Adobe has officially discontinued its support for the iconic Flash Player as of December 31, 2020.
The company has likewise announced that it will be blocking Flash content from running on Flash Player starting from the 12th of January and has since recommended users to uninstall their Flash Players from their devices.
“Since Adobe will no longer be supporting Flash Player after 31 December 2020 and Adobe will block Flash content from running in Flash Player beginning 12 January 2021, Adobe strongly recommends all users immediately uninstall Flash Player to help protect their systems,” read the company’s statement on their website.
Flash player users who continue to have the program installed will be constantly reminded by Adobe to uninstall it from their systems.
RELATED STORY: FarmVille to close popular Facebook game this December 2020
Since its launch in 1996, many netizens have used the Flash Player over two decades for multimedia purposes such as music, video, games, and other forms of entertainment.
However, other open standards including the HTML5, WebGL and WebAssembly have been introduced to the market, providing more viable alternatives for Flash content as they have continually matured over the years. In addition, major browser vendors have also integrated these new open standards to their browsers, deprecating most other plug-ins in effect such as Flash Player.
Flash Player users have been notified since 2017 – a three-year advanced notice for them to shift towards other platforms.
“Adobe believes that there has been sufficient time for developers, designers, businesses and other parties to migrate Flash content to new standards,” read the statement from the company.
