Adobe was to provide support for its popular Flash on December 31, 2020, and today is the day. While Adobe won’t start blocking Flash content until January 12th, major browsers will shut it down tomorrow, and MicroStft will block it in most versions of Windows. It’s over.
Flash had huge cultural relevance and is one of the biggest looms in web history, which is why its funeral can last for years. Browsers began to show up at the beginning of the last decade, and in 2015 Adobe asked developers to move to HTML5. Things became official in 2017, when Adobe announced that it would provide support.
When Adobe finally (kindly) lets go of Flash, it will come alive in many historical artifacts. The Internet archive is preserving flash games and animations, including well-known hits such as “Peanut Butter Jelly Time”.
I loved creating personalized content in Flash on my normal HP desktop PC with the full-legitimacy of Adobe software software as a high school student. Years later, whenever I see some fancy word slides in a corporate presentation, I remember struggling to figure out how to bring speed t nuns to life in a flash editor. Ah, memories.
