Adobe pulls the plug on Flash. RIP Flash 2000-2020

[GoodBytes]

After many years of service, good and bad, Adobe has pulled the plug on Flash and will be officially removed by 2020, the company announces.

 

In the early days of Flash, Flash was a fast growing platform under the hands of Macromedia. It came in and allowed, if well coded and implemented, rich web applications and multimedia playback solution to the web. It quickly replaced previous solutions of using the CPU intensive (at the time of our slow computer) Java VM plug-in which made system run down to a crawl when a website used a Java applet (Java-Script was still in its infancy, and could do everything that it can today) and for media purposes the mess of needing to install a bunch of video player plug-ins with the popular ones being RealPlayer, and QuickTime. Basically, each video codec had its players. It was a mess that Flash quickly cleaned up.

 

In 2005, Adobe bought Macromedia, mostly for the companies other software solutions and patents which the company incorporated in its own library. With no interest in Flash, Adobe, Flash development was quickly killed off, with limited efforts done to it. Security fixes took excessively log time to fix, and they mostly fixed ones that were reported instead of being pro-active as it once was.

 

 

Over the years, and I guess, sadly, due to its easy of coding, I suppose, it brought a great shadow on itself. Shitty web devs were making poorly made websites by using Flash when better solution could have been used. For example Flash was used for simple menus that could have been easily done with some HTML and CSS, or at worst a hint of Java-Script. Not to mention poorly coded which affected system performance and mobile device battery life severely. Basically, people that should not be touching code, was making stuff in Flash. This was amplified with shady ad agency that many websites went with, displaying crappy Flash made ads (which many were scams) that talked, played videos, flashing, and all around annoying.

 

People were fed up. It affected mobile phones and computers performance and battery life. Every year it became a bigger and bigger security hole, with a, virtually, complete stop in innovation since ~2005. People started to not want it. But, it was playing such a key part of the web, people where split. They hated it, but needed it. Apple went with the direction of maximizing security on its platform, maximizing performance and responsiveness for its web browser, and ensure great battery life on its new iPhone, no matter if you surf a poorly coded web site or YouTube by not having Flash plug-in for it. They included a YouTube app instead with the device.

 

Android users enjoyed or "enjoyed" Flash for few more years. But with Adobe provided 0 care, quickly made Android drop support for it, and Adobe killed its mobile Flash "initiative".

Not to mention that it didn't support all the same features and abilities as Windows version of Flash.

 

As HTML5 finalizes itself, web browsers implemented , and Java-Script continued to evolve rapidly as it always was doing, Flash became quickly obsolete on the web.

 

The Verge says:

Quote

2020 will mark an end of an era for Flash, but one that feels like it has been a long time coming. HTML5 standards have been implemented across all modern web browsers, and the need for Flash just isn’t there anymore. An end to Flash will bring with it obvious improvements in security and just pure battery life on laptops and other mobile devices that still support the web technology.

 

Source: https://www.theverge.com/2017/7/25/16026236/adobe-flash-end-of-support-2020

 

From an outsider perspective, Apple seems to have waged war on Flash in 2007 by not porviding support on its new mobile device: The iPhone. But from a developer perspective Flash was already dead in 2005-06. Many professional web developers switch platform language (PHP, or Java-Script, for example), or other just changed aread (C/C++/C#/Java developer... basically leaving the web dev field). These devs knew that Flash was long gone back then.

 

If Adobe didn't kill Flash, Edge, Mozilla, and Google would have done so, as they all already announced the kill of plug-in support. In fact, Edge already doesn't support plug-ins, beside Flash, and right-now Flash follows a click-to-run approach beside on select white listed websites.

 

[MegaDave91]

*moment of silence*

[CyberFern0]

7 minutes ago, GoodBytes said:

-snip-

rip

Edited July 25, 2017 by GoodBytes
Shrinked quote

[NinJake]

Thank god... I'm so sick of "Adobe flash is vulnerable and needs to be updated" messages.

[Zando_]

HOORAY! Though hopefully GameRanger gets an update, it currently needs flash to run. 

[Zando_]

1 minute ago, MegaDave91 said:

*moment of silence*

More like moment of unceasing joy and celebration!

[Doobeedoo]

Good. Finally. Ditching the cripple. Don't use it for quite some time and many websites moved on. As web designer I'm very glad. 

[LucasRem]

Flash, in a time we were all on Mouse keyboards, why was that so hard to adopt to multi touch gesture, why was it never any secure.... Happy it's gone!

[GoodBytes]

3 minutes ago, LucasRem said:

Flash, in a time we were all on Mouse keyboards, why was that so hard to adopt to multi touch gesture, why was it never any secure.... Happy it's gone!

Reason: Adobe.

Things would have been very different if it was still in Macromedia hands.

[dfsdfgfkjsefoiqzemnd]

Good riddance to bad rubbish.

 

Flash had potential, but Adobe once again ruined it. 

[iamdarkyoshi]

The annoying thing is how much shit uses it, lots of online learning systems use it. And considering they were designed for 800x600 screens, I know they won't bother

[Zando_]

2 minutes ago, iamdarkyoshi said:

The annoying thing is how much shit uses it, lots of online learning systems use it. And considering they were designed for 800x600 screens, I know they won't bother

Yeah. If they don't update, people will lose a massive amount of old courses and such online. 

[GoodBytes]

8 minutes ago, iamdarkyoshi said:

The annoying thing is how much shit uses it, lots of online learning systems use it. And considering they were designed for 800x600 screens, I know they won't bother

All they do, is get a desktop video recorder, record the lessons as a video, with a cursor click on Next, and put that instead. Quick, crappy solution. As for Tests, those would be on another page as these are quickly to code. They have time until 2020...(probably end 2020)

[NumLock21]

Die flash die!

It was already dead when adobe acquired it, from macromedia.

[LukaH]

F

[Teddy07]

I did not update flash in the last ~4 months because I did not use it. Flash has to ask when it wants to be activated but I never do.

 

So yeah, Flas is dead for me. I might even remove it but I am too lazy

[Sauron]

10 years too late if you ask me. If they had bothered working on it propery instead of trying to license exclusive smartphones maybe HTML5 wouldn't have killed it as fast as it did.

[DeScruff]

That reminds me: *Checks to see if Flash is even installed on PC*
... Ugh I forgot there are still some streaming services that use it... I really hope this news makes people get off their butts and update. I don't want to have Flash on my system in 2021

[BuckGup]

WAIT. WHAT'S GOING TO HAPPEN TO COOLMATHGAMES.COM?!??!?!

[Drak3]

My Porn! No!!!!

[GatioH]

Thank. God.

[NvidiaIntelAMDLoveTriangle]

I'm not glad it's going away, yeah I'm sure I'm the only one.

I'm not glad because on YouTube I hate videos in 60fps especially videos that have no reason to be in 60fps, so I use a plug-in to force flash and thus enabling 30fps for options higher than 480.

[GoodBytes]

Just now, NvidiaIntelAMDLoveTriangle said:

I'm not glad it's going away, yeah I'm sure I'm the only one.

I'm not glad because on YouTube I hate videos in 60fps especially videos that have no reason to be in 60fps, so I use a plug-in to force flash and thus enabling 30fps for options higher than 480.

True. some people are very limited in bandwidth.. but like I said, Edge, Firefox, and Chrome already has a deadline set for killing plug-in support (Well, for Edge it means no Flash support as it is the only plugin it support that is embedded in itself). So, it would have happen regardless. Plug-in infrastructure i web browser is just a big security issue.

 

[NvidiaIntelAMDLoveTriangle]

20 minutes ago, GoodBytes said:

True. some people are very limited in bandwidth.. but like I said, Edge, Firefox, and Chrome already has a deadline set for killing plug-in support (Well, for Edge it means no Flash support as it is the only plugin it support that is embedded in itself). So, it would have happen regardless. Plug-in infrastructure i web browser is just a big security issue.

 

Yeah that's a factor, but honestly I'm not limited by bandwidth, it's a personal thing. It's something that I don't quite understand, when I watch videos in 60fps my eyes start to hurt, but if play games at 60 or above (I tried a 120hz monitor once) I can play for hours without any issue.

I think it's maybe because I control the game movement, and I can't control video. I don't know.

[dalekphalm]

1 hour ago, NvidiaIntelAMDLoveTriangle said:

Yeah that's a factor, but honestly I'm not limited by bandwidth, it's a personal thing. It's something that I don't quite understand, when I watch videos in 60fps my eyes start to hurt, but if play games at 60 or above (I tried a 120hz monitor once) I can play for hours without any issue.

I think it's maybe because I control the game movement, and I can't control video. I don't know.

Have you seen a doctor about this? That doesn't sound right. I would visit your regular doctor and your eye doctor and get it checked out.