Farewell Flash, Forevermore
Dear Flash,
You helped us get our coding legs with Dreamweaver on sites like MySpace and the early web, but you were easily overtaken and hackable. The security and performance holes in your programming famously had Steve Jobs ban you from hardware running the iOS operating systems in his open letter “Thoughts on Flash” in 2010.
By 2017, your end of life (EOL) fate was cemented when Adobe, Apple, Google, Microsoft, Mozilla and Facebook agreed to phase your content and technology out of their products. But we kept you installed because there were those sites that ran you that we couldn’t live without.
From then on, your decline was inevitable. Flash usage in browsers fell off a cliff, dropping from 76% in 2017 to 31% in 2018, according to Duo’s 2020 Trusted Access Report. Just 10 years ago, Flash, you boomed with a user base of 99%. In 2020, Duo’s data showed less than 20% of browsers supported Flash, which will presumably end in 2021.
Flashforward to Jan. 12, 2021; the date your creator Adobe has set to pull the plug on you. Now the only message we get from you is a reminder to uninstall you.
In the release notes for the final scheduled Flash Player release, Adobe wrote: “...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.
So as with all beginnings, there comes an end. We like to think of it as retirement. As we bid you adieu, we put together this video to say farewell, Flash, forevermore.
Learn all about Flash fizzling and much more in the 2020 Duo Trusted Access Report. Download it for free today!
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