OpenSource Flash player implementation ‘Lightspark’ has entered beta.
“What’s Lightspark?” the developers describe it as:
- “…an open source Adobe Flash implementation, designed from the ground up to be efficient on current and (hopefully) future hardware.”
Features
Having never used Lightspark before today I can’t offer up what is new to this beta specifically. Features of Lightspark in general include: –
- OpenGL based rendering
- Support for ActionScript 3.0
- Video filtering
- Mozilla compatible plugin
Performance
Anyone coming to Lightspark and expecting a drop-in Flash player experience will be sorely disappointed. Whilst Lightspark seems far more robust that similarly-aimed Gnash it is still less than ideal for anyone demanding a solid and consistent web experience as not every website works well with it.
On the flip side it does live up to its claim of being relatively efficient. My CPU was less taxed when watching a flash file using Lightspark than the normal Flash plug-in ” something worth bearing in mind for power-conscious netbook users.
Installation
Lightspark is readily packaged for Ubuntu and can be installed from the Lightspark PPA: –
- sudo add-apt-repository ppa:sssup/sssup-ppa
- sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install lightspark
Logo
The Lightspark team are also looking for a logo, stating in their blog post announcing the beta: –
- “Now the most important thing that is still missing is a nice Logo for the project. I’m very bad at art, so any contribution is very welcome.”
You can find Lightspark on SourceForge @ sourceforge.net/projects/lightspark/ and on Launchpad @ launchpad.net/lightspark