Adobe Flash dies on January 1, 2021

Posted on Tuesday, July 25 2017 @ 23:27 CEST by Thomas De Maesschalck
Adobe Flash logo
Adobe announces its Flash technology will reach end-of-life status at the end of 2020. Starting on January 1, 2021, Adobe will no longer support the plug-in. The company will stop distribution of Flash and will stop providing security updates to existing installations.

All major browser makers, including Google, Mozilla, Microsoft and Apple, announced they will phase out support for Flash over the next couple of years. After the end of 2020, support for Flash will be removed from browsers like Chrome, Firefox and Edge.

Adobe's official statement can be found over here:
But as open standards like HTML5, WebGL and WebAssembly have matured over the past several years, most now provide many of the capabilities and functionalities that plugins pioneered and have become a viable alternative for content on the web. Over time, we’ve seen helper apps evolve to become plugins, and more recently, have seen many of these plugin capabilities get incorporated into open web standards. Today, most browser vendors are integrating capabilities once provided by plugins directly into browsers and deprecating plugins.

Given this progress, and in collaboration with several of our technology partners – including Apple, Facebook, Google, Microsoft and Mozilla – Adobe is planning to end-of-life Flash. Specifically, we will stop updating and distributing the Flash Player at the end of 2020 and encourage content creators to migrate any existing Flash content to these new open formats.
Originally distributed by Macromedia, Flash revolutionized the Internet around the turn of the millennium by making the web interactive. But Flash has overstayed its welcome, not only has it been superseded by more modern alternatives but the plug-in suffers from endless security vulnerabilities. Websites or companies that are still using Flash, and unfortunately there are lots of them, will need to transition to newer standards by 2021.


About the Author

Thomas De Maesschalck

Thomas has been messing with computer since early childhood and firmly believes the Internet is the best thing since sliced bread. Enjoys playing with new tech, is fascinated by science, and passionate about financial markets. When not behind a computer, he can be found with running shoes on or lifting heavy weights in the weight room.



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