Bsquare today said it has developed a port of Adobe's Flash plugin for most Android phones. While officially coming first to the HTC Hero early next month, any Android device running Android 1.5 or later on an ARM-based processor should support the extra features. The addition should let those phones with enough performance play Flash videos in the browser rather than in a separate container like Google's YouTube app. It should also render websites much in the same way as desktop versions.

The addition is also being optimized for Qualcomm's smartbook platform, which uses both an ARM chip and a variant of Linux, including Android. These usually run faster processors and have larger, higher-resolution screens.

Bsquare hasn't said how soon other phones should have access to its port or whether the plugin will be available as a stand-alone for those whose devices didn't already come equipped with Flash support.