App down? Emergency Recovery
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Tier B: by arrangement

Flash replacement: rebuild Flash and Shockwave content for the web

Flash and Shockwave sites, tools, courses and product configurators that stopped working in browsers and still matter to the business.

Request a quote Takeover Assessment

Who still has Flash and Shockwave content

For about fifteen years, Flash was how businesses added animation and interactivity to the web: product configurators, interactive catalogs, training courses, intro animations, video players, calculators, quote tools and games. Shockwave, built on Director, covered more complex multimedia. Plenty of that content is still referenced by pages, intranets and learning systems, and it simply shows a blank box. BuiltWith trends for the top 1M sites (October 2026) still detect Shockwave Flash embeds on about 5,500 sites.

What goes wrong when nobody is looking after it

  • It no longer runs. Adobe ended Flash Player support on December 31, 2020 and started blocking Flash content on January 12, 2021. Modern browsers removed the plug-in.
  • Whole sites were Flash. Navigation, forms and menus built in Flash leave the site unusable or invisible to search engines.
  • Training and tools depend on it. E-learning modules, calculators and configurators stopped working without anyone announcing it.
  • Source files are missing. The FLA files stayed with the agency or designer who built them.
  • ActionScript hides business logic. Pricing rules, options and validation sit inside the movie.
  • Workarounds are risky. Unofficial Flash players and old browser installs bring security problems and are not a business plan.

Support and takeover options

Flash and Shockwave replacement is Tier B, taken on by arrangement. The Takeover Assessment is read-only: find every SWF or DCR on the site, check which pages embed them, look for source files and record what each piece does, using a safe emulator for reference only.

Typical options:

  1. Triage. List every Flash asset, mark which ones customers or staff still use, and retire the rest. Software Health Review.
  2. Rebuild. Recreate each needed piece as HTML5, CSS and JavaScript, or as part of your main site, keeping the look and the logic. Modernization and AI.
  3. Fix the surrounding site. Replace Flash navigation, forms and video players, and move the rest of the site to a supported platform. Fixes and Upgrades.

If your site or tool is down because it depended on Flash, Emergency Recovery can restore service. It covers outages from errors, crashes and neglect.

Convert or rebuild

Automatic conversion works for linear animations. It rarely works for anything with ActionScript, server calls, custom fonts or complex state. We take a sample of your files, try both approaches and show you the result. Rebuilds are done to match the original behavior first, and only then changed. Where the original was clumsy, we will point that out and let you decide.

Recovering what was inside

A compiled SWF is a package of images, sounds, text and bytecode. We unpack it to rebuild layouts, extract copy and re-record behavior. For Shockwave content we do the same with what the files allow. If neither source nor compiled file exists, we work from screenshots and documented behavior, and tell you what is achievable.

How we work

Tier B and C stacks are by arrangement with a stack specialist. We scope each in writing and tell you plainly when we are not the right fit. Every engagement starts read-only. Write access is set out in a signed agreement first, and a person reviews every change before it reaches a live system. Work is AI-assisted and human-reviewed, and we explain how at the start.

See Microsoft FrontPage sites, Classic ASP and PHP, WordPress and Laravel.

Request a quote to replace your Flash content and tell us which pages or tools use it and whether you have the source files.

Frequently asked questions

Does Flash still work in browsers?

No. Adobe ended support for Flash Player on December 31, 2020 and began blocking Flash content from running on January 12, 2021. Current browsers have removed the plug-in, so SWF files no longer play in a normal browser.

What about Shockwave?

Adobe discontinued Shockwave in 2019. Director-based content has the same problem as Flash: it cannot run in modern browsers.

Can you convert our SWF files to HTML5?

Sometimes automatically for simple animation, but anything with logic, data or interaction usually has to be rebuilt. We assess each piece and say which is which before quoting.

We lost the FLA source files. Can the content be recovered?

Often partly. A compiled SWF contains assets and code that can be examined, and we can usually recover images, text, audio and the behavior well enough to rebuild. Tell us what you still have.

Is there a way to keep old Flash content available for reference?

Emulators exist that play archived SWF files, which can serve as a reference during a rebuild. We use them to document behavior, but we recommend rebuilding anything customers need to use.

Related stacks

Microsoft FrontPage Sites

Websites built with Microsoft FrontPage that are still live, still bring in inquiries and cannot be edited any more.

Classic ASP

Classic ASP and VBScript sites on IIS that have run for twenty years and are one server failure from going dark.

PHP, WordPress and Laravel

PHP, WordPress and Laravel applications that still run the business but have lost their developer, their updates or their hosting plan.

See all stacks we support

Tell us what you have

In two weeks we know it, document it, and keep it running. Send a few lines about your software and we will reply by email.

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