Want to play old flash games and animations? Here are a few ways.
Note: links are underlined, all links are to webpages except for the two purple links where noted. These link to directly to file downloads. This isn't an install guide, just a list of resources and the occasional tip. Please use caution. I cannot stress this enough. Flash was killed as it had a lot of security issues and a lot of work to fix. Some of these solutions are still just as dangerous as ever.
TLDR Quick Links: Red links are not secure. Use caution. Ruffle // Flashplayer Executable (needed to run any of the red things) // Waterfox Classic // Pale Moon // Basilisk* // Standalone Player // Puffin Browser // Windows 7 ISO (for flash security, see below, but also be careful. ISO's are dangerous) // BlueMaxima's Flashpoint (an archive, does not play animations/games)
Ruffle
Ruffle is a flash emulator that seeks to run flash with higher security than old flash player. This is much safer than the other ways listed below but for now it doesn't have an amazing range. Basically nothing developed in 2010s is certain to run and much of it doesn't work. But it's a cool project so if you can consider donating to them as that can seriously help speed the development along. This is the only Linux solution.
Classic Browsers
There are a few browsers that still support the flash plugin. Since these use the original flash program, they are far less secure than before so please know the risks. Flash was a poorly-sandboxed monstrosity and that has not changed in the slightest.
First, you'll need to download and install flash player: (note: these links will start downloading immediately) Win Mac
(courtesy of Gaia Online. I'm sure they're also archived somewhere.)
Waterfox Classic
Waterfox is a really good browser that I use on some of my computers. It has a really clean UI. Classic, however is similar to the two below. It is also the only apple friendly option (y'all have gotta stop buying apple products I swear to god you're killing indie devs). Do not try to update Waterfox classic as that will remove flash support.
Pale Moon / Basilisk*
These two are more or less the same and are developed by the same team. They are forked from an old Firefox repository and are built up to work with modern systems. There are differences between them but those aren't really relevant. Both have flash support. In cases where Waterfox classic hasn't worked, these browsers have worked (like for me).
*basilisk is no longer being developed so no idea how long it will last.
Honorable Mention: Puffin Browser
Puffin is a really safe solution to flash. As far as I understand it they basically play the flash animation/game on their servers and return the results to you. This makes it safer for you as none of the flash stuff is ever handled on your computer. So why did I only give this an honorable mention? I haven't used it myself so I can't confirm anything about it really and I've heard that this is only available through a subscription service. There may also be other limitations. I don't know what's true but I wanted to give it a mention. I just don't know enough about it so you will have to look into that yourself. It felt wrong to not include it though.
Standalone Player
Flash had a standalone player mostly for debugging. If you download the SWF file of a game you can open it with the standalone player. I think you need the flash program installed so see above. Keep in mind this is also original flash player so it is just as unsafe as with the classic Browsers. Use at your own risk.
Final Note
For future proofing, consider downloading and setting up a Windows 7 virtual box and running through that. Action/timing flash games will suffer a lot but at least many games will be playable via the above methods. If you want to get around action/timing game issues consider dual booting an old system or getting an garbage laptop that runs an old windows version. Here's a Windows 7 iso from internet archive.
Windows 7 also has security issues since it's past end of life so use cautiously. Safest bet is just to have it on a completely different system.
All you have to do now is find things to play
Feel free to reblog with anything I've missed
