GNU Gnash

GNU Gnash is a Flash movie player that lets you enjoy Flash movies without relying on expensive software. Up until now, most players have been proprietary, leaving few free options that only support older versions like SWF v4.

Support for SWF v7 Features

The cool thing about Gnash is that it's based on GameSWF and supports many features of SWF v7! So, if you're looking to play modern Flash content, this is definitely worth checking out.

Installing GNU Gnash

To get started with building Gnash, you'll need to have the Mozilla or Firefox development packages installed. Luckily, I've included the basic Mozilla SDK files in the package, so you won't need the entire Mozilla/Firefox source code. You can check if you have these packages by looking for either firefox-config or mozilla-config. If neither of those are there, then unfortunately the plugin won't be included in your build.

Plugin Installation Location

If everything's set up right and those config files are present, when you install the plugin, it will go into the plugin directory of whichever Firefox version you've got on your system.

Configuring Paths for Mozilla SDK

You can also specify exact paths to the Mozilla SDK using options like --with-firefox, --with-firefox-libraries, or --with-firefox-headers. Plus, make sure you have both the OpenGL development package and SDL development packages installed too!

The Standalone Version Works Best!

The current plugin shows a hardcoded OpenGL graphic in your browser window. If you're running into issues with that, your best bet might be using the standalone version of Gnash instead. Development for this plugin is still ongoing since a lot of the base work has been sorted out already.

Mozila Plugin API Usage

I'm using the Mozilla plugin API here. Although some features are limited right now, it's worked well across different versions of both Mozilla and Firefox!

If you're ready to download GNU Gnash and give it a try yourself, head over to this link.