Adobe Flash Player on your device, check it if you have installed. Go to https://helpx.adobe.com/flash-player/kb/installation-problems-flash-player-windows.html, with your browser, and click 'Check Now' button to see if you did install Adobe Flash Player. If you have made the installation of Adobe Flash Player, then it will show the installation information. If you did not install I it before, then follow the following ways to install this tool.

Step 1Go to https://get.adobe.com/flashplayer, to download the latest version of Adobe Flash Player.

Step 2After downloading, close all browsers, and locate the Flash Player install file, then double-click the installer file to begin the Flash Player installation.

Part 3. How to update Adobe Flash Player

Why should I download and update the latest version? Because malware authors will often employ misleading tactics to make malware look like something you should trust, it's important to get your Flash Player updates directly from Adobe. So checking your Adobe Flash layer and makes frequent update is very necessary.

Commonly, you are presented with the Flash Player update notifying that a new version of Adobe Flash Player is available for downloading from adobe.com. And you just need to download it and update it to the latest version according to the reminders. And Flash Player is pre-installed in Google Chrome and updates automatically.

Part 4. Adobe Flash Player alternatives for Windows/Mac/Android/iOS

Adobe is not perfect to work on any browser or any device, so you may want to find the replacements of this software. However, till now, there is not one player that can match Adobe Flash Player for its web viewer as the plug-in on computer or mobile device. But you find Adobe Flash player does not work for you, you can try other tools to play video on your Windows or Mac computer, even your Android phone or iPad or iPhone as the emergency measure.

Price: Free

Compared with the above Adobe Flash Player replacements, Free Media Player is one player program not based on the web. Web player is easy to use on the web, but they may be not compatible with any video from any platform. So here we share Free Media Player, which can play any video or audio, even the pictures from your own library. You just load the video or audio file and will get the vision watching.

Unity Web Player

Link: https://unity3d.com/webplayer

Platform: Windows, Mac

Price: Free

The Unity Web Player is the cross-platform engine and IDF developed by Unity Technologies. This Adobe Flash Player is for Windows and Mac, aiming at web plug-ins, desktop platforms, video game consoles and mobile devices. It enables you to build rich 3D games with animated characters, sizzling graphics and immersive physics. And then you can deliver the games to the web or as standalone players.

RealPlayer

Link: http://www.real.com/

Platform: Windows, Mac, iOS, Android

Price: Free

RealPlayer is the ultimate PC media player to download and watch videos. Different from Adobe Flash Player, this player is the browser plug-in to download videos firstly, and then view the downloaded videos in your RealPlayer Library. 1GB free storage is provided to save and share your videos. Superior to Adobe Flash Player, this alternative lets you burn music to CDs.

Shumway

Link: https://mozilla.github.io/shumway/

Platform: HTML5 web application

Price: Free

Shumway is an HTML5 technology experiment that explores building a faithful and efficient renderer for the SWF file format without native code assistance. It was intended as an open-source replacement for Adobe Flash Player. Shumway renders Flash contents by translating Flash file contents to HTML5 elements, and running an ActionScript interpreter in JavaScript.

Silverlight

Link: https://www.microsoft.com/silverlight/

Platform: Windows, Mac

Price: Free

Silverlight is a powerful development tool for creating engaging, interactive user experiences for Web and mobile applications. It can be as the Adobe Flash Player for Windows and Mac users. Microsoft has made the Silverlight browser plug-in freely available for all supported platforms and browsers. Silverlight 5 builds on the foundation of Silverlight 4 for building business applications and premium media experiences.

QuickTime

Link: https://support.apple.com/downloads/quicktime

Platform: Mac, iPhone, iPad, iPod

Price: Free

QuickTime is an extensible multimedia framework developed by Apple Inc., capable of handling various formats of digital video, picture, sound, panoramic images, and interactivity. This software is the built-in player that lets you view internet video on Mac. If you like, you could download its version to your iPhone or iPad for video watching. This software can be regarded as the replacement of Adobe Flash Player. QuickTime 7 also name as QuickTime Pro will be compatible with Windows version.

By now, you must have gotten more detailed information about Adobe Flash Player and the equivalent to Adobe Flash Player. Actually, in market, there is no real player that can replace Adobe Flash Player. What you can do is to change some apps to play videos when Adobe Flash Player does not work.

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May 29, 2018 15:00 / Updated by Jenny Ryan to Player

26 Mar How to Update Adobe Flash Player on a Mac

March 26, 2018

Adobe Flash Player is a free software plug-in used by web browsers to view multimedia, execute rich Internet applications, and stream video on your Mac.

Adobe Flash Player is the most popular multimedia player plug-in available. However, recently there have been security concerns which have threatened its popularity as users seek safer alternative solutions. Opera, Firefox, and Chrome contain built-in versions of Flash running in sandbox mode. This method is safer than running Flash as a plugin. However, currently the reality is that you still may need the Adobe Flash Player on your Mac because many websites will not work well if you uninstall it. Here I’ll show you how to install Adobe Flash Player and how to set it up correctly.

How to install Adobe Flash Player on your Mac.

1. Go to http://get.adobe.com/flashplayer/ to download the Adobe Flash Player installer.

2. By default, the installer package will be downloaded to your “Downloads” folder.

3. Select the file on your Mac and double click to install it.

4. Select “Allow Adobe to install updates (recommended)” and click “DONE” to complete the installation.

If you installed Adobe Flash Player, but still cannot view online videos on certain websites, you need to check Adobe Flash Player on your browsers.

Flash Media Player For Macos

How to set up Adobe Flash Player on various browsers.

Safari

1. Launch Safari and go to the Apple menu bar and click Preferences.

2. Select the Websites tab and select On for “When visiting other websites.”

3. Refresh the browser tab, or restart the browser.

Google Chrome

1. Launch Chrome and type chrome://settings/content in the address field.

2. Select “Ask first (recommended)” and turn it on.

3. Refresh the browser tab or restart the browser.

Opera

1. Launch Opera and go to the Apple menu bar and click Preferences.

2. Select the Websites tab and then select “Allow sites to run Flash”

3. Refresh the browser tab or restart the browser.

Firefox

1. Launch Firefox and go to the Apple menu bar and click Tools – Add-ons.

2. Click the Plugins tab and turn the “Shockwave Flash” to “Always Activate.”

Note: (SWF (Shock Wave Flash) is a special format created by Macromedia, which has been acquired by Adobe. It is widely used in web design, animation production and other fields.)

For enhancing the user experience and security, Adobe is always trying to improve Adobe Flash Player. However, sometimes when you view a website, a Flash Player upgrade popup appears. Most people would click the “update” button to update their Flash Player, but this could be a false popup used by hackers to compromise your Mac. This is a method hackers use to trick you into downloading adware and malware through a false popup.

Be careful and don’t trust any automatic updates of Adobe Flash Player. Here I will tell you how to install real Flash Player updates and set it up.

How to update Flash Player on Mac safely

1. Go to the Apple menu bar and select System Preferences.

2. Select Flash Player.

Flash Video Player For Mac

3. Select the Updates tab and select “Allow Adobe to install updates (recommended)”. (Note: The Flash plug-in is officially updated 1~2 times a month, so selecting this option avoids frequent update.)

4. You may now notice that the Flash Update settings now shows NPAPI and PPAPI plugins. Let me explain them.

NPAPI – used by Safari, Firefox

PPAPI – used by Chromium, Opera and Chrome (Chrome’s implementation is built in)

5. Click Check Now to confirm that you currently have the latest version installed.

If you had clicked a false popup and downloaded adware, don’t worry, the Apple App Store has many antivirus apps, such as Trend Micro’s Antivirus One, that you can use to do a free scan.

Follow the steps below in case you downloaded a fake Adobe Flash Player.

1. When you first install Antivirus One, click “Pattern Update” to make sure your virus pattern is up to date. We suggest you update the virus pattern every day.

2. After the first installation, we highly suggest you perform a full scan of your Mac to check all files for possible infections. The Full scan will take more than one hour.

3. If you still find adware and a full scan has not found any viruses, we recommend you use Adware Cleaner. You can access Adware Cleaner in the left panel of the Antivirus One window.

How to uninstall Adobe Flash Player

Flash Video File Player Mac

Adobe Flash Player for the Mac is a plug-in, not a Mac OS X application. When you try to uninstall Adobe Flash Player from your Mac, you might find that this plug-in is not so easy to delete. For example, you might see this message:

Cannot find Adobe Flash Player in your Applications folder.

In this case, Adobe Flash Player could not be removed and no reason was given. The following steps show how to uninstall Adobe Flash Player with no remaining parts.

1. Go to the /Applications/Utilities/ folder on your Mac and double-click the Adobe Flash Player Install Manager app.

Best Flash Player For Mac

2. Click Uninstall to begin the process.

3. Type the password and click Install Helper.

Flash Movie Player Mac

4. If your browser is running, the following window will appear. Select “Force Close All” to continue.

5. After the uninstaller removes the Adobe Flash software from your Mac, click Done.