I understand the latest MPlayer has SWF support, but I don't know if that's through x86 binary libraries, like for several other formats, or native. They certainly have some proprietary formats coded themselves, and SWF is supposedly "open" nowadays. I don't imagine this'd enable you to play Flash games of course, but it's something at least. I was contemplating using it to convert animations I liked to other formats as Flash tends to be slow as hell here.
Don't think you'd need to install it as root, but people have complained about its compilation being bad (I don't remember having any problems myself). Also, you might not want to install it as some people might consider it to be of dubious legality, but I think that's mostly down to their making it possible to use Windows codecs outside their intended environment; there's certainly no suggestion of malware.
(no subject)
Possible way to get SWF
Don't think you'd need to install it as root, but people have complained about its compilation being bad (I don't remember having any problems myself). Also, you might not want to install it as some people might consider it to be of dubious legality, but I think that's mostly down to their making it possible to use Windows codecs outside their intended environment; there's certainly no suggestion of malware.