How to remove Adobe Flash Player from your Mac

It’s 2021 and Adobe no longer supports Flash Player, so it’s time to remove it from your Mac. Here’s how to get rid of the remnants of an older age on the internet.

Flash was an important element of early web browsing, used to power various animations, shapes, and other interactive elements on a website for a user. It was accepted because it offered more options to web developers and media creators than HTML, animated GIFs, and other basic technologies of the day.

As browsers improved and began to sue open standards such as HTML5, WebGL and WebAssemble, Flash fell by the wayside as the dominant way of providing interactivity. The increasing use of the Flash Player installer for malware purposes has probably also accelerated its demise.

Flash’s death clock

Adobe announced in 2017 that it would discontinue the development and distribution of Flash Player by the end of 2020 and encourage the adoption of other open formats for content using Flash. At the time, Adobe cited a collaboration with Apple, Facebook, Google, Microsoft and Mozilla as the driving force behind the decision to end the technology.

Since the announcement, Adobe has continued to support Flash with security fixes and other updates, which would set the actual EOL date to December 31, 2020. As of January 1, 2021, Adobe would no longer support Flash Player, followed by setting the software to block Flash content will not be offered at all from January 12.

For end users, this will largely mean that Adobe no longer plans to issue Flash Player updates or security solutions. Because Flash may be a security risk, especially with no further updates on the horizon, Adobe advises users to remove the Flash Player from their computers.

Adobe has even taken the step of removing Flash Player downloads from its Web site, to prevent newcomers from being tempted to install it themselves in the last days of their lives.

Major browser vendors also do not disable Flash Player from the EOL date. For Mac browsers, Safari turned off Adobe Flash support in early 2020, after earlier requiring users to enable it explicitly, while Firefox version 84.0 is the latest with Flash support, and the same removal of support is on the way for Chrome and Microsoft Edge. .

For iPhone and iPad users, Flash has never been an issue, as iOS and iPadOS devices have never supported the technology.

However, Flash is not completely turned off because Adobe has offered support channels for customers who need Flash Player for internal business systems. For the Internet in general, however, Flash is basically dead.

Remove Flash

While web browsers remove support and it seems to be inert, you still need to work to remove the last remnants of it on your Mac. The Flash Player is a separate application that must be removed before you can seriously consider Mac Mac free.

The Adobe Flash Player installer that works in macOS.

The Adobe Flash Player installer that works in macOS.

How to uninstall Flash Player for Mac OS X 10.4 or later and MacOS

  1. Make the installer.
  2. Click on Uninstalll.
  3. Close all browsers if any is open, manually or by clicking on each browser name in the removal dialog box. Click on Please try again If necessary.
  4. Wait for the uninstaller to complete. Click on finished.
  5. Open up Finder, search and delete the directory / Library / Preferences / Macromedia / Flash Player
  6. Stay in Finder, search and delete the directory / Library / Caches / Adobe / Flash Player
  7. Open a browser with this link to verify it has been removed.

How to remove Flash Player for Mac OS X 10.1 to 10.3

  1. Make the installer.
  2. If necessary, verify with your Mac.
  3. Click on Continue.
  4. Once completed, the removal system will close automatically.
  5. Open a browser with this link to verify it has been removed.

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