Adobe is known for advancing interactivity and creative content on the web, and has been pushing hard to meet the needs of evolving standards on the web. The company is finally putting an end to Flash by 2020, and has begun to “end-of-life” the proprietary technology.
Flash came into existence to support animation and interactivity for video content in the 1990s. But, as the web evolved, many started to adopt new formats, while the others preferred open standards like HTML 5, WebGL and WebAssembly.
Given the progress of open standards over the past several years, in collaboration with several technology partners, Adobe is planning to end-of-life Flash. By 2020 the company will stop updating and distributing Flash Player and encourage content creators to migrate Flash content to these new open formats.
Adobe said: “While we understand that several businesses have been built around Flash technology namely gaming, education and video, we remain committed to supporting Flash through 2020.”
Adobe was clear in stating that support includes new updates as needed, regular security patches, maintaining OS and browser compatibility through to 2020.
Adobe will be committed to working with technology partners, including Apple, Facebook, Google, Microsoft and Mozilla, to continue with the security and compatibility of Flash content. In parallel, the plan is to move aggressively to EOL Flash in countries where unlicensed and outdated version of Flash Player are being distributed
Flash started to nail its coffin back in 2015 when Adobe killed the Flash brand and started branding it under different names – Flash Professional and, later, Adobe Animate. However, even after being known by other names, Flash continued to be a hacker’s favorite because it was riddled with security holes.
Last year, Google realized the risk of having Flash on the web and decided to phase out the format altogether, supplementing HTML5 whenever possible.
In reality, Flash is officially dead and it is just the time it is taking to phase out completely.
Adobe will continue to raise the standard of animation and video tools. It will also remain at the front line to continue to provide the best tools and services for designers and developers to create amazing content for the web.
In 2010, Steve Jobs banished Adobe Flash from the iPhone. It was “too insecure,” Jobs wrote, “too proprietary, too resource-intensive, too unaccommodating for a platform run by fingertips instead of mouse clicks.” All of those gripes hold true.
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