Mozilla's Shumway: a Flash VM written in JavaScript
1 points · Open discussionmozilla
shumway
TypeScript2012–2023
mozilla / shumway · Archived
shumway
Shumway is a Flash VM and runtime written in JavaScript
46Distinct people
50Mentions
2Explicit recommenders
3.7KGitHub stars
What to know before exploring
What it is
Shumway is a Flash VM and runtime written in JavaScript
GitHub
Where it is used
No documented product use was verified in the last source check.
What people are saying
Yes, I really love PDF.js. I was consider switching to Chrome just because of the (proprietary) pdf viewer. But the Chrome PDF viewer even lacks the concept of pages! I had…
fafner used a recommendation phrase. 2 indexed comments match. This is a phrase match, not a verdict.
No classified warning is attached to this page. Read the discussions before treating silence as approval.
Also in these discussions
No other repository is repeatedly linked in the same discussions.
This week on Hacker News
Nov 8–Nov 15 UTC · Direct repository links and separately labeled related project stories. Indexed through 11/15/2026, 4:01:40 AM UTC.
No direct repository links were found in the indexed HN discussions over the past seven days. Older discussions are available below.
Mentions over time
HN mentions by year50 dated mentions
Observed mentions: 2012-02-22 13:23:49 UTC to 2023-03-31 11:33:10 UTC.
Counts come from the repository’s dated source evidence. Index cutoff: 2026-11-02 08:16:59 UTC.
View mention counts and date ranges
| Period | Start (UTC) | End (exclusive, UTC) | Mentions | Submissions | Comments |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2012 | 2012-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2013-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 8 | 3 | 5 |
| 2013 | 2013-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2014-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 8 | 2 | 6 |
| 2014 | 2014-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2015-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 4 | 1 | 3 |
| 2015 | 2015-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2016-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 6 | 0 | 6 |
| 2016 | 2016-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2017-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 5 | 0 | 5 |
| 2017 | 2017-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2018-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 4 | 0 | 4 |
| 2018 | 2018-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 5 | 1 | 4 |
| 2019 | 2019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 4 | 0 | 4 |
| 2020 | 2020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 4 | 1 | 3 |
| 2021 | 2021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2022 | 2022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| 2023 | 2023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 1 | 0 | 1 |
From the project README
An excerpt from the repository, fetched Nov 13, 2026.
Read the project’s introduction
Shumway
Shumway is an HTML5 technology experiment that explores building a faithful
and efficient renderer for the SWF file format without native code
assistance.
Shumway is community-driven and supported by Mozilla. Our goal is to
create a general-purpose, web standards-based platform for parsing and
rendering SWFs. Integration with Firefox is a possibility if the experiment
proves successful.
Getting started
Online demo
For an online demo, visit:
http://mozilla.github.io/shumway/examples/racing/
Or see all the demos at http://mozilla.github.io/shumway/
Extension
Install the Firefox extension: http://mozilla.github.io/shumway/extension/firefox/shumway.xpi
This development extension should be quite stable but still might break from time to time.
Also, note that the development extension is updated on every merge and by default Firefox will
auto-update extensions on a daily basis (you can change this through the
extensions.update.interval option in about:config, time is in seconds).
To build the Firefox extension: use grunt firefox.
Contributing
Development
See the wiki.
If you don't want to hack on the project or have little spare time, you still
can help! Just install the Firefox extension, test it on SWFs in the wild,
and report any problems or unimplemented features.
Our GitHub contributors so far:
https://github.com/mozilla/shumway/contributors
You can add your name to it! :)
The easiest way to get started is to grep for TODOs and implement them.
Additional resources
Talk to us on IRC:
#shumway on irc.mozilla.org
Post on our mailing list:
dev-shumway@lists.mozilla.org
Subscribe either using lists.mozilla.org or Google Groups:
https://lists.mozilla.org/listinfo/dev-shumway
http://groups.google.com/group/mozilla.dev.shumway
Read the full README on GitHubWhat Hacker News says
8 sourcesWhile this is a neat idea, it seems to fall to the same problem I've seen elsewhere, little to no transparency as to where a project is going. For example, I was suggested Shumway (JS flash emulator). I'm sent to the github page for it (https://github.com/mozilla/shumway). They give a small summary and a little info on getting an installation working. Nothing however I can see on where a new contributor would start with helping out. No road-map, no "we need this feature and no one has claimed to work on it yet", this bug needs to be fixed for the next release, etc.
I'll admit I've never contributed to FOSS so maybe a veteran can fill me in but I see this a lot with projects. Some have decent issue/bug tracking, but I often find it very difficult to determine how a project is supposed to progress, what features are needed for the next rele
Read the rest
ase, where do they stand currently, etc. I assume a lot is decided out-of-band through e-mails and IRC.
Shumway – a Flash VM and runtime written in JavaScript
1 points · Open discussionYes, I really love PDF.js. I was consider switching to Chrome just because of the (proprietary) pdf viewer. But the Chrome PDF viewer even lacks the concept of pages! I had already kicked out the Adobe Reader plugin but using an external viewer every time makes PDF just so more annoying.
Mozilla is also working on something similar for Flash: https://github.com/mozilla/shumway . I'm a bit sceptical but with the success of PDF.js I can't wait to use it.
In Pdf.js: PDF Reader in JavaScriptThe mozilla project has really pulled it's socks up of late, some of the stuff from the labs:
Very awesome Shumway - https://github.com/mozilla/shumway
Very awesome PDF.js - https://mozillalabs.com/en-US/pdfjs/
IHeartCode - https://mozillalabs.com/en-US/iheartcode/
Prospector Experiments - https://mozillalabs.com/en-US/prospector/
Gladius - https://mozillalabs.com/en-US/gladius/
EntropyWave - https://mozillalabs.com/en-US/entropywave/
And by all accounts FF itself has had some serious work done to sort close the performance gap between it and Chrome.
I love Chrome, it's a top notch browsers, only the omnibox (addressbar) seems be deliberately designed to inflict pain and suffering on the user. You could be forgiven for thinking that it's been deliberatly in some kind of bizarre social experiment. Does anybody here prefer it to the Firefox
Read the rest
Awesomebar?
I'm seriously considering switching back to FF. God.
Shumway is a Flash VM and runtime written in JavaScript by Mozilla
4 points · Open discussionLike Shumway? https://github.com/mozilla/shumway
This is an effort to render SFW inside the browser.
In Flash For Linux Will Only Be Available For Chromehttps://github.com/mozilla/shumway
> Shumway is an HTML5 technology experiment that explores building a faithful and efficient renderer for the SWF file format without native code assistance.
> Shumway is community-driven and supported by Mozilla. Our goal is to create a general-purpose, web standards-based platform for parsing and rendering SWFs. Integration with Firefox is a possibility if the experiment proves successful.
In Flash For Linux Will Only Be Available For Chrome