Adobe says goodbye to Flash Player technology that has become obsolete: what changes from January 12, 2021 for browsers and websites
Addio Flash Player by Adobe. The technology used to play multimedia content on websites has long since been replaced by more up-to-date technologies, and as of January 2021 Adobe has discontinued support and security updates: browsers will no longer display the remaining Flash content.
The Flash Player technology developed by Adobe has over the years made it possible to run small software downloads on users' computers to display multimedia content, such as animated banners and games, in browsers. However, for some time Flash Player had been in the crosshairs of cybercriminals, with important vulnerabilities that put users' security at risk. For this reason they started using new and more updated technologies to visualize the contents of websites, so that Adobe has decided to say goodbye to Flash Player: security patches will no longer be released, nor will it be updated. Here's what changes for users.
Flash Player goodbye: what changes from January 2021
The introduction of Flash Player technology has revolutionized the online world and the use of multimedia content and its farewell marks the end of an era. Adobe's technology was over time made obsolete by the arrival of the HTML5 standard, which allows you to achieve the same results in the reproduction of multimedia content.
The use of Flash Player today does not offer any advantage and that is why starting in 2017 Adobe has started a path of divestment of its technology, discontinuing support and the release of security patches. This implies that in case of new vulnerabilities to any hacker attacks, Flash Player will be totally defenseless.
For this reason, modern browsers will automatically block Flash content, displaying placeholders instead of multimedia content. In addition, users trying to use the technology will be redirected to the browser's help page or to the relevant section of Adobe's website for more information.
Addio Flash Player: what to do
Whoever owns a website with Flash content will have to make sure to remove it, both because of security issues in case of vulnerabilities and because that content will no longer be displayed in browsers. Users, on the other hand, will be able to remove Flash plugins from their browsers and simply forget about this obsolete technology.
Flash Player: here's why we won't miss it
In the years of Flash Player's activity, more than 1000 vulnerabilities have been detected, so much so that in the last 10 years security experts have begun to advise against the use of this technology. Until December 31, 2020, the Adobe company continued to monitor the security of Flash Player, but now there will be no more security patches. And no one will miss this obsolete technology, which has long since been abandoned in favor of other, more secure and up-to-date standards.