In the early days of the Internet, users would occasionally find a button which says ‘Download Flash player’ for them to be able to play video or online games. Some even experience that until now, however, it appears that it will only last until 2020.
That’s because Adobe, the company behind the Flash software, will no longer be available over the next three years.
In a blog post, the software giant said that its software, once considered a standard, was being supplanted by open standards such as HTML5 which have matured and become viable alternatives for content.
“Given this progress, and in collaboration with several of our technology partners—including Apple, Facebook, Google, Microsoft, and Mozilla—Adobe is planning to end-of-life Flash,” the company said.
By the end of 2020, there will be no more updates to the Flash Player. It is likely that we Adobe will also no longer distribute it, and instead allow for new open formats to be used.
Photo via Kano Help Center
Google acknowledged in an online post the contribution of Flash in the evolution of web development.
“For 20 years, Flash has helped shape the way you play games, watch videos, and run applications on the web,” it said. “But, over the years Flash has become less common.”
According to Google, about 80% of the people using Chrome to browse the Internet 3 years ago visit Flash sites. However, that figure has reached its lowest today at only 17%. And it continues to drop.
Flash, in its essence, made it to mobile devices but it never penetrated the Apple products including iPhones and iPads. The company’s co-founder Steve Jobs criticized Flash saying that the application was welcomed for reasons including security woes. Apple eventually stopped pre-installing Flash on Mac computers in 2010.
Meanwhile, Facebook is leaning towards the use of HTML 5 for its online games. The social network said that they are committed to working with developers to preserve their gaming experiences on Facebook – which could mean not involving Flash anymore.
Source: Phys.org
