Adobe Flash Player Discontinued: Here’s Why It Should Be Removed From Your Computer

Credit: arstechnica.com

Adobe warns users that installing third party flash players may compromise their systems after they officially remove support for Adobe Flash Player.

Adobe stated in its General Information Page (GIP) regarding Adobe Flash Player’s End-Of-Life (EOL) that potential flash players from third party developers are not authorized by Adobe. Users who still wish to use these third-party flash players should do so with extreme caution as unauthorised software are a common source of malware and viruses that can ruin users’ systems.

To uninstall Adobe Flash Player, Adobe will prompt users to uninstall it from their system should they still have it after 31 December 2020. They have also added a manual uninstall instructions page for Windows and Mac respectively.

Adobe also stated in its GIP and in their blog page that they decided to remove support from their flash player because of the various alternative open web technologies like HTML5, WebGL, and Webassembly that are faster and more efficient than Adobe Flash Player. In addition, fewer users from all web browsers like Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge and Mozilla Firefox have visited a website that still uses Flash Player.

Google reported in 2017 that less than 17 percent of Chrome users still frequent sites that use Adobe Flash Player and since then, that percentage has continued to dwindle.

Facebook, meanwhile, has also removed flash player compatibility in its supported games and has advised game developers who still use Flash Player to migrate to other more capable and compatible engines.

Adobe Flash Player has brought over 20 years of joy to animators, gamers, developers and content creators since 1996 with thousands of games like Facebook’s Farmville, mobile apps and more built with Flash. These games will no longer be available unless one is using archiving websites, third party emulators, or other software.

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Written by John Paul Joaquin