The AIR file extension can only be associated with Adobe Air software where AIR stands for “Adobe Integration Runtime”. Adobe Air is a multi-platform application for developing and creating desktop programs that allows website users to access certain areas and features of a website without even connecting to the internet and AIR files are actually installer files that are sued to distribute the Adobe Air application. Adobe Integration Runtime is a multi-platform environment that runs internet-based programs on a user’s desktop.
AIR files are therefore popular with so many online applications and there are several programs that support this file extension so as to extend their applications to the user’s desktop without even going online. AIR files are packaged files and therefore contain several different files that work with each other to install the Adobe integration runtime environment or capability in a computer system.
If an online application then is downloadable to a user’s desktop, the user can expect to download an AIR file that has all the necessary files for the application to be installed in the computer system. The AIR file is automatically downloadable to a computer system once the user clicks the “download” button for a certain online application.
Obviously, the only programs that can open an AIR file are Adobe AIR for all platforms and Adobe Flash CS5 for Mac OS and Windows OS.
