Newgrounds

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Newgrounds
Newgrounds logo
Newgrounds - 11-22-20.png
URL https://www.newgrounds.com/
Status Online!
Archiving status Not saved yet
Archiving type Unknown
IRC channel #archiveteam-bs (on hackint)

Newgrounds can be summed up as a precursor to many newer websites. Before YTMND and YouTube, there was Newgrounds. Before DeviantART and ArtStation, there was Newgrounds. Before SoundCloud and Bandcamp, there was Newgrounds. You get the idea. In spite of many of these websites going on to garner much more widespread popularity, Newgrounds continues to do the same stuff it's been doing since it was started in 1995 by none other than Tom Fulp (who continues to run the site to this day), with the first user-made content appearing in 1999.

If you haven't gotten the idea by now, Newgrounds hosts content in four distinct areas: animated movies, interactive games, audio, and artwork.

Dealing with the demise of Flash Player

With most major tech industry players including Adobe agreeing to bury the venerable Adobe Flash Player by the end of 2020, concerns started to grow about how websites would handle Flash's demise, including the very real possibility that decades of content would be rendered inaccessible and unplayable. Given that Newgrounds has a LOT of Flash content, an alternative called the Newgrounds Flash Player was created to preserve compatibility with content that wasn't converted to HTML5 or another format. It also has the Swivel conversion toolkit to allow conversions of SWF movies, complete with audio, into HD video.

As of 2022 some games (mostly those pre-2006 with ActionScript 1 or 2) are playable without the Newgrounds Flash Player through the use of the Rust-based Ruffle emulator, which Newgrounds is listed as a Diamond level sponsor of alongside several other names including Armor Games. ActionScript 3 games can be forced to run in Ruffle as well by adding "?emulate=flash" to the end of a game's URL, though functionality and performance may be limited. In any event, one drawback is that games and their audio will be halted if focus is lost by switching to another tab or if another window is completely obscuring the page. They will momentarily resume running when in a Desktop Window Manager view such as Win+Tab (Flip 3D/Task View) or Aero Peek on a taskbar icon on Windows, or Mission Control on macOS, until focus is either regained, lost, or the window is brought into at minimum partially obscured view.