Why is the flash player being discontinued?

Adobe Systems said that it plans to eliminate its flash player by the end of 2020. Adobe recommends all users to immediately uninstall flash players to protect their systems because adobe will no longer support flash players after December 31, 2020. From January 12, 2021 abode will block all Flash content from running on Flash player. 

The technology was once used widely to watch videos and play games online. But it was criticized because of some particular flaws in its code, which means that it can be hacked easily to infect computers. Much of its technology, in some previous years, has been offered by the HTML5v technology. One of the potential benefits of HTML5 is that it allows making multimedia content within web pages without requiring users to install and update a dedicated plug-in. 

Apple and Adobe

Apple exists as one of Flash’s most spoken critics. Apple CEO Steve Jobs once wrote a public letter about its shortcomings, security problems, performance, and concerns about its reliability. Flash player plug-in never supports Apple’s iOS smartphone devices. 

Flash does not perform well on mobile devices, they asked to show better performance and improvements but never seen it. Although flash has started supporting H.264 recently. However, currently, the videos on all-flash websites require an old version decoder that is not implemented in mobile chips and must be run in software. The big difference is: videos decoded in software play for less than 5 hours before the battery is completely unloaded, an iPhone plays an H.264 video for up to 10 hours. When videos are re-encoded on websites using H.264 they can be played with flash at all. They look great on iPhones, iPads, and iPods in different browsers like Apple’s Safari and google’s chrome without any plug-in.

Flash was not designed for touch screens using fingers, it was only designed for PCs using mice. Many flash websites rely on rollovers while Apple’s sweeping multi-touch interface does not use any mouse, and there is no requirement for rollovers. Flash websites need to be rewritten to support touch-based devices such as smartphones. 

Besides this that the flash is being discontinued because it has major technical problems, does not support a touch screen, there are some other reasons why Apple does not allow Flash on iPhones, iPods, and iPads. According to Steve jobs, they discussed the drawbacks of interactive content and using flash to play videos, but Adobe wished that people should adopt flash to develop apps and run on their websites. 

Adobe’s vice president

Vice president of adobe o product development, Govind Balakrishnan, said that Flash player is ended because of other technologies such as HTML5. This technology is capable enough to offer applicable alternatives to the Flash player. He also said that few technologies have an intense and positive impact on the internet period.

According to Google in 2014, Flash was used 80% every day by desktop users. Now, it is only 17%. This fact discloses that people are drifting to open-web technologies that are faster and more powerful than Flash Player. They are more efficient and secure. 

Moreover, Flash Player was created in the PC’s period for mice. Flash is a successful business for Adobe, but it does not support the mobile era that requires low power devices, open web standards, and a touch interface that cannot be supported by Flash Player. 

What will replace Adobe Flash

The final version of the flash will still work after 2020 for the existing flash content by working with browser makers to ensure the security susceptibility is patched. Adobe is also providing friendly software to convert Flash content to HTML content. Content owners can take advantage of these tools while those who do not care about their content will let their content fade into datedness. 

Despite its flaws, Flash did more than others to bring video to the internet, and it’s time to leave.

HTML5

It is a market language structure that will be used to structure and present content on the World Wide Web. it is the last and fifth HTML version that is a World Wide Web Consortium guidance. 

HTML5 can be used as an alternative to Adobe Flash Player HML integrated into all web browsers and can deliver audio and video content without a bloated, crash-prone plug-in, and vulnerable. Its performance depends on different browsers and some browsers have done it better. Somehow, as the browsers are matured and steadily improving the delivery performance is now more and less identical in this regard. HTML is all that is needed for the vast content that was developed on the Flash platform previously. Almost everything can be handled by the combination of two open and commonly used technologies such as CSS3 and JavaScript. CSS3 provides styling while JavaScript provides interactable needs for games, tutorials, and other interactive content.