Support for Adobe Flash was officially terminated on December 31, 2020, effectively killing the platform. The webstop that has now ended will be remembered for its golden era of animated internet meme and the endless security issues that eventually led to its downfall.
Let’s look back at Flash, what’s next, and how to enjoy the old content in 2021 and beyond.
Flash goes away forever
Flash has not been available for download since December 31, 2020, and Adobe began rolling out Flash content completely on January 12, 2021. The company recommends that you remove Flash completely from security. There will be no more updates for Flash, and you will not be able to download old versions directly from Adobe.
It also means terminating versions of Flash bundled with browsers like Google Chrome. The change is unlikely to affect your daily browsing habits, as the vast majority of websites have stopped using Flash in favor of modern browsing technologies.
You should avoid installing any 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 in 1993 by FutureWave Software. The technology has already been used by companies such as Microsoft and Disney Online to display animated content in a web browser.
Macromedia renamed the tool Macromedia Flash 1.0 and released it with a peer-to-peer browser plug-in called Macromedia Flash Player. By the mid-2000s, Flash had begun to a large extent, spurred on by the popularity of browser games, animations, and interactive tools that relied on it.
Flash was able to become prominent thanks to the simplicity of installing a small plugin that was compatible with most browsers. Because Flash uses graphical graphics, the file sizes were small for the animations that come out of it. This was important at a time when many people were using dial-up internet with low download speeds.
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Vector graphs are essentially text-based instructions. They scale infinitely because they have no defined size, unlike raster graphics which have much larger file sizes and when stretched they will become pixels. Flash has enabled creators, marketers, and anyone looking for new media to create games, animations, banner ads, and interactive menus. It has even been used to create entire websites that look good for the time being, load quickly and respond.
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 has taken Flash under its wing and will be developing many more features in the coming years.
Flash brought to life some of the Internet’s most beloved websites, cartoons, games, and more. Websites like Newgrounds have emerged as a hub for all Flash stuff. Comedy web series like Homestar Runner, stickman animations like Xiao Xiao, and rudimentary but addictive games like Pandemic all flourished on the platform.
But Flash also played a big role in the acceptance of streaming video. The FLV Container has made it possible to display videos in virtually any web browser, provided you have Flash Player installed. At one point, Flash even had to use sites like YouTube, Vimeo, Google Video and more. The earliest on-demand video services like Hulu and BBC iPlayer all needed Flash in the early 2000s.
As of December 31, Adobe Flash is no longer supported. I did not have consoles growing up, so I learned Flash to like games. Many of my fondest memories from childhood are of Flash games and animations.
Thanks for all the memories. May heaven give you happiness. pic.twitter.com/ljoWtd8rii
– Justin (@askiisoft) 29 December 2020
But web standards do not stay quiet forever. While Flash was instrumental in the early days to make the web a more vibrant place, cracks quickly began to show. Before long, it was clear that the Internet would soon outgrow the need for Flash and browser plug-ins.
The problems with Flash
Flash has driven much of the web at the height of its popularity, giving Adobe a lot of responsibility. Since flash was a web plugin, it was maintained and updated by one entity. As Flash became popular, it increasingly became a target for hackers.
It was not long before Flash joined other browser plug-ins like ActiveX and Java as a security risk. Try as it may, Adobe could not fix Flash, which is why in 2017 the company decided to halt development and shut down Flash completely by the end of 2020. Adobe also took no chances: Flash content could not make it to the finals. version.
Flash was able to grow because it filled a gap. Rich web content involving animations, video, audio and interactivity was not possible with browsers that barely met the 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. At the time, Flash was still very popular, so this move had a disruptive effect on the web, but the writing was on the wall. Flash was no longer needed when browser technologies and dedicated mobile applications would rather do the job.
Apple’s decision and the subsequent popularity of the iPhone helped bring about the decline of Flash as developers sought to make the Internet accessible to all devices in an increasingly mobile world.
By 2012, Flash was widely considered a security risk. This led Google to decide to merge Flash with Chrome to create a sandbox. It effectively places flash content in its own safe space and isolates it from the rest of the system.
Over time, Internet speeds and browser standards progressed to a point where Flash was no longer needed.
Life after the flash
By 2020, the web had already adapted to a new standard that did not rely on its own browser technologies. For technological experts, this has been the case for years. Sites like How-To Geek encouraged you to remove plugins like Flash as far back as 2015. This was possible thanks to the rise of browser technologies that make Flash obsolete.
Websites designed entirely in Flash have been replaced with – wait for it – websites. Today’s HTML is responsive and scales according to your screen size and device features. Flash would scale in a linear sense, like any vector graphics tool, but it was nowhere near as sophisticated as today’s browsers can do.
In 2009, the tag appears as part of the HTML5 implementation. This allows sites like YouTube to serve video to any modern browser that conforms to the HTML5 standard. Faster internet speeds also allow for higher quality video.
With HTML5’s canvas element, browsers can draw graphics and animation using JavaScript. These tools can be used to create games, many interactive websites and animations. Download 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 in a browser, from services like Netflix to emulators like DOSBox. The use of JavaScript and CSS simplified web design and made it possible to bring extensive and responsive designs to life. Where Flash had ActionScript, the modern web has JavaScript.
Even vector graphics – one of the original reasons for the success of Flash – have a modern equivalent in the SVG format (scalable vector graphics). Using SVG files makes it possible to create websites and applications that look pixel-perfect on a smartphone or large TV.
Flash content access 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 to enjoy Flash content even after Adobe has pulled the plug.
The first of these is BlueMaxima’s Flashpoint, a web game conservation project that supports Flash, Shockwave, Java, Unity Web Player, Silverlight, ActiveX, and HTML5. It is available in two flavors: a 500 MB Infinity player that downloads games quickly and a huge 500 GB + archive that works offline.
There is also a project called Ruffle, which aims to mimic Flash. It can be run as a standalone application on most major operating systems or as a browser app by using the WebAssemble programming language. It is mainly aimed at website owners who can install it on the server side and their Flash content “just works”.
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The end of a flash era
Adobe Flash’s exit is a bitterly sweet moment for many. While the browser plug-in in its later life was responsible for a large number of security issues, it was also used to create some of the most memorable moments on the internet. Fortunately, a lot of content has been preserved thanks to projects like BlueMaxima’s Flashpoint and Ruffle.
Flash was a fairly accessible creative suite for budding animators and web game developers. If you feel creative but do not have the technical skills of a programmer, you can create your own 3D games on a PS4 or PS5 with Dreams.