An engineering intern at Google has created a tool that allows SWF (Flash) files to be converted to HTML5. The project is centered around advertisements, but many different types of SWF content, like some games and animations, are able to be converted. Adobe announced a similar project, named “Wallaby“, a few months ago, but it is designed primarily to publish Flash code to HTML5, not convert existing SWF files.
Today we’re making the first version of Swiffy available on Google Labs. You can upload a SWF file, and Swiffy will produce an HTML5 version which will run in modern browsers with a high level of SVG support such as Chrome and Safari. It’s still an early version, so it won’t convert all Flash content, but it already works well on ads and animations. We have some examples of converted SWF files if you want to see it in action.
Swiffy-converted files will work in Chrome and Safari (both desktop and mobile), so iOS users will benefit from the additional content. Of course, this also means that ads will be easier to display on iDevices. If you have a SWF file that you would like converted, head over to the Google Labs page.