Adobe Flash, the multimedia software platform that powered as many pre-YouTube animated videos as Homestar Runner, is officially old technology. As of December 31, 2020, Adobe has stopped supporting the software, and Microsoft is now telling every Windows 10 user that it’s time to abandon it if they have not already done so.
A new Windows 10 update from Microsoft, currently available via its Catalog updated, permanently remove Flash from the operating system according to Windows latest, but only for Windows 10 versions 1903 and earlier and multiple versions of Windows Server. The same patch will roll out over Windows Update over the next month or so and will be available via the Windows Server Update Service (WSUS) sometime in early 2021. (The update is also supposed to be available for version 1909, but it’s unclear. why the version patch does not appear on the Update Catalog page.) the update will be optional, but then it will be moved to the recommended updates a few months later.
If you apply this update, the Adobe Flash Player installed by your version of Windows will only be removed – not if you installed it manually from another source, says Microsoft. Once the update is applied, Adobe Flash will be removed from Control Panel and Windows 10 users will not be able to work back the update. Users can also Flash via Adobe Website.
If you absolutely must install Flash again, you will need to relocate your device earlier system restore point. If you do not have a restore point, be sure to create one before applying the Flash removal update.
By the end of the month, Microsoft had also removed Adobe Flash Player from the new Edge browser. ‘From January 2021, Adobe Flash Player will be disabled by default and all versions older than KB4561600 released in June 2020 will be blocked. Downloadable resources related to Adobe Flash Player offered on Microsoft websites will no longer be available. ” Microsoft said.
G / O Media can get a commission
Microsoft Edge Legacy and Internet Explorer 11 users should also have received their latest Adobe Flash security update before or before December 2020. Google Chrome has Flash already with Mozilla Firefox and Apple Safari. Safari no longer supports Flash in September 2020 with version 14. If you try to download the Flash plugin from Adobe’s website, your browser will prevent you from doing so.
Additionally, Adobe will block Flash content will be used in Flash Player from 12 January 2021 to ‘secure users’ systems’, it says. Since macOS and Windows will no longer work Receiving Flash updates, it makes sense to do so as it is now a separate piece of technology.
First developed by FutureWave before being acquired by Macromedia and then Adobe, Flash was the best way to embed fancy animations, video players and video games on websites during the late 90’s and early 2000s. This has paved the way for fully immersive, interactive websites that are the norm today. But the proliferation of bigger and better platforms like HTML5, OpenFL and Unity has slowly made Flash feel outdated. Adobe has renamed the Flash authoring environment of Flash as Adobe Animate in 2015 to expand support for HTML5 and encourage developers to build with new web standards instead of Flash.
The majority of what you encounter on a website today is not Flash, but HTML5 or another open standard that takes much less time to display web pages. Modern authoring environments are not only dramatically less CPU intensive, but something like HTML5 does not need a browser plug-in to work, unlike Flash. HTML5 originally works with all browsers, and it’s SEO friendly too.
Adobe will continue to support Animate – and in case you were wondering, Homestar Runner is still alive and kicking. Also the Internet archive has already been preserved more than 1,000 flash items, including classics such as Tie, All your base belongs to us, en Peanut Butter Jelly Time. I did not see Salad Fingers on the list, but there are already a bunch of episodes on David Finch’s YouTube Channel.