Certain sites I use pop up a window that says flash player will not be supported anymore, which i guess is the formal way of it saying they’re discontinuing it? I’ve always just hit allow permission to use flash player on sites that require it. What does it mean once they stop supporting flash player? Will I be able to use those sites still? Are they replacing flash player with some other program? Or is that link forever broken? I don’t understand computers very well, so very dumbed down explanations of whats happening ,and what WILL happen, is much appreciated.
In: Technology
Flash is a technology built into browsers (like chrome) that makes it easier for people to make interactive content like videos, games, and the like. Since it was widely available and easy to pick up, a lot of people started using it for everything.
The problem is, Flash is full of bugs and security flaws, so Apple, Google, and the other big web companies have been trying to get rid of it. At first, they did that with soft deadlines and requiring the user to give specific permission for Flash to run each time. However, recently there has been a push to kill off Flash once and for all, meaning that once we reach that deadline at the end of the year, Flash won’t work in Google Chrome at all.
If you still need to use Flash, there will be some browsers that still support it. I don’t remember which ones do, but Google it and you will find some that will still run Flash.
Whether a website decides to update their stuff from Flash to something more modern depends on the website.
It just means that certain things in that webpage won’t work. Like, for example, a small game, or sometimes a video
So Adobe Flash started its life as a 2D computer animation tool called FutureSplash Animator. It was intended to allow the playback of high quality animated content on the web, at a time when limited bandwidth made video streaming impractical. The software was eventually bought out by a company called Macromedia. Who at the time had their own competing software, Shockwave.
This was right at the cusp of the “Web 2.0” revolution, which saw the web move from static pages to interactive content. Eventually, the software, now known as Flash, was modified to allow for interactive content, and quickly became a staple of the early 2000’s internet. Paving the way for sites like Newgrounds, Ebamsworld, and early animated web cartoons like Neurotically Yours and Strongbad.
Eventually, Flash was further modified to allow for video playback, and became incorporated into early streaming sites like YouTube. Adobe purchased the software from Macromedia in 2005.
The problem with all these modifications, though, is that they were being metaphorically duct taped onto the original code. Creating a bloated, convoluted mess of a program. Flash was known to be resource intensive, at a time when most computers only had a single core CPU and limited RAM. Malicious hackers also had a field day with Flash’s rats nest of code. It became a popular vector for malware. Most notably, hijacking legitimate advertising banners, in what’s called a “drive-by” attack. Which became a huge problem, especially for Windows users. Plus new vulnerabilities were being discovered faster than Adobe could patch them.
In 2008, Apple announced that they would not be supporting Flash on their new iPhone. Which caused quite a stir at the time, since pretty much every website, with any sort of multimedia content, used it. Apple wanted to push that content to apps instead, and if sites wanted to remain compatible on the world’s best selling smartphone, they had to adapt. What this ultimately did was force web developers to move out of their comfort zones and start using newer, better tools like HTML5. On top of that, the flashy (no pun intended) animated websites that were so popular in the late 2000s started to fall out of style into the early 2010s. Instead a greater focus was put on flat design and minimalism. Flash continued to pose a security risk, and with fewer sites using it, many mainstream browsers started to make it optional (off by default) or phase it out all together. Adobe, not wanting to keep throwing good money after bad, announced that support would officially end in December 2020. It’s use as an animation tool has been replaced by Adobe Animate.
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