Adobe ends support for Flash today and will start blocking Flash content from January 12; major browsers will block Flash content from Jan. 1

It's the end of the line — Adobe scheduled its famous Flash software to end on December 31st, 2020, and today is the day.

The Verge 2021-01-01 T.C. Sottek

Context & Ripple Effects

Adobe’s shutdown follows its 2017 commitment to stop updating and distributing Flash and December’s final scheduled player update. The end state is coordinated: Adobe will block Flash content after support ends, while major browsers block it from the start of the year.

Flash had already been losing its commercial and discovery channels: Amazon stopped accepting Flash ads, and Google planned to stop indexing and ranking Flash content. The browser cutoff turns that long retreat into an immediate access problem for any remaining Flash-dependent sites and applications.

First-order effects

Publishers and application owners with remaining Flash experiences lose browser access immediately and must replace, retire, or preserve that content outside the standard web path.
Adobe’s January content block removes the vendor-supported fallback for users and organizations that still have Flash material to run.

Second-order effects

Search and advertising channels no longer provide a viable route to Flash experiences, concentrating migration work on web formats that browsers can render and search engines can surface.
Browser makers become the practical enforcement point for the retirement: their shared blocking policy determines which legacy content remains reachable for end users.

Third-order effects

The Flash exit establishes a durable pattern in which browsers, search engines, ad platforms, and the original vendor can collectively end a legacy web technology’s effective life before every remaining publisher has migrated.
Web publishers’ dependence on browser-supported formats becomes more explicit: compatibility decisions by a small set of distribution gatekeepers can reshape preservation, discovery, and monetization at once.

The trend: Flash’s retirement is part of the web’s shift toward browser-governed standards, where coordinated platform withdrawal determines when legacy content stops functioning and being discoverable.

Discussion

@larsiusprime @larsiusprime on x
To this day, I am super mad at all the people who put for the codswallop that HTML5 was this perfect replacement for Flash. It's been 10 years since “Thoughts on Flash” was published and HTML5 STILL doesn't (in actual practice) replicate what mattered about Flash.
@mahyartousi Mahyar Tousi on x
Good. While we're getting rid of outdated technologies, can we go and scrap HS2 as well?! https://www.bbc.co.uk/...
@eoinmccarthy Eoin McCarthy on x
NHS e-learning is going to fall on its arse isn't it? Adobe Flash Player is finally laid to rest https://www.bbc.co.uk/...
@tolmasky Francisco Tolmasky on x
We live in a world today where something like Homestar Runner would be way more difficult to create. Companies are OK with this because they can't profit of an independent web comic, and devs are OK with this because they want to fiddle with toolchains, not make animated shorts.
@dietrich @dietrich on x
Flash 3 is what hooked me, over 20 years ago. Summer 98 probably. It was SO exciting to get it... well, a cracked demo version - I couldn't afford software. And SO much fun to use. Me with CSS animations, last week: https://twitter.com/... https://twitter.com/...
@andykhouri Andy Khouri on x
This is unbelievable for a certain generation of person. Flash enabled some of the most creative shit, and beyond the web too; so much TV animation has roots in the old handmade Flash cartoons. And of course away goes a whole style of beautiful but functionally useless websites. …
@glenngabe Glenn Gabe on x
It's over. My ActionScript coding skills are needed no longer :) -> Adobe ends support for Flash today and will start blocking Flash content from January 12; major browsers will block Flash content from January 1 https://www.theverge.com/... https://twitter.com/...
@pjperez Pj Perez on x
All those months learning to do Flash animation in 2005, gone to waste. https://twitter.com/...
@marianomike Mike Mariano on x
Cheers to all my fellow former flash designers and developers! Flash was the software that helped me realize my love for art, design, and code. It also taught me never to rely on one specific tool because tools become obsolete. 🙂 https://twitter.com/...
@larsiusprime @larsiusprime on x
What really mattered about Flash, in my view: 1) For 95% of applications you can just distribute a single SWF file 2) You have a robust authoring tool that is animation/graphics-first and newbie friendly 3) You can send a link to your mom and she can just play it w/ no issues
@tomwarren Tom Warren on x
Today is an end of an era for Adobe Flash. It's officially end of support day. I remember growing up with Macromedia Flash, and how it helped usher in the first meme videos and web games before being key to YouTube https://www.theverge.com/... https://twitter.com/...
@tananarivedue Tananarive Due on x
Oh no—what will keep my pages from uploading now? https://twitter.com/...
@larsiusprime @larsiusprime on x
The thing that REALLY REALLY pisses me off is all the people who beat the war drums for Flash's demise, very clearly did not understand what made it so special. “I don't see why this is valuable, therefore it is not valuable”
@andrestaltz Andr Staltz on x
While it had its downsides, I share the sentiment that Flash was great for *both* non-coder creators and coders. ActionScript 3 was years ahead of JavaScript. In 2010 it was like TypeScript today. https://twitter.com/...
@levie Aaron Levie on x
Wow. Today is the last day ever for Adobe Flash. 2020 was not joking around.
@hannafriden Hanna Fridn on x
I was very much pro the end of Flash, mainly because of the security risks. But this is all true. It was a huge loss for the creative community and I really miss all of the awesome stuff people made and the communities around Flash. https://twitter.com/...
@grradams Gregory Adams on x
No surprise this interview has been referenced so many times over the years. From privacy to Flash, among other things, Steve Jobs could always see around the corner. https://www.youtube.com/... https://twitter.com/... https://twitter.com/...
@mattmay Matt May on x
We had a plan to bring Flash accessibility cross-platform, but then in 2010, there was the Apple memo. Flash as a UI tool had peaked, and not long after, it was over. Flash lived out its last years as a great video player with a bunch of legacy content that withered on the vine.
@matthewacherry Matthew A. Cherry on x
Good bye Adobe Flash Player. We had some good times. RIP https://twitter.com/...
@arsetechnica James Myers on x
The eulogy for Flash will be delivered in a Format Not Supported
@larsiusprime @larsiusprime on x
HTML5 *at its very best* accomplishes most of 3), and is still in the stone age when it comes to 1) and 2).
@joshuahirsch Joshua Hirsch on x
Flash was my entry into the biz, and I have so many fond memories of the work, the community, and fighting with designers to remove all the frikkin alpha texture layers. https://www.theverge.com/...
@tolmasky Francisco Tolmasky on x
“Thoughts on Flash” was never about the open web and was instead, if anything, about Apple controlling the iPhone ecosystem (and eventually the AppStore). I can't believe there is still such a naive interpretation of this. https://twitter.com/...
@waltmossberg Walt Mossberg on x
@tomwarren And I remember how Adobe allowed it to deteriorate into something that crashed your computer and was a vector for malware.
@lilahsturges Lilah Sturges on x
I guess I can take “Certified ActionScript Developer” off my résumé now. I HAD TO STUDY FOR THAT. https://twitter.com/...
@timsweeneyepic Tim Sweeney on x
@larsiusprime The doc everyone links to - including Wikipedia - has disappeared from Apple's website(!)
@larsiusprime @larsiusprime on x
Ultimately this is all Adobe's fault. They just decided Flash wasn't the effort. This is ultimately the problem with all proprietary software platforms — the risk that the platform holder will one day just give up and let it rot but not let YOU pick up and carry the torch.
@larsiusprime @larsiusprime on x
Remember this? “Anything you can do with Flash you can do with JS+Canvas+SVG” Clearly written by a non-artist coder who never used Flash, equivalent to: “Anything you can do with a paintbrush you can also do with a toothpick and an infinite amount of time.”
@whatdotcd @whatdotcd on x
RIP flash wouldn't be here without you. https://twitter.com/...
@yowgi Nicolas Favre-Felix on x
@TimSweeneyEpic @larsiusprime That's unfortunate, it looks like it was removed around May-June this year. Thankfully the original is archived at the Wayback Machine, it's an interesting read after 10 years. https://web.archive.org/...
@underflowr Rania Chatzi Morosan on x
Last day of Adobe Flash today and I kinda feel I'm saying goodbye to a childhood friend 😢 https://twitter.com/...
@tolmasky Francisco Tolmasky on x
Apple's vision of democratized programming is signing contracts with school districts to buy 1000 underpowered iPad minis and then having everyone use Swift Playgrounds. If by some miracle students end up becoming devs then the 30% AppStore commission is just icing on the cake.
@tlakomy @tlakomy on x
When I was like 14 I was able to create a (really) simple game with Flash and post it on NewGrounds (where I was promptly downvoted into abyss, but that's another story) *Nothing* available in 2020 comes close to that experience https://twitter.com/...
@mattmay Matt May on x
Today is bittersweet for me. I'm glad the web platform won. “HTML5” was in the first sentence I ever uttered to our CEO, in 2008. Still, I and many others poured our hearts into boiling the ocean of inaccessible Flash, quixotic though we were. It could have been so much more.
@gcluley Graham Cluley on x
Thank god that's finally over. Adobe Flash I mean. https://www.bbc.co.uk/...
@sarahlefton Sarah Lefton on x
I was 22 and teaching at @parsonsdesign when Flash came out - I had a brilliant semester length class that brought in traditional artists twice my age and turned out experimental animators. Probably my career highlight. I had no idea what a great gig it was, I was too young. http…
@mattmay Matt May on x
Today is the Adobe Flash end of life date. I come to bury Flash, not to praise it. As an animation platform, Flash launched the web into new directions. But once it became a UX platform, without the structure of web or OS apps, it left millions behind. (thread)
@amberatherton Amber Atherton on x
Many fond childhood memories spending hours on the computer making animations on flash for my terrible e-card website. Was a surreal experience showing them years later on stage #adobesummit @bradrencher #TBT2020 #AdobeFlash https://twitter.com/... https://twitter.com/...
@stshank Stephen Shankland on x
I wrote about this a lot over the years, and I never heard anybody boasting that HTML etc was a “perfect replacement,” but yeah, it's been a long time and the open standards still are generally coder-first tools, not creator-first tools. https://twitter.com/...

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