Flash players for Linux [LWN.net]

Flash players for Linux

Posted Jan 12, 2006 6:55 UTC (Thu) by tzafrir (subscriber, #11501)
Parent article: Flash players for Linux

Could someone compare Gnash vs. swfdec?

Last time I tried swfdec it was a very poor flash player: supported no ActiveScripts or links. It never claimed to suport much beyond basic Flash, whereas Gnash seems to aim to Flash 7. (which does not really mean it actually gets there).

The homepage ( http://www.schleef.org/swfdec/ ) does not yet show version 0.3.6, though it's in the download directory, and it is much larger than 0.3.5. Any major advancements?

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Flash players for Linux

Posted Jan 12, 2006 9:19 UTC (Thu) by ncm (subscriber, #165) [Link]

I can't speak about Gnash, but the only thing I ever got from swfdec was dancing web ads. Anything I actually wanted to see resulted only in a blank screen, or infinite-loop (and, once killed, zombied) subprocesses attached to my browser.

I have not been tempted to download Macromedia's proprietary code since about 2000 or so, so I can't say how the experience compares. I do relish missing out on the dancing web ads, though.

David Schleef had an update in a very recent blog

Posted Jan 12, 2006 9:23 UTC (Thu) by Uraeus (guest, #33755) [Link]

David Schleef's blog gives a summary of the current status of swfdec, including information about ActionScript.

Flash players for GNU/Linux

Posted Jan 12, 2006 9:45 UTC (Thu) by coriordan (guest, #7544) [Link]

I can't offer a technical comparison, but I can point out that Gnash is a new project, so no one should expect it to be good for end-users from month #1.