Adobe Flash Is Officially Dead After 25 Years With Content Blocked Starting Today

When a user attempts to load a Flash game or content in a browser such as Chrome, the content now fails to load and instead displays a small banner that leads to the Flash end-of-life page on Adobe's website. While this day has long been coming, with many browsers disabling Flash by default years ago, it is officially the end of a 25-year era for Flash, first introduced by Macromedia in 1996 and acquired by Adobe in 2005. Mac Rumors reports: 'Since Adobe will no longer be supporting Flash Player after December 31, 2020 and Adobe will block Flash content from running in Flash Player beginning January 12, 2021, Adobe strongly recommends all users immediately uninstall Flash Player to help protect their systems,' the page reads. Adobe has instructions for uninstalling Flash on Mac, but note that Apple removed support for Flash outright in Safari 14 last year.

Adobe first announced its plans to discontinue Flash in 2017. 'Open standards such as HTML5, WebGL, and WebAssembly have continually matured over the years and serve as viable alternatives for Flash content,' the company explained. Adobe does not intend to issue Flash Player updates or security patches any longer, so it is recommended that users uninstall the plugin.

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