Finally, after nearly 30 long years in service, Adobe Flash Player is officially dead and gone. Adobe has started blocking flash content for PC users across the globe.
Moreover, Adobe now shows a warning instead of advice to uninstall the Flash Player. Apparently, instead of showing a banner that redirects the user to the Flash end-of-life page on Adobe’s website, the flash content fails to load.
This gives us a clear indication that now is the time to uninstall Adobe Flash Player from your PC. This may not be as shocking as it may sound, because Adobe was preparing for this day in mid-2017.
Flash was first introduced by Macromedia in 1996, which was later acquired by Adobe in 2005. Adobe has even shared instructions for uninstalling Flash from MacOS. However, Apple has already removed Flash support from the Safari browser last year.
Since Adobe stopped supporting Flash Player after December 31, 2020, Adobe has begun blocking Flash content from running in Flash Player starting from January 12, 2021.
Besides, several months before rolling out the final update for Flash, Adobe added a code. This code prevents browser plugins to load Flash. This also confirms that Adobe will not issue any more Flash Player updates or security patches.
Due to security vulnerabilities, Flash exposed Mac & PC users to malware and other risks
Well, probably one of the reasons behind the official end of Flash is its bad reputation. Because of numerous security vulnerabilities, Flash exposed several MacOS and PC users to malware and other risks.
This made the developers at Microsoft and Apple continuously work on a security update to fix such issues. Which was not an ideal thing for these companies to work tirelessly on.
As per ZDNet, Microsoft plans to release an update dedicated to the removal of the Flash Player from all versions of Windows 10 in early 2021.
Note that this update is available as an optional update on Windows Update Catalog since October. But the company plans to release this update more broadly via Windows Update or WSUS in the coming months or so.
This update will get rid of the Adobe Flash Player as a component of Windows devices. Microsoft will also take steps to recommend users to install this new update once it is available. Once this update is installed, users cannot uninstall it.
As mentioned already, this move may not impact many users, as mainstream browsers have already ditched the plugin. iPhone or iPad users are also not affected by this move, because iOS and iPadOS never supported Flash in the first place.