Lightspark 0.7.0 brings various improvements

Support for LZMA-compressed files and improved overall performance are the highlights of version 0.7.0 of Lightspark, an open source Flash player implementation for Linux. Lead developer Alessandro Pignotti says the new release can now playback SWF files that have been compressed using LZMA compression, though this feature requires that the liblzma compression library is installed on a user's system.

According to Pignotti, changes in the new version improve virtual machine performance and reduce memory consumption. The update also introduces changes to JPEG loading that should enhance performance. Other changes include improvements to ExternalInterface (browser integration) support, better BitmapData and XML support, updates to ActionScript compatibility and support for XMLSocket. Experimental support for bytecode optimisation at runtime has also been added. Finally, Lightspark's masking support has now been completely redesigned and improved.

Further information about this update can be found in the announcement blog post. Licensed under the LGPLv3, Lightspark 0.7.0 is available to download as a source tarball or as a PPA package for Ubuntu from the project's Launchpad site; users running the release are encouraged to report any bugs that they find. At the time of writing, the project's homepage still lists Lightspark 0.6.0.1 as the current stable version and the release notes and change log have yet to be updated.

See also:

• Gnash 0.8.10 GNU Flash player released, a report from The H.
• Chrome only future for Flash on Linux, a report from The H.

(crve)