Smokescreen - a JavaScript Flash Player

RevShock, a start-up with expertise in the mobile advertising field, has demonstrated a JavaScript library which allows Flash ads to be displayed on mobile devices such as the iPhone or iPad. The Smokescreen library renders Flash applications within the browser in JavaScript and HTML if a device is unable to read Flash. This could be of particular interest for companies which produce flash ads, as Smokescreen offers an alternative to having to develop extra versions specifically for mobile devices such as the iPhone and iPad.

Smokescreen has won plaudits from a number of people, including the creator of the popular Python web framework Django, who praises the library as a Flash Player written in JavaScript, but also voices concerns over performance – 175 KB and more than 8,000 lines of JavaScript could be too much for smaller mobile devices. The developers themselves note that their software is not as fast as the Flash plug-in, but that could change in future.

The current demo runs under Firefox 3.6, Chrome 5, Safari 4 and the mobile version of Safari. It does not yet run in Microsoft's early stage development version of Internet Explorer 9. For Opera 10.5, there are currently still a few problems, but these do not appear to be insurmountable. The developers are planning to release the code for Smokescreen under an open source licence shortly.

See also:

• Flash without the plugin, a Smokescreen blog post.
• Lightspark, a free Flash player, available in beta, a report from The H.

(crve)