Adobe To Kill Flash in 2020
It's been a tough week for the 90s PC geeks. After rallying around the near death of MS Paint, the seminal bad drawing application, the world must say goodbye to another ancient piece of that we're all still using for some reason: Adobe Flash.
In a press release on Monday, July 25th, Adobe, the makers of Flash, wrote that they would be discontinuing the multimedia software behind such time-wasters as Farmville, Crimson Room and waiting for Flash to update. The statement read:
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. Specifically, we will stop updating and distributing the Flash Player at the end of 2020 and encourage content creators to migrate any existing Flash content to these new open formats.
Over the next few years, software and web developers must start migrating towards other solutions. Microsoft announced that they will begin phasing Flash out on Edge and Internet Explorer over the next three years, eventually discontinuing support entirely. Google will be doing the same on Chrome. Mozilla Firefox and Apple's Safari will continue to support the software until the end of 2020, however, they will give users the opportunity what websites run it.
What Adobe said: No more Flash after 2020.What Fortune 500 IT hears: We're good until at least 2030! https://t.co/rRkpzSRDvi
— Kenn White (@kennwhite) July 25, 2017
"Planning to end-of-life" is among the most chilling ways to say "stop updating." However, for a piece of multimedia software that's been around for over 20 years, it's not that bad. Flash, after all, has had a stay of execution since the adoption en masse of HTML5.
HTML5 has been Flash's biggest hurdle since it was adopted on the iPhone and other smartphone devices. Way back in 2010, Steve Jobs, the late founder and CEO of Apple, announced that Flash would never come to the iPhone because it was just too memory intensive. It was widely thought that this would be the Flash killer.
Still, Flash hung in there for another seven years (and still has three more to go), which is surprising because it seems like most of the world hates this piece of software. Adobe instead decided to not release Flash for iOS and instead, embedded itself on website after website, frequently reminding you to update Flash. You have to respect its persistence.
It's better to burn out than fade away, which is what Flash seems to be doing. Still, R.I.P. Flash, you certainly wasted a lot of time showing us weird stuff on the internet.
Adobe Flash will be discontinued in 2020, but you'll still get prompted to update it every 4 days through 2073.
— 👻✊Seth-sy MFer👻✊ (@SethFromThe716) July 25, 2017
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StriderForte
All we need is a piece of software that can run SWF files as good as Flash now. Who can carry the torch of Newgrounds and Kongregate?
aceofscarabs
http://www.adobe.com/support/flashplayer/debug_downloads.html
Scroll down to Flash Player Projector (EXE file download), its a standalone Flash Player executable that can be used to open SWF files outside of a browser.
mammon
But bruh if it's out of the browser and not ready to play, then what's the point?
aceofscarabs
Download the SWF files and open them with the projector, lol
Yusuke Urameshi
RIP Newgrounds. RIP Zone stuff.
Smol Nozomi
dammit how will i see some fine ass hentai flash swfs now
SlamGrene
Bloons, you will be missed.
Austin Parker
They can't kill Flash! HOW WILL WE WATCH RWBY?!
aceofscarabs
With a html5 video player or via Android lol
aceofscarabs
Good thing we have standalone Flash Player "Projector" executables provided on Adobe's website to use Flash independently of the browser.
Gonna archive these EXEs and all my SWFs.
aceofscarabs
Also on the market right here right now is the limited ability to recompile SWF flash files into Android APK apps that run using the Adobe AIR runtimes that are provided on the Play store.
Unfortunately it lacks support for some older Flash code, but at least its something.
Also if you have a vintage Android 4.0.3 device you can obtain the Flash Player package for Android (not distributed by Google Play anymore and only an older version of Flash, but you can probably ask /g/ for the apk installer – run the SWFs with Flash Player from a file manager).
gnolex
Old news, its deprecation was announced around 2012.
megasean3000
Is it the program that does animations or the system that allows complex programs to run on the internet? That's the problem when you name your works twice.
Xiristatos
I don't understand, why the hell is everyone freaking out about things like "NEWGROUNDS WILL DIE" when they explicitly state that web creators and such would simply have to migrate to another similiar program to keep running?
Is it because it's technically hard, or are you just making mountains out of molehills?
corblimey
Fancy advertising and corporate websites are naturally constantly updated. But online games, especially on newgrounds, usually you finish them and then you're done.
But if you can't run Flash anymore? You'd have to get every single author of every single game on the site to completely convert them over to run in a browser without Flash. And lots of authors aren't even on the internet anymore.
Newgrounds just hosts the SWF files, it didn't write them and isn't equipped to rewrite them. There are how many games on there now, every one of which needs an individual conversion by hand?
Of course, Mozilla tried to create something called Shumway that would run unmodified SWF files, using pure JavaScript, but they abandoned the effort years ago.
Xiristatos
Thanks for this explanation. Exactly what I asked for, a reasonable… reason for why people jump the ship so much.
However, that still doesn’t excuse them going “NEWGROUNDS RIP IN PIECES”. Sure, it won’t be easy getting most current Flash games/videos/whatever converted (and in certain cases, a lost cause), but prematurely proclaiming the death of [insert website name here] is motherfucking retarded.
Barfolamew
Homestarrunner.com is dead for sure now. Sadface.jpg
GhostUser