Adobe explains difference between AIR and Flash Player

Experts at Adobe have explained the difference between two of its applications namely the Adobe Integrated Runtime (AIR) and Flash Player, saying both have their distinct duties to deliver.

AIR, also known as Adobe AIR, is a cross-platform runtime environment developed by Adobe Systems for building Rich Internet Applications (RIA) using Adobe Flash, Apache Flex (formerly Adobe Flex), Hyper Text Marked Up Language (HTML), and Ajax, that could be run as desktop applications or on mobile devices.

The runtime supports, he said is installable applications on Windows, Mac OS and some mobile operating systems such as BlackBerry Tablet OS, iOS and Android. It also originally supported Linux, but that support was discontinued.

Experts equally said that the two Adobe Flash Platform runtimes are Flash Player and Adobe AIR, insisting that Flash Player is a highly expressive cross-platform runtime that works consistently across browsers.

Elucidating that Flash Player delivers innovation within the browser, while AIR, a superset of Flash Player, enables the delivery of standalone applications that run outside the browser.

"Together, they provide a consistent runtime for delivering content that can easily move between the browser and native operating system context,” DigitalSENSE Business News submitted.

Also the difference between Flash Player and Adobe Shockwave Player, experts said is that Flash Player and Shockwave Player software are both free web players from Adobe. Each has a distinct purpose.

While Flash Player displays content created with Flash Professional, such as web application front ends, high-impact website user interfaces, interactive online advertising, and animations and rich Internet applications (RIAs) created using Flex.

The Shockwave Player displays content created with Adobe Director software such as high-performance multiuser games, interactive 3D product simulations, online entertainment, and training applications.

By using extensions, developers can extend the capabilities of Shockwave Player to play back custom-built applications.

Remmy Nweke 
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