Adobe has just announced that it will retire Flash Player at the end of 2020 in a historic decision that will affect a wide range of products, including Microsoft's Windows operating system
With Flash still widely adopted around the world, but with new open standards being adopted at a rapid pace, Adobe says the retirement of Flash Player makes sense, and is now encouraging developers and content creators to use different applications.
While many products will be affected, Adobe says it is working with a number of companies to make the Flash Player removal as smooth as possible. The company is reportedly working with Apple, Microsoft, Facebook, Mozilla, and Google.
“However, as open standards like HTML5, WebGL, and WebAssembly have matured in recent years, most offer many features and functionality that are groundbreaking. Plugins have become a viable alternative for web content,” Adobe says.
“Over time, we have seen utilities evolve into plugins, many of which have the ability to be added and integrated into open Web standards. Today, most browser vendors integrate features provided by plugins directly into their browsers and leave the plugins alone.”
The above news was expected by many, as Flash Player is one of the most vulnerable software in circulation, and is used in today's modern applications, such as browsers. Adobe's decision is certainly a big one, especially since it will take 3 years for the application to be fully retired.
Adobe says it will continue to provide security updates for browsers and operating systems that use Flash until the end of 2020.
Microsoft has already announced that it will also remove Flash from Windows and its browsers by the end of 2020, and similar measures are expected to be taken by other companies that use Adobe's software.
