Adobe Flash is dead: here’s what it means

Support for Adobe Flash officially ended on December 31, 2020, killing the platform. The now-discontinued web plugin will be remembered for its golden age of animated internet memes and the endless security concerns that ultimately led to its demise.

Let’s get back to Flash, what’s next, and how to enjoy old content in 2021 and beyond.

Flash is gone forever

Flash is no longer available for download as of December 31, 2020, and Adobe will begin completely blocking Flash content from running on January 12, 2021. The company recommends that you completely uninstall Flash for security reasons. There will be no more Flash updates and you will not be able to download older versions directly from Adobe.

It also means that the versions of Flash that come with browsers like Google Chrome will be removed. The change is unlikely to affect your daily browsing habits since the vast majority of websites have stopped using Flash in favor of modern browsing technologies.

You should avoid installing older versions of Flash Player for security reasons. If you still want to access Flash content, there are options, but none of them are officially supported by Adobe.

The history of Adobe Flash (1996-2020)

In 1996, a company called Macromedia acquired a vector-based web animation tool called FutureSplash, originally released by FutureWave Software in 1993. The technology was already being used by companies like Microsoft and Disney Online to display animated content in a Web browser.

Macromedia renamed the tool Macromedia Flash 1.0 and released it with an equivalent browser plugin called Macromedia Flash Player. By the mid-2000s, Flash had taken off, spurred by the popularity of browser games, animation, and the interactive tools that depended on it.

Flash has gained in importance thanks to the ease of installation of a small plugin compatible with most browsers. Since Flash used vector graphics, the file sizes for the resulting animations were minimal. This was important at a time when many people used dial-up internet access with slow download speeds.

RELATED: What is the difference between pixels and vectors?

Vector graphics are essentially textual instructions. They scale ad infinitum because they don’t have a set size, unlike raster graphics which have much larger file sizes and rasterize when stretched. Creators, marketers, and anyone with an eye for new media have turned on Flash to create games, animations, banner ads, interactive menus. It was even used to create entire websites that looked good for the time, were quick to load, and responsive to use.

Macromedia has added more bells and whistles to Flash over time. In 2000, Flash 5 was released with ActionScript, a rudimentary scripting language that closely mimics JavaScript. In 2005, Macromedia was acquired by Adobe Systems (the same company that turned down an offer to buy FutureSplash in 1995). Adobe took Flash under its wing and developed many more features in the years to come.

Flash brought some of the websites, cartoons, games, etc. to life. most popular on the Internet. Websites like Newgrounds were born as a hub for all things Flash. Comedy web series like Homestar Runner, stickman animations like Xiao Xiao, and rudimentary yet addicting games like Pandemic have all flourished on the platform.

But Flash has also played an important role in the adoption of video streaming. The FLV container allowed video to be viewed in virtually any web browser as long as Flash Player was installed. At one point, Flash was even forced to use websites like YouTube, Vimeo, Google Video, etc. The first video-on-demand services like Hulu and BBC iPlayer all needed Flash in the early 2000s.

On December 31, Adobe Flash will no longer be supported. I didn’t own a console growing up, so it was with Flash that I learned to love games. Many of my fondest childhood memories are games and Flash animations.

Thanks for all the memories. May Heaven grant you fortune. pic.twitter.com/ljoWtd8rii

– Justin (@askiisoft) December 29, 2020

But Web standards do not stay forever. While Flash helped make the web more vibrant in the beginning, cracks soon started to appear. Before long, it was clear that the internet would soon completely overtake the need for Flash plugins and browsers.

Problems with Flash

Flash fueled much of the web at the peak of its popularity, which put a lot of responsibility on Adobe. Since Flash was a web plugin, it was maintained and updated by a single entity. As Flash gained popularity, it became more and more a target for hackers.

It didn’t take long for Flash to join other browser plugins like ActiveX and Java to be labeled as a security risk. Trying as best it could, Adobe couldn’t fix Flash, so in 2017 the company decided to stop development and kill Flash completely by the end of 2020. Adobe didn’t take any risks either: Flash content is forbidden to work in final version.

Flash was able to develop because it filled a void. Rich web content that involved animation, video, sound, and interactivity was not possible with browsers that barely adhered to early web standards. It took the rise of browsers like Mozilla Firefox to put more emphasis on new web technologies that could eventually replace Flash.

In 2007, Apple released the iPhone and made the historic decision not to support Flash on the platform. Back then, Flash was still very popular, so this move was having a disruptive effect on the web, but the writing was on the wall. Flash was no longer needed when navigation technologies and dedicated native mobile apps did the work instead.

Apple’s decision and the subsequent popularity of the iPhone contributed to Flash’s decline as developers sought to make the web accessible to all devices in an increasingly mobile world.

In 2012, Flash was widely viewed as a security risk. This prompted Google to pair Flash with Chrome to create a sandbox. This effectively places Flash content in its own secure space, isolating it from the rest of the system.

Over time, Internet speeds and browser standards reached a point where Flash was no longer needed.

Life after Flash

By 2020, the web had already adapted to a new standard that didn’t rely on proprietary browser technologies. For the tech-savvy this has been the case for years. Websites such as How Geek urged you to remove plugins like Flash as early as 2015. This has been made possible by the rise of browser technologies that make Flash obsolete.

Websites entirely designed in Flash have been replaced by – wait – websites. Today’s HTML is responsive and adapts to your screen size and device capabilities. Flash would be scaled in a linear sense, like any vector graphics tool, but it was nowhere near as sophisticated as what is capable with today’s browsers.

In 2009, the <video> The tag was introduced as part of the HTML5 deployment. This allowed websites like YouTube to stream videos to any modern browser that conforms to the HTML5 standard. Faster internet speeds have also allowed for better quality video.

HTML5’s canvas element allows browsers to draw and animate graphics using JavaScript. These tools can be used to create games, highly interactive websites and animations. Add WebGL and you can now draw 3D shapes and models to display in a browser as well.

Developers have used modern web technologies to create sophisticated software that runs in a browser, from services like Netflix to emulators like DOSBox. The use of JavaScript and CSS have both simplified web design and brought to life elaborate and responsive designs. Where Flash had ActionScript, the modern web has JavaScript.

Even vector graphics – one of the primary reasons for Flash’s success – have a modern equivalent to the scalable vector graphics (SVG) format. Using SVG files makes it possible to create pixel-perfect websites and apps on a smartphone or large TV.

Access Flash content in 2021 and beyond

Since so much online nostalgia is trapped in a Flash container, there are a few projects that will allow you to continue enjoying Flash content even after Adobe has unplugged the plug.

The first of these is Flashpoint from BlueMaxima, a web game preservation project that supports Flash, Shockwave, Java, Unity Web Player, Silverlight, ActiveX, and HTML5. It comes in two versions: a 500MB “Infinity” drive that downloads games on the fly and a giant archive of over 500GB that works offline.

There is also a project called Ruffle, which attempts to emulate Flash. It can be run as a stand-alone application on most major operating systems or as a browser application through the use of the WebAssembly programming language. It is primarily aimed at website owners who can install it on the server side and make their Flash content “work” natively.

RELATED: How to play old Flash games in 2020 and beyond

The end of a lightning era

Retirement from Adobe Flash is a bittersweet time for many. While the browser plugin was responsible for a lot of security issues in its later life, it was also used to create some of the most memorable moments on the internet. Fortunately, thanks to projects like Flashpoint and Ruffle by BlueMaxima, a lot of content has been preserved.

Flash was a pretty accessible creative sequel for budding animators and web game developers. If you are feeling creative but don’t have the technical skills of a programmer, you can try making your own 3D games on PS4 or PS5 with Dreams.