Flash, or "Adobe Flash" for it's full title, is a popular software platform which delivers interactive multimedia to the World Wide Web. Flash is widely used by advertisers online, so much so, that failure to install Adobe Flash can result in many web page errors.

Alongside advertisement banners, most people will be familiar with Flash from Youtube. The video's provided by Youtube are run through a Flash plugin for web browsers such as Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome and Opera.

There is also a burgeoning online community of games designers and animation developers who primarily work in Flash. Flash's wide multimedia appeal has established it as the most prominent tool for developing online animated graphics.

While Flash is currently owned and developed by Adobe, it was previously developed by Macromedia. However, the company who first developed the software was FutureSplash. They did not call the product Flash, but "Animator".

FutureSplash decided to develop Animator as an Web based animation's tool in 1995. They managed to release the product in 1996. It was soon adopted by a wide portfolio of prominent web site. This lead to Macromedia buying the software by the end of 1996. Adobe purchased Flash in 2005.

The filename extension for flash files is as follows,

• .swf
  • Stands for ShockWave Flash.

Flash video files can be embedded within .swf files. But they can also contain the ".flv" file extension.

Flash files can be developed using the Adobe Flash developers kits. Priced in the region of £100-200, depending on the edition. If you are only wishing to play Flash files, then the stand alone player, or browser plugin is free for download.