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Comment by apignotti | Hacker News Reader

(Shameless self promotion)

We (Leaning Technologies) are working to preserve Flash content using WebAssembly-based virtualization.

We have developed a Wasm virtual machine (CheerpX) that can run the binary Flash player plugin safely in the client sandbox for pixel perfect rendering of any SWF.

If you want to read more:

https://medium.com/leaningtech/running-flash-in-webassembly-...

https://medium.com/leaningtech/preserving-flash-content-with...

Feel free to drop me any question: https://twitter.com/alexpignotti

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This is an awesome approach! I especially like that you'll get perfect compatibility, vs something like ruffle that's re-implementing flash. Not to mention that running x86 code in a wasm vm is an extremely general solution, like you've demoed with the python terminal. The Flash-in-wasm part of the project is almost like a happy side-effect.

Indeed, running the Flash plugin is just the first use case of our tech.

How are you dealing with copyright issues? Do you have a licensing agreement with Adobe?

Adobe is saying all Flash downloads will be completely removed from their website at the end of 2020, and I assume no one else has the legal right to distribute binaries.

We are also dealing with licensing "the right way", all the appropriate parties are involved. I can't be more specific right now but we plan to announce all details soon.

If Adobe is cooperating, why not get them to compile Flash to WebAssembly or provide the source code, rather than using an x86 emulator?

They said no.

Please, oh lord! Just let dreaded Flash rest in peace.

> Please, oh lord! Just let dreaded Flash rest in peace.

This is the wrong reaction to have here.

There is so much beautiful legacy content that was created in Flash. It's a goldmine. Homestar Runner, Strong Bad, Newgrounds. These are mainstays of the millennial childhood and adolescence.

Think about all of the Flash games and interactive video experiences. You can't just record those for YouTube and preserve the fidelity. They're an incredibly valuable part of our history, and they absolutely deserve preservation.

Are you willing to throw out N64 and Super Nintendo video games forever? Because that's the perspective it seems you're taking.

This isn't about helping Flash as a platform hobble along. It's about keeping all of that great content alive.

Got a tutorial or working demo showing how to set up a site that displays legacy flash content in modern browsers?

CheerpX for Flash is not yet available to the public, but it's already being tested internally by our Early Adopters. You can find several videos of our solution in action in the linked posts.

Ruffle works great in modern browsers and is open source: https://github.com/ruffle-rs/ruffle

Does this mean, we could play all the flash games?

I know there have been some games that require talking to a server in order to work, so I presume those are as dead as the servers are.

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