The internet gurus have long said the death of Adobe’s Flash player is inevitable, but, like Jason Voorhees in Friday the 13th, it just won’t stay down. The animation and game software that you once loved though will soon be officially gone. Flash is from a bygone Netscape era and once served a purpose for older insufficient browsers on mouse-controlled devices, but now it only sacrifices security and stability. That’s why you have to update it all the time. Flash eats battery life and makes computer fans run loud. It has also been touted as one of the main reason browsers & computers crash. Most major websites like Google and YouTube long ago began offering alternatives. Well-known educational sites like BrainPOP already moved over to HTML5.
THE VOICE OF TECH COMPANIES
Apple, and specifically Steve Jobs, is not quiet about their disdain for the software saying it is the main reason browsers and the platform crash. They essentially killed Flash on all iOS devices early, and, though they would eventually relent and allow it in specific apps, their discouragement pushed the mobile market. They discouraged it in Safari 10 forcing users to re-enable it in the security headings. Microsoft’s new Edge said goodbye to Flash a year ago. Now Google is blocking Flash on Chrome the way they did for Android on all but 10 major sites. So outside of YouTube, Facebook, Yahoo, Amazon, and few others Flash is ghosted. Even Flash advertising is no longer welcome on Google.
Even Adobe is now guiding content creators towards new web standards like HTML5. They penned an open letter that announced
they are phasing out Flash and will stop updating and distributing it by 2020.
FOR FLASH CREATORS AND FANS
If you haven’t ditched Flash already, you’ll notice desktop versions of Safari and Chrome automatically block flash content regardless of being updated. In the interim, it is important for you to know that flash is updated separately for Chrome and Edge/Safari/Firefox. That means it might work in Safari but not Chrome. Try updating one or the other to solve the issue.
Even if Flash is up to date, you’ll still get that message. You will have to manually click on the flash content and choose to accept it. Let’s hope your favorite sites hop off the Flash train soon.
As for developers, I suggest you follow the Adobe of the roadmap given to their technology partners. It essentially suggests you get familiar coding in HTML5 and Unity. You can view the advice from Apple, Facebook, Google, Microsoft, and Mozilla. There is also general advice for developers as well.
So whether you’re one wishing a fond farewell to the platform or pushing it to the edge saying good riddance, it’s time to get used to the new nature of the web (and be happy you at least won’t be consistently annoyed by those updates).
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