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Want to download some Flash games to play on an airplane? Work or school blocked your favourite game sites? No sweat. I’ve noticed a few sites popping up trying to sell software to download Flash content. You don’t need it, in fact you don’t need anything except the browser you already have. It’s free and easy.

You have a few options for downloading Flash games to your computer to play offline. First, you’ll need to know that all Flash games have the file-name extension .SWF

Note: Most webpages contain more than one .SWF file, there could be advertisements, logos or other media using a .SWF extension. Usually the game is called game.swf(replace with game name :), not ad.swf or rabbits.swf.. pretty interesting huh?

View Source Method (all browsers)

1. The old fashioned and still most reliable way is to View Source(under the View menu) on a given page and do a search for the string “.swf”  The address you’re looking for is usually something like http://www.site.com/games/title.swf. 
2. Copy that address into your browser and select “Save As” from the FIle menu. Boom! you’ve downloaded the Flash game. Sometimes you will find the .swf file but without a full URL, for example “title.swf” In this case you will need to attach the site URL and any folders before the filename to download it.

View Page Info Method (firefox). 

1. Right-clicking anywhere on a page in IE and Firefox brings up a “View Page Info” option. 
2. Choose this and then select the Media tab. 
3. Locate the game’s .swf file and “Save As”

View Temporary Internet Files (internet explorer)

1. Click Tools and then Internet Options. 
2. Under the General Tab go to Settings under the Temporary Internet FIles group.
3. Look out! There could be thousands of files in here. Another reason to use Firefox :) But anyway if you don’t mind browsing through what your little brother was up to last night… continue on.
4. Click View - Details, Now arrange the files by address and find the game site you were looking for and then the .swf game file and choose Copy. Paste the file into any other folder.

If you are frequently downloading games there’s add-ons and extensions out there that can speed up the process.

Firefox Addons. If you use Firefox there are a variety of extensions to help you download Flash Games(as well as Youtube videos and other media. I recommend UnPlug

IE Addons
Sothink SWF Catcher: This handy little tool adds one-click Flash Game grabbing to Internet Explorer. 

Note: 90% of games will work but some require an internet connection or to be embedded on a page to function correctly! 

Once you’ve downloaded the files playing them is as simple as having Flash Installed(which you probably already do). Double-click the files and they should load fine. If for some reason that doesn’t work, try opening them in your web browser.