Adios Adobe Flash

It was announced back in July of 2017. Adobe and all the tech giants all agreed to end Flash by the end of 2020. Guess what? We are at the end of 2020. I wrote about this earlier, but now it is truly the eleventh hour.

Apple has already killed off support for Flash back in September but that still leaves Chrome, Firefox, Microsoft Edge and maybe a few other stragglers, but the short story is, if you use a website that uses Flash – you need to find an alternative right away.

Back in the day the BBC made a bunch of Flash based content. They have archived all of that but it is still accessible if you know where to dig. None of that stuff is going to work after this month. There are still some websites out there (I’m looking at you scholastic.com) that have had nearly three years to convert their content to HTML 5 and are just getting around to it now (if at all).

So what’s the work around?

That’s the bad news – there is no work around. There is not really a process that you can conveniently implement to use that content. It’s just going to be inaccessible.

So plan ahead, find alternatives or make sure that the webmasters have updated it for 2020 and beyond and move on.

How long do I have?

Not long. While I can’t seem to find a specific date, I believe that December 20, 2020 is the date for Chrome users. As for the others, they will stop supporting it by the end of the year for sure. It will not matter what device you have, a Windows computer, an Apple computer, a mobile device, I don’t think there will be much you can do.

I wouldn’t hold my breath for a reprieve for Adobe Flash. Like I wrote earlier, this has been a long time coming and while it was certainly very important for the development of the Internet, it’s time has come.

Word of warning

One thing to keep an eye out for are dubious websites that ask for Adobe Flash access after this date. These websites should just be closed and not trusted. I can see a scam forming where they will take you to another website and try phishing important information from you.

Be cautious out there good reader!

Source: IT Babble Blog and Podcast