Mozilla has announced its support for a project that has been around in their GitHub repository for quite a while. Shumway is a project that aims to build an SWF parser that uses web technologies and as such can work directly in a browser without needing a plug-in. This makes it possible to use it on any kind of device that has a browser.
In its current state Shumway can run a number of simple demos based on both AVM1 (Flash Player 1 to 8) and AVM2 (Flash Player 9 to 11.x). There is a Firefox extension available that can intercept any Flash content and run it using Shumway instead. In fact if the project reaches a stage where it can run SWF files well enough, Mozilla will consider integrating it in the browser itself.
While there are many HTML purists that vie for the death of Flash Player and look forward to a plugin-free web, it is common for most people to overlook one simple fact. And that fact is that there is a wealth of Flash-based content on the internet. A lot of Flash-based content has been created by artists, and designers who were just trying to create the content they envisions using the technology that would allow them to do that and to have it reach the maximum number of people.
Whatever one may think of Flash Player, that is is garbage, or bloated, or just simply unnecessary, all that content is not garbage and is well worth preserving. Preserving that content in turn means that it is important to have an open source Flash Player, that is not susceptible to a companies changing business policies. Gnash, Lightspark, and now Shumway do just that.
If you want to try out Shumway, the following links may be to your interest:
