It’s coming to an end.
Over the last 12-24 months, most of the day to day browsers we’re used to have threatened to pull the plug on Adobe Flash, but why? Well – back in 2017, Adobe released an article to explain their reasoning, however if you’re only interested in the highlights, here they are:
- Most open standards, such as HTML, WebGL and WebAssembly have matured over the past few years.
- As these standards have matured – they’ve incorporated much of the functionality that was once required from a plugin, such as Flash.
- As such, these newer standards are providing a suitable alternative and as a result, browser vendors are incorporating them, mitigating the need for extra plugins.
What does this mean for you?
If you’re using digital content such as e-learning, animation or desktop based simulators – and it relies on the Adobe Flash plugin – at the end of 2020 – it won’t work. The reason behind this is that most, if not all of the common day to day browsers have decided to end support at the end of the year. Here’s what Google had to say – way back in 2017:
Chrome will continue phasing out Flash over the next few years, first by asking for your permission to run Flash in more situations, and eventually disabling it by default. We will remove Flash completely from Chrome toward the end of 2020.
So if you’ve had any e-learning or digital content created at any point over the last 20 years – there’s a chance it’s Flash based content. The older the content is, the higher the chance. The simple solution is an HTML conversion of the content. While your original supplier should support you with this – we’re happy to lend some support if you need it, contact us here for some advice.
