Adobe has released the final scheduled update to its Flash Player plugin weeks before the official retirement of Flash. Yesterday marked the last update for Flash outside Mainland China, which includes a different version of the software, as noted on Adobe’s site. Adobe will stop supporting Flash on December 31, 2020, and will stop running Flash content on January 12, 2021.
Adobe gave a brief farewell to its publication notes. “We would like to take some time to thank our customers and developers who have used and created amazing Flash Player content over the last two decades,” the note said. “We are proud that Flash played a pivotal role in developing web content toward animation, interactivity, audio and video. We are excited to help draw the next era of digital experiences. “
Adobe has been on the flash chopping block since 2017 when it finally announced it would end support. Flash was already being phased out in major web browsers, and Adobe in 2015 urged developers to switch to new standards, such as HTML5.
There were good reasons to disable Flash, including frequent and numerous security holes. But it threatens the very existence of numerous older games and animations – web protectionists and anyone who fondly remembers platforms like NewGrounds.
Fortunately, we’ve seen countless efforts to keep flash media alive. An open source emulator, called Ruffle, will enable older Flash files through a desktop application or web browser. The Internet Archive is using Ruffle to save more than 1,000 games and animations on its site. And Flash mega-portal Congregate partnered with a museum to preserve the library of its projects. But Adobe is finally going to say goodbye to the good.
