How to Install Adobe Flash Player on Android

Adobe Flash Player is essential and indispensable software. You need Flash player to access and use any kind of interactive apps and graphic-rich content on websites. From viewing multimedia content and streaming video or audio to running any kind of embedded application and games, Adobe Flash player has a lot of use cases.

All the engaging and graphic elements that you see on the internet, like images, videos, music, animation, multimedia elements, embedded apps, and games, etc., are created using Adobe Flash. It works in close coordination with your browser to ensure that you have uninterrupted access to these graphics and enjoy a pleasant web browsing experience. In fact, it would be no exaggeration to say that the internet would have been a boring place without Adobe Flash player. Websites would just be pages after pages of boring plain text.

Adobe Flash Player is still largely in use for computers but it is not supported on Android anymore. Android decided to make the move to HTML5 due to its promising features of faster, smarter, and safer browsing. Older Android versions like the ones before Jelly Bean (Android 4.1) can still run Adobe Flash Player. However, for newer versions, Android decided to withdraw support for Flash Player. The problem that arises because of this is that there is still a lot of content on the internet that uses Adobe Flash Player and Android users aren’t able to view or access them.

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How to install Adobe Flash Player on Android

People who wish to view content created by Adobe Flash Player on their Android devices are constantly looking for various ways to find a solution. If you are one of them, then consider this article to be a helpful guide. In this article, we are going to tell you how you can continue to view and access Adobe Flash Player content on your Android device.

A Word of Caution Before We Begin

Since Android has officially withdrawn support for Adobe Flash Player on their devices, trying to manually install it might cause some complications. Let us now take a look at what kind of trouble we might get into.

The first thing that you can expect after installing Flash Player manually is stability issues. This is because Adobe Flash Player hasn’t received any updates in a long time and might contain a lot of bugs and glitches. You cannot even ask for help or support from any official channel.
The absence of security updates makes the app prone to malware and virus attacks. This would potentially harm your device. Android does not take any responsibility for you coming across malicious Flash content on the internet which infects your device with viruses.
Since Adobe Flash Player is not available on the Play Store, you will have to download the APK from a third-party source. This means that you will have to allow installation of apps from unknown sources. This is a risky move as you can’t completely trust unknown sources.
If you are using an Android device that is running on Android 4.1 or higher, you might experience lags, bugs, and stability issues.

Using Adobe Flash Player on Your Stock Browser

One important fact about Adobe Flash Player is that it is not supported on Google Chrome for Android. You will not be able to run Flash content while using Google Chrome on your Android smartphone. Instead, you will have to use your stock browser. Every Android device comes with its own native browser. In this section, we will be going through the various steps that you need to follow to install Adobe Flash Player for your stock browser on Android.

The first thing that you need to do is to allow the installation of apps from unknown sources. Depending on the Android version that you are using, the method to do this might be a little different. If you are running Android 2.2 or any version of Android 3 then this option is found under Settings>>Applications. If you are running Android 4 then the option is under Settings>>Security.
The next step is to download and install the APK for Adobe Flash Player downloader by clicking here. This app will download Adobe Flash Player on your device.
Once the app is installed you need to open your stock browser. As mentioned earlier, Adobe Flash Player won’t work on Google Chrome installed on your phone and thus you need to use your stock browser.
Once you open your browser, you need to enable plug-ins. To do this simply click on the three dots next to the address bar. After that click on the Settings option. Now go to the Advanced section and click on Enable plug-ins. You can choose to keep it always on or on-demand depending upon how often you would need to view Flash content.
After this, you will be able to view Flash content on your smartphone without any problem.

Using Adobe Flash Players enabled Browser

Another effective way to view Flash content on your Android phone is by using a browser that supports Adobe Flash Player. There are a number of free browsers that you can download and use on your device. Let us now take a look at some of them.

1. Puffin Browser

Puffin Browser comes with a built-in Adobe Flash Player. There is no need for you to download it separately. It also automatically updates Flash Player to its latest version. Another cool feature of Puffin Browser is that it emulates a PC environment and you will find a mouse pointer and arrow keys in the overlay. It is easy to use and has a simple interface. Most importantly, it is free and works on all Android versions.

The only issue with Puffin Browser is that sometimes while viewing the Flash content it might appear choppy. This is because it renders content in its cloud instead of playing it locally. Doing so makes it easier for the browser to transfer data from overseas. However, the viewing experience suffers a bit due to this. You can choose to lower the quality of Flash content for an interruption-free playback.

2. Dolphin Browser

Dolphin Browser is another very famous and useful browser that supports Adobe Flash Player. Dolphin Browser is available for free on the Play Store. However, you need to enable Flash plug-in and also download Flash Player before you can access Flash content. To do so simply go to the settings of the browser. There you will find a tab called Flash player, click on it and set the settings to always on. After this, open any website that has Flash content. If you can find one then simply search the Adobe Flash test. This will prompt you to download the APK for Adobe Flash Player.

Take note that you need to allow installation from unknown sources (use the method described above) before downloading and installing Adobe Flash Player. Once the APK is installed you can easily use the browser to view Flash content on the internet. One advantage that the Dolphin browser has is that it does not render flash content in its cloud and hence the playback is not choppy as in the Puffin browser.

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I hope the above tutorial was helpful and you were able to install Adobe Flash Player on your Android device. If you still have any queries regarding this tutorial then feel free to ask them in the comment section.