Mac users have had a love/hate relationship with Adobe Flash Player. On one hand, it's better than nothing, and it does what it is supposed to do very well. On the other hand, it was originally written more than ten years ago, it doesn't work with many of the new technologies introduced in Leopard, and it's only really been available as a Web browser plugin. And ever since Apple discontinued Flash support in QuickTime, it has had no real competition on Mac OS X - until now.

Swfdec (pronounced "swiff-deck") is an engine that loads and runs Adobe Flash animations. The Swfdec package includes:

1. The Swfdec framework, which is the engine that drives all of the package's components.
2. SwfdecPlayer, a desktop Flash animation player.
3. A QuickLook plugin that generates thumbnails & full-size previews of the first frame of an animation file inside the Finder and open panels.
4. And of course, what would a Flash engine be without a Web browser plugin? (Important: The plugin is only compatible with WebKit-based Web browsers, such as Safari or OmniWeb. It does not work in Gecko-based Web browsers, such as Firefox or Camino. Also, it is not installed by default.)