Reference

SWF (Flash)

SWF (Small Web Format, originally Shockwave Flash) is Adobe Flash’s file format for vector animations, interactive content, and games that ran in the Flash Player. With Flash discontinued at the end of 2020, SWF is a deprecated format browsers no longer support.

Files & formatsGeneral

SWF (Flash)

Also known as: Shockwave Flash, .swf file, Flash file

Adobe Flash format for animation and interactivity
Played by the Flash Player browser plug-in
Deprecated since Flash ended in December 2020

What SWF contained

Unlike a plain video file, an SWF could hold vector graphics, animation, scripting, and embedded audio or video, all played by the Flash Player plug-in. It powered a huge amount of early web animation, browser games, and interactive ads.

Because it relied on Flash, SWF was always a browser-plug-in format rather than something phones or video apps played directly.

SWF after Flash

Adobe ended Flash Player support on December 31, 2020, and modern browsers block it, so SWF files generally will not run anymore. Animations that were video can be exported to MP4; truly interactive SWF content needs specialized emulators to revisit.

Related terms

Keep reading the reference.

Files & formatsFLV (Flash video)FLV is the Flash Video container that dominated web video in the 2000s, used by early YouTube and many streaming sites. With Adobe Flash discontinued at the end of 2020, FLV is now a deprecated, legacy format.General Files & formatsContainer formatA container format is the file wrapper that packages compressed video, audio, subtitles, and metadata into one file — for example MP4, MOV, or MKV. It defines how the parts are stored together, not how they are compressed; the codec inside does that.General Files & formatsMP4MP4 (MPEG-4 Part 14) is the most common video container format. The .mp4 file holds video, audio, and subtitle streams together, but does not itself define quality — the codec inside (usually H.264 or HEVC) decides how large and how compressed the video is.General