Say goodbye; today’s the day that Adobe ends support for Flash.
The end of Flash has been a long time coming. Adobe asked developers to move on to HTML5 in 2015 and browsers started pushing the web away from Flash before then. In 2017, Adobe officially announced plans to end support on December 31st, 2020 — that’s today.
While Adobe won’t start blocking Flash content until January 12th, most major browsers have taken (or will take) measures to remove Flash. Microsoft also pushed an update to removed Flash from Windows 10 and Apple dropped Flash from Safari earlier this year.
Part of why the end of Flash has taken so long is that it’s a huge part of the internet. Flash formed the basis for many online activities. I have fond memories of playing Flash games on computers in elementary school (when I should have been doing schoolwork), as well as watching short animated videos made with Flash and more.
Thankfully, the Internet Archive — a non-profit digital library best known for the Wayback Machine — is working to preserve various Flash animations and games. In short, the organization will use an in-development Flash emulator called Ruffle to allow modern browsers to play old Flash content. Unfortunately, Ruffle isn’t a perfect solution — the developers say it’s not compatible with a majority of Flash projects made after 2013.
Still, the Internet Archive already has a large collection of Flash games and animations, including well-known items like ‘All your base are belong to us,’ ‘Peanut Butter Helly Time,’ ‘The Impossible Quiz’ and more.
Update 01/02/2021 at 3:13pm: You can find steps on how to remove Adobe Flash from your computer here.
Source: The Verge
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