
Flash, the multimedia platform developed by Adobe, has seen its popularity and usage decline with the advent of mobile devices and alternate technologies, namely HTML 5. Flash is primarily used to add streamed video or audio players, advertisement and interactive multimedia content to web pages.
Flash’s decline was brought to the spotlight after the controversy with Apple. Then CEO Steve Jobs had articulated in an open letter his dislike for the “openess” of the platform, citing stability, performance and security issues associate with the technology. Flash was nixed from the iPhone and the iPad, and the rest, as they say, is history. For more on the story, click here.
But while in decline, Flash is still found all around the web. More and more in obscure and outdated websites as time goes by and newer technologies take over. Yet still present enough that every so often, when you are on a phone or tablet, you’d still come across it.
For that purpose, FlashFox exits. It is the “ #1 browser to experience the full web with Adobe Flash Player on your Android. A must have!”. That’s according to the developers though. What we can confirm is that it does the job pretty well when it comes to Flash. You don't need to install anything else, no add-ons required. We’re actually pretty close to recommending it as a default. It offers bookmark syncing across devices, both mobile and desktop, using a Firefox Sync account as well. The reason we can’t say for certain that this could be your one and only browser is that we haven’t had it long enough to make sure it runs as smooth as more established names. Performance issues could be just around the corner. But we haven’t had any yet. Just to be safe, keep Chrome, Firefox or Opera handy for now.
The UI design is fantastic though, transitions are smooth, and text is crisp. Two things to keep in mind when using it. First, make sure you tick the “request desktop site” check box in the settings (shown in the picture above). Most mobile version do not host the Flash content. Secondly, for performance reasons, Flash content cannot be loaded until you zoom in on the multimedia area on the site.
Note: There are other ways to get Flash onto your phone. You could download Firefox or Boat Browser and then install Adobe Flash manually. Here's how.
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