Adobe Flash, is also known as Shockwave Flash or simply Flash, and refers to both the Adobe Flash Player, and to the Adobe Flash Professional multimedia authoring program. Adobe Flash Professional is widely used to develop content for the Adobe Engagement Platform like games, movies, and content for mobile phones. In comparison to Adobe Flash Professional, Adobe Flash Player is a widely distributed multimedia and application player created and distributed by Macromedia.

Adobe Flash refers to a multimedia authoring program that makes use of vector and raster graphics, a native scripting language called ActionScript and bidirectional audio/video streaming. Adobe Flash is the authoring environment and Flash Player is the virtual machine used to run the Flash files, but in colloquial language these have become mixed, "Flash" can refer to the authoring environment, the player, or the application files. These days, Flash technology has become a popular method for adding animation to web pages. It can also be used to create advertisements, web page components, and also to develop rich internet applications.