Really great writeup. So people stop asking the obvious question, here is the GitHub issue that clearly shows Ruffle doesn’t support ActionScript 3:
https://github.com/ruffle-rs/ruffle/issues/1368
I recently picked up a copy of Flash MX to use on an old PowerBook, highly recommend others do the same. As many have commented, today’s authoring tools are poor substitutes (someone should do a list of the superior abandonware versions of SaaS products).
In I still use Flashruffle-rs
ruffle
Rust2019–2026
ruffle-rs / ruffle
ruffle
A Flash Player emulator written in Rust
48Distinct people
59Mentions
0Explicit recommenders
18.9KGitHub stars
What to know before exploring
What it is
A Flash Player emulator written in Rust
GitHub
Where it is used
- PHP-Nuke.Titanium.Dev.4 — The Ruffle Web Core (https://github.com/ruffle-rs/ruffle): is what we use to enable flash site wide, you will not need any browser plugins. Source
What people are saying
No recommendation phrase was found in the indexed comments.
No classified warning is attached to this page. Read the discussions before treating silence as approval.
Also in these discussions
- herschel/swivel · linked in 2 of the same discussions
Mentioned in the same Hacker News threads. That is not proof they are substitutes.
This week on Hacker News
Nov 8–Nov 15 UTC · Direct repository links and separately labeled related project stories. Indexed through 11/15/2026, 7:24:48 PM 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 year59 dated mentions
Observed mentions: 2019-08-17 14:10:33 UTC to 2026-09-07 08:35:36 UTC.
* An incomplete calendar period is marked with an outlined bar. Its count is not directly comparable with a full period.
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2019 | 2019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 4 | 2 | 2 |
| 2020 | 2020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 19 | 2 | 17 |
| 2021 | 2021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 6 | 1 | 5 |
| 2022 | 2022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 10 | 0 | 10 |
| 2023 | 2023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 10 | 2 | 8 |
| 2024 | 2024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2025-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 3 | 0 | 3 |
| 2025 | 2025-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2026-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2 | 1 | 1 |
| 2026 (partial) | 2026-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2027-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 5 | 0 | 5 |
From the project README
An excerpt from the repository, fetched Nov 13, 2026.
Read the project’s introduction
website | demo | nightly builds | wiki
Ruffle
Ruffle is an Adobe Flash Player emulator written in the Rust programming language. Ruffle targets both the desktop and the web using WebAssembly.
Table of Contents
Project status
Using Ruffle
Building from source
Prerequisites
Linux prerequisites
Desktop
Build
macOS
Web or Extension
Android
Scanner
Exporter
Structure
Sponsors
License
Contributing
Project status
Ruffle supports ActionScript 1, 2 and 3 pretty well, but it's still not finished by any means. Please report any issues in the Issue Tracker.
Using Ruffle
The easiest way to try out Ruffle is to visit the web demo page, then click the "Select File" button to load a SWF file of your choice.
Nightly builds of Ruffle are available for desktop and web platforms.
For more detailed instructions, see our wiki page.
Building from source
Prerequisites
Latest stable channel of Rust
Java, available on your PATH as java (required for building the library containing the builtin Flash classes for ActionScript 3)
Linux prerequisites
The following are typical dependencies for Linux:
Ubuntu/Debian:
sudo apt install pkg-config libasound2-dev libudev-dev libfontconfig-dev libfreetype6-dev libssl-dev default-jre-headless g++
Fedora/RHEL:
sudo dnf install pkgconf-pkg-config alsa-lib-devel systemd-devel fontconfig-devel freetype-devel openssl-devel java-latest-openjdk-headless gcc-c++
Desktop
Build
Use the following command to build and run the desktop app:
cargo run --release --package=ruffle_desktop
To run a specific SWF file, pass the SWF path as an argument:
cargo run --release --package=ruffle_desktop -- test.swf
To build in debug mode, simply omit --release from the command.
Desktop has a few optional features which you can specify via --features, comma separated:
tracy: Enables profiling to Tracy. You may need to expand the log filter to see everything, e.g. RUST_LOG="warn,ruffle=debug"
tracy_images: Enables Tracy frame captures. Implies tracy.
tracy_avm: Enables profiling AVM execution with Tracy. Implies tracy.
render_debug_labels: Enables debug labels during rendering, useful for debugging graphics with renderdoc or similar.
macOS
Ruffle desktop can be built from our Homebrew Tap:
brew install --HEAD ruffle-rs/ruffle/ruffle
Note: because it is HEAD-only, you'll need to run brew upgrade --fetch-HEAD ruffle each time you want to update.
Web or Extension
Follow the instructions in the web directory for building
either the web or browser extension version of Ruffle.
This project is tested with BrowserStack.
Android
Follow the instructions in the ruffle-android project for building the Android application of Ruffle.
Scanner
If you have a collection of "real world" SWFs to test against, the scanner may be used to benchmark
ruffle's parsing capabilities. Provided with a folder and an output filename, it will attempt to read
all of the Flash files and report on the success of such a task.
cargo run --release --package=ruffle_scanner -- scan folder/with/swfs/ results.csv
Exporter
If you have a SWF file and would like to capture an image of it, you may use the exporter tool.
This currently requires hardware acceleration, but can be run headless (with no window).
cargo run --release --package=exporter -- path/to/file.swf
cargo run --release --package=exporter -- path/to/file.swf path/to/screenshots --frames 5
Structure
core - core emulator and common code
swf - SWF and ActionScript parser
desktop - desktop client (uses wgpu-rs)
web - web client and browser extension (uses wasm-bindgen)
render - various rendering backends for both desktop and web
video - video decoding backends
flv - Flash Video decoder
wstr - a Flash-compatible implementation of strings
scanner - a utility to bulk parse SWF files
exporter - a utility to generate PNG screenshots of a SWF file
Sponsors
You can support the development of Ruffle via GitHub Sponsors. Your sponsorship will help to ensure the accessibility of Flash content for the future. Thank you!
Sincere thanks to the diamond level sponsors of Ruffle:
License
Ruffle is licensed under either of
Apache License, Version 2.0 (http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0)
MIT License (http://opensource.org/licenses/MIT)
at your option.
Ruffle depends on third-party libraries under compatible licenses. See LICENSE.md for full information.
Contributing
Ruffle welcomes contribution from everyone. See CONTRIBUTING.md for help getting started.
Unless you explicitly state otherwise, any contribution intentionally submitted
for inclusion in the work by you shall be dual licensed as above, without any
additional terms or conditions.
The entire Ruffle community, including the chat room and GitHub project, is expected to abide by the Code of Conduct that the Rust project itself follows.
Read the full README on GitHubWhat Hacker News says
10 sourcesI recently used Ruffle [2] to get some Flash applications [0] working in the Pro version of my web browser [1], which is specifically designed to be remotely accessible and embeddable in an iframe. To run Ruffle on pages that require it, I utilize the Chrome Remote Debugging Protocol [3], similar to how a Chrome extension content script operates. Ruffle itself relies on WebAssembly and runs smoothly. It's been exciting to see the audio and video functionality of these old games restored and being able to play them again.
-
[0]: https://github.com/ruffle-rs/ruffle/wiki/Test-SWFs
[1]: https://github.com/crisdosyago/BrowserBox#bb-pro-vs-regular-...
[2]: https://github.com/ruffle-rs/ruffle
[3]: https://chromedevtools.github.io/devtools-protocol/tot/
In I still use FlashI got some Flash applications[0] working in the Pro version of my remote, isolated iframe-embeddable multiplayer web browser[1] using Ruffle[2].
I use CRDP (chrome remote debugging protocol)[3] to run Ruffle on pages that need it (sort of like a Chrome extension content script). Ruffle itself uses wasm and is quite fast.
It's cool seeing the audio and video work and playing those old games.
-
[0]: https://github.com/ruffle-rs/ruffle/wiki/Test-SWFs
[1]: https://github.com/crisdosyago/BrowserBox#bb-pro-vs-regular-...
[2]: https://github.com/ruffle-rs/ruffle
[3]: https://chromedevtools.github.io/devtools-protocol/tot/
In Ask HN: Are there things that Flash did that we still can’t do with today’s web?Erm, this exists and it's called Ruffle: https://github.com/ruffle-rs/ruffle
It works quite decently, but they can always use help.
In Ask HN: Why Adobe still can’t figure out Flash on WASM?We now have Ruffle which does more or less what Adobe should have done 10 years ago.
https://github.com/ruffle-rs/ruffle
If Adobe had seen their ban from the iPhone as a challenge to make Flash player capable of running without a plug-in they would dominate so many areas today. Flex would have become a viable platform to develop web apps/PWAs with - effectively sitting in the same position as what Flutter is doing today (Although I don’t believe Flutter is a one size fits all universal toolkit). I suppose they tried with PhoneGap but without Flash/Flex, which was their super power, they just didn’t have enough value proposition.
I suspect they saw the desktop install base of Flash Player as too important to risk loosing by marking it redundant - innovator's dilemma.
For some reason they just excepted defeat with Flash.
In Miniclip to Discontinue Desktop Site and Transition Exclusively to Mobile GamesWow, no kidding! That's fascinating (tangentially I was wondering why they never targeted web, my
guess was it would weaken vendor lock-in and this seems to confirm
that mindset. Though it could also be that web wasn't a very good target in the era when they still cared about Flash.)
I never heard of AS4 before! That's so cool. I found a specification and whitepaper here https://github.com/adobe-research/ActionScript4
>HTML5/JavaScript is here to stay. One cannot not serve the Web! Here it is our task to provide a superior alternative where HTML5/JavaScript is bound to lack.
It was supposed to be a compiled language, in order to solve performance and battery issues on mobile devices.
Being able to say "we fixed one of your biggest complaints / reasons for trying to kill us" sounds like it would have been pretty good marketing, and Adobe w
Read the rest
ith their budget seems like they could have afforded that easily. (I don't know how much it costs to develop a new programming language, but I know it has often been done by a single person in their spare time!)
It sounds like they also had plans to eventually bring AS to the server-side (made largely practical by the same advancements benefiting the client). (Perhaps they could have learned a thing or two from Haxe, with its "compile
everywhere" and CPP transpilation.)
Alas! Now to see if any curious bystanders have bothered to implement it... seems not. (I guess that's not too surprising, we're only halfway* done with AS2/3 implementations as it is!)
* https://github.com/ruffle-rs/ruffle/wiki/Roadmap#milestones
https://github.com/ruffle-rs/ruffle
A flash VM running in safe WebAssembly sounds like an awesome idea for preserving a lot of older web content.
In I can no longer compile my first Flash gameCheck out both Ruffle[0] and Flashpoint[1]. Ruffle is an open source flash player emulator that compiles to WASM and has a browser plugin you can add that will allow you to run embedded flash content on a web page (although its not needed if the server serves up a copy of Ruffle). Flashpoint is a collection of thousands of flash games with an easy interface to play them through flash player.
[0] https://github.com/ruffle-rs/ruffle
[1] https://bluemaxima.org/flashpoint/downloads/
In I can no longer compile my first Flash game> I have spent some time looking into this problem and have not found any third party tools that will allow embedded flash to work again.
I'm curious if you've tried ruffle: https://github.com/ruffle-rs/ruffle
It will not work for exactly your problem (powerpoint plugin vs html5 webpage), but I've found most relatively simple flash programs run under it. If the embedded flash content you've got is relatively simple, you might be able to run it in a browser with ruffle.
At which point you could swap out the powerpoint presentation from embedding flash alone, to embedding flash + having a link to a webpage for modern powerpoint users, which wouldn't make for good presentations, but would be better than nothing for students reviewing it.
In I can no longer compile my first Flash game# How to try it
Click the "Try right now" to start a browser in an iframe at the bottom of the page.
Unfortunately for those of us (myself included) living outside of North America, the server is in Newark, NJ. So lag will be network-based.
# Source code
This work is based on this project on GitHub:
https://github.com/i5ik/Viewfinder
Your demo version has many advanced features (listed in the comparison table[0]), including Flash.
# Using Flash
Just go to a page that (still) uses Flash, or click one of the SWF links on the homepage, or a SWF link anywhere.
The a flash integration is thanks to the wonderful Ruffle Flash emulator project, written in Rust[1].
# Project background
This was originally created as a delivery layer for a web-scraping app that was supposed to work on any device without download, but I broke it out into its own pro
Read the rest
duct as it just has too many interesting use cases, some ideas for which are here[2]
# Current tasks
I have some customers for the managed individual version (the 15, and 57 a month in the link above), as well as for the self-hosted licensed versions. Right now my focus should be on polish and improving styles and marketing, but I guess I just love building features and fixing bugs. But marketing is essential...
# What is this really?
You can say it's a "remote isolated browser" but really that's just one application that can be built with this browser-based application virtualization technology. I'm thinking about fully open-sourcing the regular version on GitHub above, but I'm worried about the risk where someone will just take it and make a well-marketed cloud service out of it and not have to pay me. I've got it on a Polyform non-commercial license now...I like it but I wish I knew a better option...Maybe tho as I get more successful with it, I won't worry about this so much.
# Easter egg (coming in like 10 minutes)
Finally, if you want to try to co-browsing feature, there's an easter egg. After you opened a browser, just double-tap or right-click or long-hold anywhere on the top of this landing page and it should try to share the cobrowsing session invite link, or copy it to the clipboard. You can send that to someone and when they open it you will both be driving the same browser session.
[0]: https://github.com/i5ik/Viewfinder/blob/boss/README.md#vf-pr...
[1]: https://github.com/ruffle-rs/ruffle
[2]: https://github.com/i5ik/Viewfinder/blob/boss/README.md#appli...