Farewell Adobe Flash Player

[AGTDenton]

I woke up this morning to Adobe Flash Player wanting to uninstall from two PC's.
It's been a very long time coming for Flash to end. It certainly feels like it's been coming to an end for a decade now.

Thanks for using Adobe Flash Player. We're proud that Flash had a key role in evolving web content across animation, interactivity, audio, and video -- and we're excited to help lead the next era of digital experiences.

https://get3.adobe.com/flashplayer/thankyou/


Feel free to share any memories of games, videos or websites that utilsed Flash/Shockwave.

I was at school/college when it really kicked off in the late 90s early 00s. It certainly felt, at the time, like it was going to take over the Internet.
It was certainly some remarkable technology for it's era.
Unfortunately it started to get abused by advertisers and some nasty malware started to appear with it.
When a full website was created out of Flash it really didn't scale well to the ever increasing variety of screen resolutions coming out at the same time. No longer were we confined to two resolutions, 800 x 600 & 1024 x 768. (I still remember making websites that supported these resolutions).

By 2008 I'd say it had just become a complete nuisance, my companies old website had a Flash navigation panel that they just wanted to rip out at that point. But the fun I had in college for games & videos will be well remembered.
The stick men has to be one of my all time favourite Flash animations:

[[GSV]Trig]

Stick figure fight, loved that when it first came out...

[ik9000]

It's weird that they say EOL 31Dec2020 yet have already removed the archive and ability to download the full installers.

[AGTDenton]

It's weird that they say EOL 31Dec2020 yet have already removed the archive and ability to download the full installers.

I wonder if it's because Flash at one stage was pre-installed with Windows. I'm not actually sure if it is still included or was in older versions of Windows 10.

[spacein_vader]

It's weird that they say EOL 31Dec2020 yet have already removed the archive and ability to download the full installers.

Why? They won't support it after then but they've discouraged it's use for years. It makes sense to make it difficult for people to install it this close to the end.

Car manufacturers support their vehicles with parts and servicing for years after they'll stop offering to sell you one for example.

I wonder if it's because Flash at one stage was pre-installed with Windows. I'm not actually sure if it is still included or was in older versions of Windows 10.

Unbelievably it seems it is/was in Win10: https://blogs.windows.com/msedgedev/...Frr4ZxS3Esw.97

[ik9000]

Why? They won't support it after then but they've discouraged it's use for years. It makes sense to make it difficult for people to install it this close to the end.

Car manufacturers support their vehicles with parts and servicing for years after they'll stop offering to sell you one for example.



Unbelievably it seems it is/was in Win10: https://blogs.windows.com/msedgedev/...Frr4ZxS3Esw.97

you can still install it though, but only via their online installer. You can't get the offline packages anymore. Why not make both available and pull the plug at the same time? Makes no sense to me that

Does this mean BBC iplayer has now switched to another format? So much of their site used to require flash player.

[AGTDenton]

Does this mean BBC iplayer has now switched to another format? So much of their site used to require flash player.

I'd forgotten about that, but appears you should be safe!
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-34399754

[ik9000]

I'd forgotten about that, but appears you should be safe!
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-34399754

I've had a few legacy pages on the BBC site require flash in just the last few months. Html5 might be true for recent content, but it will create a cut-off in some of their older stuff unless they spend the time, and resources, to go back and update it.

[Zhaoman]

I remember playing Flash games on the likes of Shockwave.com and Miniclip. Also Atom Films was a site which hosted videos made by independent creators that I went to before the days of Youtube. I always wondered why Atom Films didn't take off since it existed and had a large catalogue years before Youtube.
Then there was stuff like Newgrounds and Stickdeath.com

Flash games sustained me through much of my childhood (as well as GBA emulators). I'm surprised I didn't get more viruses but perhaps I did and was just too oblivious to notice... It's a little sad if a lot of this internet history will be lost but worse things have happened to human culture!