In a nutshell, Flash usually need to play YouTube video on your computer, and the way to do this is to install the Adobe Flash Player. If you think they are the same thing, you might be wrong!įirst of all, Flash (or, more correctly “Adobe Flash”, and in the past “Macromedia Flash” before Adobe acquired the company) is a multimedia platform used to add animation, video, and interactivity to web pages. You may have heard of “Flash” and “Shockwave Flash”.