SWF tools

If you feel the strange urge to decompile swf and flash music files, you will need swftools.

git clone git://git.swftools.org/swftools

There is also this utility called flare, which will decompile actionscripts from swf

Gnash 0.8.9, the alternative flash is out

The current release of Gnash is 0.8.9. You can install it with your package manager, or download the source. The source can be found at a GNU FTP Mirror. First, choose a mirror near you, then select the 'gnash' directory. Once you have downloaded the latest revision, follow the installation instructions in the documentation.

Gnash 0.8.9 is also available via Git:

git clone git://git.sv.gnu.org/gnash.git

Development Version

The latest development sources are available via anonymous Git:

git clone git://git.sv.gnu.org/gnash.git

You can also browse the repository on the web.

Continue downloading flash from /tmp

Since the latest version of adobe flash no longer downloads to /tmp,  it places video in the following folders

in firefox / home / user / mozilla / firefox / userprofile / Cache

in opera / home/user/.opera/cache/g_000X

in chromium / home / user / .cache / chromium / Cache

in chrome / home / tuusuario / .cache / google-chrome / Cache

However,  the problem is that the file is deleted when the player finishes playing the stream. So you do not have time to recover.

If you use JDownloader, you can retrieve some videos to the clipboard by simply copying the URL, JDownloader detect the file type and give you several download options .

However, thanks to Ubuntu Life I found a script that lets you create a link in / tmp pointing to the downloaded video (it has been tested in chromium and firefox). This script could run it directly or use it as a nautilus script Here is the link to the original Russian site which showed the way to accomplish this

#!/bin/sh
#
# Flash Temp Link Creator (by shuairan)
#
# description:
# does what has to be done.
# creates symlinks to the file descriptors of buffered firefox flash videos
# because the good old /tmp/FlashXXXX files are immediatly deleted with new flash player 10.2
#
# use at your own risk ;-D
# support, questions, bugs: twitter.com/shuairan or S.Riedinger@gmail.com

#Delete FlashXXXXXXXX symlinks
for i in $(ls -l /tmp | grep -i 'flash[[:alnum:]]\{8\} -> \/proc\/' | cut -d" " -f14); do
echo "Deleling: /tmp/$i"
rm "/tmp/$i"
done



#create new symlinks
for i in $(pgrep -f libflashplayer.so); do
ls -l /proc/$i/fd/* | grep -io '\/.* /tmp/flash[[:alnum:]]\{8\}' | while read line; do
#echo $line
FDFILE=$(echo $line | cut -d" " -f1)
TMPFILE=$(echo $line | cut -d" " -f3)
echo "Create Symlink: $TMPFILE -> $FDFILE"
ln -sf $FDFILE $TMPFILE
done
done

TinyOGG -- watch flash content without the flash

This is a great site if you have a low-end machine and need to access flash content. Of course, you might just have an ideological issue with flash. Tinyogg takes care of it for you.

http://tinyogg.com/

Gnash 0.8.8 Released with GPU support

The open source flash alternative gnash has released a new version with GPU support, pushing it ahead of the proprietary Adobe flash player which lacks such support in Linux.

According to the gnash website: We just released an improved GNU Flash player, Gnash 0.8.8. Gnash plays SWF (Shockwave Flash) files compatible with the Adobe Flash player. Gnash is portable software released under the GNU GPLv3. It runs on GNU/Linux, embedded GNU + Linux systems, and BSD, including x86, ARM, MIPS, PowerPC, and 64-bit systems. It comes with a standalone player as well as a browser plugin compatible with Firefox, Chrome, Konqueror, and all Gecko-based browsers.

Improvements since the 0.8.7 release are:

* 100% of all YouTube videos should work. If you have
problems, delete all YouTube cookies and refresh.
* Gnash can switch at runtime between the Cairo, OpenGL,
and AGG renderers.
* Gnash can switch media handlers at runtime, too, between
FFmpeg and Gstreamer,
* Gnash can now decode video quickly on hardware compatible
with the VAAPI library (a few NVidia, ATI, and Intel
graphics processors).
* Gnash now compiles faster due to reduced internal
dependencies.
* Scriptable Plugin support so Javascript in the browser can
work with ActionScript in Gnash.
* Improved input device handling when using a raw
framebuffer.

If you want the latest gnash, before it arrives in the official ubuntu repository, add one of these ppas to your sources.list

deb http://www.getgnash.org/debs/ubuntu maverick main
deb http://www.getgnash.org/debs/ubuntu lucid main
deb http://www.getgnash.org/debs/ubuntu karmic main

THANKS phoronix

UPDATE: Here is a great Gnash & Lightspark how-to from Linux.Com

Lightspark, an alternative flash player

The first release can­di­date of Lightspark 0.4.3 has been published. Source tar­balls are avail­able as usual from launch­pad. Pre­build pack­ages for Ubuntu Lucid and Mav­er­ick are avail­able from the PPA
The new fea­tures in this release are:

Faster ren­der­ing
Reduced mem­ory consumption
Sup­port for H263/MP3 video (using FFm­peg)
Smoother audio and video playback

Be sure to try this out and report bugs in launch­pad and the irc chan­nel (irc://irc.freenode.org/lightspark).

Here are the ppa details for lucid:

deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/sssup/sssup-ppa/ubuntu lucid main
deb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/sssup/sssup-ppa/ubuntu lucid main