Without Flash Player: Adobe has Released a Farewell Update for the Platform
Adobe released the latest update to its Flash Player plugin and ended support soon after. It lasted until December 31, 2020. And on January 12 of this year, all Flash content was blocked.
At this time, there is no way for users to update their software and use a version of Flash Player that is no longer supported. The multimedia platform itself no longer plays content, which is why the developers simply recommend removing it from their computer due to its uselessness.
In the weeks leading up to the end of the collaboration, Adobe allowed people in all countries outside the Republic of China and various other regions to receive the latest platform update.
On their official website, they posted a farewell message in which they expressed their gratitude to everyone who has used the plugin for a long time:
“On behalf of the company and taking this opportunity, we express our sincere gratitude to our users and the entire team of professionals who have worked hard for two decades, creating new creative ideas and filling the plugin content with useful and necessary updates.”
They also added that it is a great honor for the entire team of creators to work in the era of digital progress, developing such powerful products.
We are incredibly pleased that all these years Flash Player has been at the forefront of web development, such as video, animation, audio, interactive programs. We are glad that a whole era of innovative technologies grew up with us.
However, in the plugin itself, not everything was so smooth. Four years ago, in 2017, the so-called “first bells” began. Then Adobe strongly stated that very soon the era of Flash will come to an end. Indeed, even then everything was close to the final. This was indicated by a large number of bugs and the general vulnerability of the platform, whose death was not far off.
For 4 years, Flash Player kept afloat with a bang, but it was used less and less on top browsers. It’s also about the fact that back in 2015, Adobe was already creating alternatives. So, for example, then new standards for use were created, one of them is HTML5. Besides it, there is also WebGL and WebAssembly.
That is why now when Flash Player completely leaves the field of vision of an ordinary user, he may not even notice his disappearance. Since there are plenty of alternatives in the modern world.
There were many reasons for finally killing Flash. One of the main ones is the almost permanent security flaws. Of course, this put the life of most games and animations on the line, which were not, to put it mildly, of the first freshness. For all Newgrounds lovers and those who are used to defending the vastness of the Internet, this has become a significant problem.
It was very important for us that access to Flash media remains. And it turned out to be possible. These issues were handled by the non-profit organization Internet Archive. Moreover, we may thank the special open-source Ruffle emulator that can include files from Flash Player using a browser or app. Also on the Internet archive portal, you can find more than 1000 animations and various games that can be opened thanks to Ruffle.
The technology itself Adobe Flash was developed in 1996; it went to Adobe when they bought Macromedia 16 years ago. It was possible to create interactive content using multimedia with animation and sound on web pages. It was also convenient to create games and various sites based on the technology. Compared to Adobe Acrobat, Flash was known in the market as a low-quality product with significant roughness.
It should be added that even before the Flash Player stopped working, some browsers began to disconnect the platform from use.
