Macromedia Flash Player 8

Macromedia Flash Player 8 (codenamed Maelstrom) was released on September 13, 2005. It was the last version to be released by Macromedia before the company was acquired by Adobe Systems in December 2005.

New features

 * Support of GIF and PNG bitmapped images.
 * New video codec (On2 VP6).
 * Improved runtime performance and runtime bitmap caching.
 * Live filters and blendmodes, such as blur and drop shadow.
 * File upload and download capabilities.
 * Licensed the Saffron Type System for crisp pixel-perfect text rendering.
 * New security features to prevent unsafe code from running.
 * External API subsystem introduced to replace fscommand.