What is Macromedia Flash?

Macromedia Flash is a technology that allows animations, interactive forms, games, and other jazzed-up features to be embedded in web pages. Macromedia Flash Player is a well-known and trustworthy plug-in that users should feel comfortable installing. In fact, Flash is the most commonly installed plug-in on the web, more common than QuickTime, RealPlayer, or Java.

The Flash files, traditionally called “Flash movies” or “Flash games”, have a .swf file extension and may be an object of a web page, strictly “played” in a standalone Flash Player, or incorporated into a Projector, a self-executing Flash movie with the .exe extension in Windows. Flash Video files have a .flv file extension and are utilized from within .swf files.