back to article That's it. It's over. It's really over. From today, Adobe Flash Player no longer works. We're free. We can just leave

Adobe has finally and formally killed Flash. The Photoshop giant promised Flash would die on January 12, 2021. Thanks to the International Date Line, The Register’s Asia-Pacific bureau, like other parts of the world, are already living in a sweet, sweet post-Flash future, and can report that if you try to access content in …

  1. trist

    Amen....

    And now we can but look forward to the day when someone takes Javascript out for a walk, and puts a couple of rounds thought it.

    1. ratfox
      Pint

      Re: Amen....

      This deserves a beer for optimism!

      1. Imhotep

        Re: Amen....

        I assumed he meant beer when he said a couple of rounds.

    2. ebyrob

      Re: Amen....

      Except that HTML 5 *is* javascript... Writing software in CSS is a lot worse than ECMA script...

    3. macjules

      Re: Amen....

      As any zombie movie aficionado knows: only believe the corpse is dead once it is burnt. In the case of Flash can we please see a signed and witnessed statement by the board of Adobe that they promise never, ever, ever to let Flash be dug up and re-used in any way whatsoever?

      @Comcast thank you so much for finally ending use of Flash on 31st December 2020.

  2. Sorry that handle is already taken. Silver badge
    Happy

    Fortunately...

    ...ZOMBO.COM lives on! I guess the next step is enabling HTTPS.

    1. jonathan keith

      Re: Fortunately...

      Here:

      https://html5zombo.com

      1. Mage Silver badge

        Re: Fortunately...

        uMatrix has prevented the following page from loading:

  3. saskwatch

    Flash is Dead!

    Upon finishing your article immediately deleted it from my system along with the pepperflash plugin for Chromium. Seems not that long ago I got an update for it from Debian Multimedia & wondered why.

    1. Muppet Boss
      Angel

      Re: Flash is Dead!

      Nice title. Lived a marvellous life and will always be missed. Amen!

    2. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

      Re: Flash is Dead!

      … but GORDONS ALIVE!!!!

  4. VicMortimer Silver badge

    Anybody know what the last version of flash player without the logic bomb is?

    (And even better have a download link?)

    1. seven of five

      This would be useful within certain, well defined parameters. Like running the Hitach VSP management gui from a dedicated, isolated client.

      Yes, I am well aware flash is dead for a reason.

      1. seven of five

        Ok, aparently (at least for VSP arrays) the supported workaround is to use AIR from Harman:

        https://knowledge.hitachivantara.com/Documents/Storage/VSP_G1X00_and_VSP_F1500/80-06-6x/Addendum%3A_Configuring_the_management_client_to_run_Device_Manager_-_Storage_Navigator_with_Adobe_AIR_from_HARMAN/Configuring_the_management_client_to_run_HDvM_-_SN_with_Adobe_AIR_from_HARMAN

    2. AJames

      Try the internet archive: http://archive.org/web/

      I was still able to pick up some versions of Flash going back a couple of years, just in case Adobe snuck their timeout bomb in several months ago. But of course they could be removed at any time since the files themselves are not stored in the internet archive, only the pages with the needed links to the macromedia file servers.

      If you can't get a browser to work, the standalone Flash player still works to play swf files - or at least the older version do.

    3. kabadisha

      How to fix it!

      I can do you one better - I figured out how the 'kill switch' works and how to work around it to keep using the latest version of Flash.

      HINT: I read the Adobe docs for the 'official' workaround.

      https://charleswilkinson.co.uk/2021/01/12/how-to-use-flash-in-2021/

      1. kabadisha

        Re: How to fix it!

        Clickable Link

  5. Mike 137 Silver badge

    "hoping no one ever creates software as insecure as that ever again"

    They do and they will. Indeed they do worse. Software insecurity is on the increase as more and more applications are mashed up from fragments trawled without caution from crowd sourced web respositories.

    1. Mast1

      Re: "hoping no one ever creates software as insecure as that ever again"

      I work for a large UK public organisation and mid 2020 had to perform compulsory internet security training, delivered by .....flash.

      1. Steve K

        Re: "hoping no one ever creates software as insecure as that ever again"

        delivered by .....flash

        AAAH-AARGH!

        1. Kane
          Alien

          Re: "hoping no one ever creates software as insecure as that ever again"

          "AAAH-AARGH!"

          King of the Impossible!

      2. DavCrav

        Re: "hoping no one ever creates software as insecure as that ever again"

        "I work for a large UK public organisation and mid 2020 had to perform compulsory internet security training, delivered by .....flash."

        That was intentional. The real test was to hack the security training.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: "hoping no one ever creates software as insecure as that ever again"

          " The real test was to hack the security training."

          Every user in the company had to pass a web multiple-choice "test" issued by the Security Department. Your result was a numeric score. After failing narrowly a couple of times I wondered what the scoring system was. A quick "view page source" showed it had no nuances. You either guessed the (often debatable) answer they thought was the only one - or it was "nul point" for that question. Fortunately the source also showed the answer they were expecting for a question.

          They were not very happy when I criticised their scoring system - and the hackability of the web page.

      3. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: "hoping no one ever creates software as insecure as that ever again"

        Is the large UK public organisation involved in healthcare provision, by any chance?

      4. Chairman of the Bored

        Re: "hoping no one ever creates software as insecure as that ever again"

        Aye, drink up and you will feel better.

        Same drill on the left side of the pond. We had to do a year's worth of mandatory training in one week, as th Flash sunset would have otherwise precluded completion.

        I use the royal "we" because I paid my kids to take some of it for me...

      5. N2
        Facepalm

        Re: "hoping no one ever creates software as insecure as that ever again"

        Supplied by Crapita?

    2. Version 1.0 Silver badge

      Re: "hoping no one ever creates software as insecure as that ever again"

      Software insecurity make people money so it's a business feature for the accountants and CEOs because it keeps the users running around to get "upgrades" and new features that "fix" the built-in issues.

    3. andy gibson

      Re: "hoping no one ever creates software as insecure as that ever again"

      Who needs insecure software these days when hackers can just take your stored details from a company.

      I got an email from Unifi today saying that they'd lost my details to a security breach.

      https://www.zdnet.com/article/ubiquiti-tells-customers-to-change-passwords-after-security-breach/

    4. stiine Silver badge
      Happy

      Re: "hoping no one ever creates software as insecure as that ever again"

      I would guess that Adobe didn't fire everyone who worked on that project, hopefully they moved them all to photoshop.

  6. Barry Rueger

    Internet Archive

    Internet Archive actually has been archiving a massive collection of Flash content and games,.

    Go explore!

    https://archive.org/details/softwarelibrary_flash_showcase

    1. Dave K

      Re: Internet Archive

      A few places have. There's also a tool you can get called FlashPoint which includes thousands of Flash games and animations and comes with a standalone version of Flash player that still works. Doesn't run Flash as a plugin, just as the player for the raw .swf files. Works pretty well and is a good way of being able to enjoy some of the older Flash content again.

      Services like this are good IMO. It's good that Flash is dead, but also good that a lot of the older Flash content out there hasn't died with it.

    2. jason 7

      Re: Internet Archive

      Doesnt have Beer Goggles! sigh.

  7. 89724102172714182892114I7551670349743096734346773478647892349863592355648544996312855148587659264921

    Yes but nothing does what Flash did, and I'm not just talking about providing routes into your system for miscreants... CSS is cr*p compared to the visual impact vector graphics in Flash could achieve. Nothing else comes close. So there.

    1. Joe W Silver badge
      Pint

      Yes. Oh so much. The funny animations - even my little brother (then a teenager) was pretty active in doing flash animations back then. People did cool stuff with it, but also pretty annoying to encounter it on any and every website (later on). I still think that many things can in fact be done with a sensible (mostly) static webpage and a good CMS. There is a lot of unneccessary eye-candy (to me: annoying stuff, a waste of good electrons) on those websites.

      1. sgp

        Not only annoying but completely unusable by anyone with a visual impairment.

        1. Will Godfrey Silver badge

          Indeed

          As originally conceived, the web had provisions for these people. These days most of the Internet is completely unusable by not only sight impaired friends, but also ones with motor control issues - mouse impossible - trackball extremely slow and difficult. Mind you, flash was no help either.

          1. sgp

            Re: Indeed

            Hm, I was talking the other day to a visually impaired person who we asked to test our application for usability and according to him, things are better on the web than they used to. Of course n=1 here.

            1. Anonymous Coward
              Anonymous Coward

              Re: Indeed

              Increasing that to N=2 now, and I think the state of web accessibility has improved. But that's saying little because it used to be really annoying and sometimes still is. Some of the credit goes not to web developers, but to the writers of accessibility software to avoid certain more annoying techniques used by web designers who don't think very hard.

              If any web designers out there want the secret to accessibility for the blind, I can give it to you. Nice use of headings for organization. Really. That's the most useful thing most of the time. The reason is that I can jump through headings to move from section to section, and I can specify the level on which to jump. So if you have a page that has big sections at level 2, subsections at level 3, etc, I can easily move around to each section. If you use headings to make your font size larger, that breaks immediately. Same happens if you don't have any headings (or worse, you have one heading somewhere pointless and I'll frequently end up jumping to it). Other things are important too, like using short but meaningful alt text labels for images, using lists and tables rather than just making text look like one, and never having a text label which is actually a button, but the heading trick will probably reduce most of the groans I make while using your site.

              1. Someone Else Silver badge
                Facepalm

                Re: Indeed

                If any web designers out there want the secret to accessibility for the blind, I can give it to you. Nice use of headings for organization. Really. That's the most useful thing most of the time.

                Now you went and did it! Made bloody sure that the vast majority of cretins who call themselves "web programmers" and "web designers" will relegate proper use of headers to the trash heap/dustbin of antiquity!

                You see, that sort of user-friendly self discipline will "constrict their creativity" (or some such tommyrot), and no proper millennial web-diva will rightly tolerate that, goddammit!

            2. VicMortimer Silver badge

              Re: Indeed

              I'd say that depends on the value of "used to", I'd pretty much guarantee that things are worse now than they were in 1995, but probably better than 2010.

      2. ibmalone
        1. jonathan keith

          The logical ultimate progression: One Finger Death Punch 2.

    2. Androgynous Cupboard Silver badge

      CSS is crap is it? I'll just leave this here: https://ada.is/xrgarden/. Or, if you'll accept WebGL as an entry - https://webglsamples.org/aquarium/aquarium.html

  8. bombastic bob Silver badge
    Meh

    I think flash could have lived...

    I think that flash COULD have lived, but to do so, they would have needed to go open source and allow the community to assist with the security fixes.

    For a while there was something called 'gnash', a 'gnu flash' for those who've never heard of it. it worked pretty well for a while, but then flash kept adding things and adding things and changing things and making it incompatible with older players and nobody updated gnash... so it *died*.

    (Hopefully I've already described the situation well enough that the implications are obvious now and I don't have to become "Captain Obvious" and boringly explain it 'cause I'd really rather not)

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: I think flash could have lived...

      There is a current open-souce flash emulator plugin called Ruffle https://ruffle.rs/

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: I think flash could have lived...

      Sadly I think the reason it died was because of Adobe's litigious nature. The Flash EULA specifically forbade anybody from attempting to reverse engineer or replicate Flash's functionality, so Gnash took great pains to only use developers who had never installed Flash and thus had never agreed to the EULA.

      At least, in principle...there was nothing stopping devs from lying, but at least it helped cover Gnash.

      It's basic Flash functionality works fine, but it's the newer versions of Actionscript that really confuse it.

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: I think flash could have lived...

      There was certainly a place for a lot of what it could do (and how simply it could be done) - just not how it ended up doing it with all the security issues.

      Last year, I REALLY needed to create an animation to show correct lane usage on a large multi-lane roundabout for someone who is a driving instructor, and I started thinking back to Flash and how easy it would have been under that.

      After trialling various animation platforms - admittedly of the type which don't need you to re-mortgage the house every few months (though some still came close) - and getting to that point each time where I wanted to put my fist through the monitor, I finally found SVGator. It has a semi-Flash like timeline system, and allows what would have been called 'tweens' back in Flash days.

      It did exactly what I wanted, and it was quite easy to learn once you got over that first hump. The only drawback right now is no scripting feature. It outputs to HTML 5. And it has a Wordpress plugin to aid integration on blogs.

  9. bazza Silver badge

    Badger badger badger badger badger badger badger badger badger badger badger badger badger badger mushroom mushroom!

    1. The Quiet One

      The SNAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAKE, oh It's a Snaaaaaaaaaaake!!!!

    2. jonathan keith

      Oh no! A Cull!

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Still available in all it's vector glory at https://archive.org/details/flash_badger (via ruffle flash emulator plugin...https://ruffle.rs/

      1. Bitbeisser

        Only in the UK....

        (well, a modern digital version of Monthy Python, that doesn't work, or digital Benny Hill skid)

    4. I am the liquor

      Where can you see lions?

      1. Dave559 Silver badge

        Ah dinnae ken…ya

    5. Steve K

      Leave the last word to Mr. Weebl

      Leave the last word to Mr. Weebl - one of Flash's finest purveyors

      http://weebls-stuff.com/toons/goodbye-flash/

    6. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Five....

  10. Mikko

    Devil's advocate:

    I could practically feel future generations of Internet historians gnashing their teeth - kill switches in the name of security make our digital artifacts more and more ephemeral - to the people using and generating them, not to the vaults of intelligence agencies of course. And looking ahead, even a few decades old data collections can easily be conveniently forgotten about, or lost, during periods when their existence would be politically inconvenient. "The flood of 2055 was extremely useful, it buried a huge amount of embarrassing junior civil servant mishaps." / "Too bad about the Internet Archive becoming liable for the content it was archiving and having to dump it in 2038 after changes in legislation"

    1. TimMaher Silver badge
      Facepalm

      Doomsday Book

      Totally right @Mikko.

      Anyone remember the BBC Acorn type stuff when they discovered that the book digitisation was on obsolete media?

      1. Dave 126 Silver badge

        Re: Doomsday Book

        Are you referring to the Domesday project on BBC analogue laserdisc?

        https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/BBC_Domesday_Project

        1. andy gibson

          Re: Doomsday Book

          Digital Domesday Book lasts 15 years not 1000

          https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2002/mar/03/research.elearning

        2. TimMaher Silver badge
          Happy

          Re: Doomsday Book

          I was @Dave.

          My memory is just about as reliable as theirs.

    2. Dave559 Silver badge

      Ephemeral digital artefacts

      The one thing these sort of issues should teach us is that we should always use an open document/file format for creating any sort of file. If it can't be created, edited and read by open source software, it's as good as dying from the moment it was created.

      Just ask anyone who has ever needed to use LibreOffice to open any number of ancient mouldering files created by supposedly professional commercial software which can no longer read its own old files. Yet some people still keep spending a small fortune on that software, year in, year old, rather than contributing a small amount to LibreOffice (yes, I know there are issues that need to be resolved there in how to use that funding for actual software development).

    3. kabadisha

      There is a workaround

      The nature of the 'kill switch' has been much over-stated.

      I read the Adobe docs and found that it is easy to work around if you really want to keep using Flash:

      https://charleswilkinson.co.uk/2021/01/12/how-to-use-flash-in-2021/

      1. kabadisha

        Re: There is a workaround

        Clickable Link

  11. Potemkine! Silver badge

    Leave.flash

    At last!

    Let's rejoice, the Flashxit day has finally happened!

  12. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Emc vnxe

    Emc finally got round to releasing a non flash firmware for the vnxe in the 3rd week of December. Good job they didn't leave it until the last minute.

    1. This post has been deleted by its author

  13. Dan 55 Silver badge

    "uninstall Flash and fire it into the heart of the Sun"

    That's just wrong. It should be Oracle.

    1. MyffyW Silver badge

      Re: "uninstall Flash and fire it into the heart of the Sun"

      Take off and nuke the site from orbit, it's the only way to be sure.

    2. Adrian 4

      Re: "uninstall Flash and fire it into the heart of the Sun"

      Set the controls for .. the heart of the sun

      1. Jimmy2Cows Silver badge
        Joke

        Re: "uninstall Flash and fire it into the heart of the Sun"

        Please don't inflict those massive security flaws and aggressive vendor lock-in / licencing policies on the Sun.

        That's the absolute last thing we need riddled with exploits, and we certainly don't want Oracle running a licence audit and deciding in retrospect that we've been enjoying free light and warmth from the Sun for the past 4.5 billion years so pay up, bitches.

  14. Matthew Taylor

    Efficiency

    I was heavily involved in emulating the Flash player in Java applets for several years (because a single now-despised platform just wasn't enough). I'm interested to see any "replacement" standards based web technology that come close to the Flash's .swf file format efficiency at delivering rich content. It was efficient and fast - and Actionscript 3 was far superior to the abject mess that is Javascript. The player should have just been open sourced, let people fix the security issues.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: emulating the Flash player in Java applets

      Ouch.

      1. Matthew Taylor

        Re: emulating the Flash player in Java applets

        Yes, indeed - crazy times.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Efficiency

      Have you seen ruffle? https://ruffle.rs/

      1. Dan 55 Silver badge

        Re: Efficiency

        Pretty early days if you look at this.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Efficiency

          Fair points, but at least it's not a dead project.

          Ironically, I can see it gathering more steam now flash has gone, mainly from the archival point of view

  15. entfe001
    Mushroom

    The only good thing Flash gave to us over all those years...

    Old Godzilla was hopping around

    Tokyo city like a big playground

    when suddenly Batman burst from the shade

    and hit Godzilla with a bat-grenade...

    Fortunately, easy convertible to a video for posterity.

    Icon -->

    Good guys, bad guys and explosions

    as far as the eye can see...

  16. VLSI

    For all it's developer friendliness, Flash was the technology where you had to wonder: Is my computer going to be fast enough to view this webpage? Now if only other closed platforms, primarily iOS, went away too.

    Good riddance.

    1. Tom 38

      In my second year at uni, I developed a crippling addiction to a japanese flash game called zookeeper - a simple tile switching game like candy crush, swap tiles to match groups of the same animals iirc. If you ran out of time, your boss would waggle his cigar at you as you were fired.

      Anyhow, it took most of my little K6-2 400 MHz's CPU to actually run this, and I quickly found if you didn't run it embedded in the webpage, but instead opened the swf directly in the browser and maximised... well, the game went a loooot slooooowwwwwweeeerrrr. Much easier to beat level 9 and become the boss of the zoo. Suck it, Mr Zoo Boss.

      1. aidanstevens

        K6-2s were utter junk so I'm amazed you were able to play it at all.

        1. Tom 38

          Hey, I had the choice between a P 166, a Cyrix PR266 and the K6-2 400!

    2. Mike 137 Silver badge

      "Is my computer going to be fast enough to view this webpage?"

      Same applies to CSS these days. I can't get my head round the need for 100% of a processor core at 2 GHz just to render a static view of a static page, but it's extremely common. Turn off styles and the utilisation drops through the floor, so someone's doing something very inefficient.

      1. Antonius_Prime
        Devil

        Re: "Is my computer going to be fast enough to view this webpage?"

        It's all those obfustcated trackers and ad tech...

        1. Mike 137 Silver badge

          Re: "Is my computer going to be fast enough to view this webpage?"

          Actually it's not all trackers as the same applies with scripting disabled. The problem is a pure CSS one. The Maker only knows what it's doing, but usually it's massively complicated and voluminous.

  17. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Best thing to happen...

    ...since the end of WW2.

    The end of flash is what we're going to be boring our grandkids with.

    Grandkids: Daaaaaaaaad! Grandad is talking about flash and the internet in the 90s again.

    Son: Dad, please enough of the flash stories. It's getting boring now.

    Me: Dark times indeed. It was a different Internet back then, but we got through it. You lot don't know you're born with your HTML7 and your fancy 9G internet and your unlimited bandwidth. It was hard in my day. We had to dial up off peak to download things and spend days looking for an 0800 dial up number.

    Son: Dad...DAD!!!

    Me: Even then, we had to hope the downloads were resumable! But wait we did. Day and night, sometimes for a week or more! In this situation flash websites became unusable.

    Son: Please shut up Dad.

    Grandkids: Why won't he stop?

    Me: They did it for the memes you see. Camp Chaos etc. Eventually it became apparent that Flash was not only slow, but incredibly insecure as well. Then the 20 year malware war began. For some of Flash wasn't even a possibility until cross platform support improved sometime around 2010 with the advent of Pepperflash. By now though it's become to norm to disable flash altogether as websites using it became fewer...it was then we knew the writing was on the wall. Shambling on like some sort of undead cadaver it carried on until 2021 where it finally died. The world was euphoric.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Best thing to happen...

      You think that's old? Hah.

      I bought software on floppy discs in shops before anybody I knew (and this was a computer literiate crowd) had heard of HTML1.

      1. The Sprocket

        Re: Best thing to happen...

        Ditto.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Holmes

          Re: Best thing to happen...

          My Commodore 64 now has a USB drive. My ZX80 is a bit poorly at the moment.

      2. Down not across

        Re: Best thing to happen...

        html? What is this trickery you speak of?

        I can't (and I know I am not) be the only one here who were quite happy to fetch (and server some of their own) via gopher, veronica. Yes, yes...I got my coat I'm going..

        1. Dan 55 Silver badge

          Re: Best thing to happen...

          Gopher? Luxury. We used to dream of Gopher. Had to use ftpmail to get files and stitch them together by hand and use uudecode and then find out it was corrupt and do it all over again... if we were lucky.

      3. matthewdjb

        Re: Best thing to happen...

        Floppies? Loading programs from cassette and tape player.

        Or typing hex into the hex loader from a magazine listing.

      4. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Best thing to happen...

        No. But cool story bro, don't forget to take your pills and get your nappy changed.

    2. This post has been deleted by its author

  18. roblightbody

    IBM Enterprise software from just a couple of years ago still uses Flash

    At my workplace we use IBM Software that uses Flash to run some of the web consoles.

    We were aware of this, but didn't know there was a hard-stop like this.

    I don't give a damn about the old flash games that I used to enjoy in the 90s, but there's lots of boring corporate software that will have been knocked out like this, this morning.

    1. Dan 55 Silver badge

      Re: IBM Enterprise software from just a couple of years ago still uses Flash

      It's not as if this change hasn't been signposted for years. Perhaps next time the boring corporate software shouldn't be written using a proprietary lock-in language.

      1. Allonymous Coward

        Re: IBM Enterprise software from just a couple of years ago still uses Flash

        It’s almost like “enterprise” software is known for a terrible user experience and feels like it’s been written for top dollar by bottom drawer programmers, hitting every bad-technical-decision branch on the way down.

      2. SImon Hobson Bronze badge

        Re: IBM Enterprise software from just a couple of years ago still uses Flash

        Perhaps next time the boring corporate software shouldn't be written using a proprietary lock-in language

        But that's not a lot of comfort when you dig out that old hardware that's been shuffling packets around in the server room since ... well possibly since before you started there ... and find that you can't even view it's config now as it needs some old version of <something>. Yup, been there, struggled finding a combination of software that would allow me to access said switch. Doesn't help when "helpful" software turns round and tells you that "this software wasn't signed, so I DGAS how important it is to you or whether you actually know better, WE have decided what's good for you and it aint gonna run".

        I vaguely recall the guilty parties in that case were HP and Oracle (the ones screwing around with Java).

        1. Allonymous Coward

          Re: IBM Enterprise software from just a couple of years ago still uses Flash

          IIRC we had some shitty IBM ILO up until a few years ago that we had to keep an old Windows VM around for. It was the only way we could conjure up the very special, ancient and insecure concoction of browser versions and JVMs necessary to make the damn thing work.

  19. JOSM123

    For anyone wanting to still use flash content there is a tool called "ruffle"

    Found out about it at the beginning of the year

    Here's a little blurb :

    "Ruffle is a Flash Player emulator written in Rust. Ruffle runs natively on all modern operating systems as a standalone application, and on all modern browsers through the use of WebAssembly. ! "

  20. grumpyoldeyore
    Alert

    Flash! Flash! I Love You....

    .... but we've only got 24 hours to save the internet!

    1. TimMaher Silver badge
      Coat

      Prince Vultan

      “Gordons Alive!”

      Beat me to it @grump.

      Mine’s the one with a deadly stingers plant in one of the pockets.

      1. KarMann Silver badge
        Facepalm

        Re: Prince Vultan

        And to be fair, you beat me to 'Gordon's alive!', which I was just checking for before posting.

        1. Dave559 Silver badge

          Re: Prince Vultan

          I always did wonder if it was entirely coincidental that the version of PNG (ping!) for animated images was called MNG, as that would have been a suitable opponent for some Flash use cases.

          I don't know whether it was because of being named after the bad guy, but that particular war rocket Ajax never really took off, however…

    2. Bob Starling

      Re: Flash! Flash! I Love You....

      If more upvotes were allowed I'd give you more

  21. Trigun

    Glad it's gone

    From a security stand point I'm 3000% glad it's gone, but it would be a shame (as others have said) to lose the legitimate flash content created over the last 20-25 years. I can see some converters available, but they look bespoke and cost money (admittedly I only took a cursory glance at various offerings) so I'm not sure anyone is going to bother unless it's business critical.

    1. My other car WAS an IAV Stryker

      Re: Glad it's gone

      Business critical Flash? I only recall one time, aside from training, that Flash mattered:

      I think the transmission service tool software used it in some help screens showing interactive animations of the hydraulic fluid flows of various models versus active gear/range. Didn't affect the main functions of reporting current condition, diagnostics, viewing trans control module (TCM) configuration, telemetry recording, etc. and static (PDF or other) versions of the fluid diagrams also existed.

      But I'm sure they got it sorted out by now anyway -- it's been 5+ years since I bought a copy (when the supplier did a major refresh on the TCM internal architecture) and that was for my previous employer. I don't get to play with vehicles like that anymore.

  22. JCLSN

    Yes, finnaly! But there is a simple workaround.

    More info here https://jclsn.medium.com/end-of-adobe-flash-player-520109caa05a

    1. Dan 55 Silver badge
      Facepalm

      I really hope my kid's school don't find out, knowing them they would send a email out asking all parents to set the clock back so teachers can keep sending kids to websites with ancient flash educational software as part of their homework.

      1. A.P. Veening Silver badge

        They will get a reply that the clock is locked to a time server and that they are welcome to send that suggestion to the admin of that time server.

  23. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I felt a great disturbance in the Internet, as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced.

    Yay - no more flash games on the Internet

    Now - if we can just do the same with pages with tons and tons of JavaScript.

    Noone looks at elegant web page design anymore. I remember the days of CSSZengarden, simple web design and CSS design. All this has been replaced with cumbersome JavaScript frameworks that mostly break WAI accessibility guidelines as you can never switch the JavaScript off.

    You also end up wondering why that page took several days to load on a phone on a low data speed.

    1. ThatOne Silver badge
      Devil

      > as you can never switch the JavaScript off

      Which is precisely the point of all this: That way the analytics scripts don't get blocked.

      1. Pascal Monett Silver badge

        NoScript. It blocks all JS by default.

        The best addon I have ever used.

  24. mark l 2 Silver badge

    I am glad to see the back of Flash, But with Adobe blocking flash from running and removing the option of downloading old versions this does make it difficult for the small subset of people who still need a Flash capable browser to admin kit that requires it for configuring.

    Especially as now you are going to have to hunt around on 3rd party website to find a flash installer which could me compromised with malware

  25. Sleep deprived
    Angel

    I skipped installing Flash on my new Thinkpad last Summer

    That's the thing I most strongly agreed on with Steve Jobs.

  26. Big_Boomer Silver badge

    Yay,.....

    Finally Flash is dead. And for those missing their daily Joe Cartoon hit, most of them are on YouTube but you no longer get to actually hit the buttons.

    My fave Joe Cartoon is SuperFly2 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LYE3riHLptI

    I also like this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V3CyyaQwJS8 and for political balance https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9xnERaWfl-I.

  27. PhilipN Silver badge

    Going down Memory Lane ...

    Searched Turtle Graphics.

    Still a thing.

  28. Lee D Silver badge

    Literally stopped deploying it nearly 10 years ago.

    My workplace of 6 years hasn't ever had it, and I've denied (and justified) its installation ANYWHERE throughout that entire time.

    What the hell are you people doing with it still on your system?

    1. A.P. Veening Silver badge

      Last summer I had to install it on my son's computer for school work. As the school work had to be done, I did so, but the school received a very clear email about how I felt about it. The email itself was only about ten lines (including salutations and things like that), the attachment describing the security problems with Flash just squeezed in under the 5 MB limit. The developer/distributor of the above mentioned abomination was included in the CC:

      1. heyrick Silver badge

        I would have been inclined to add that you'd be holding them liable for any problems arising from the necessity of installing and using something known to be a huge security risk.

        Seriously, needing Flash in 2020, WTF?

        1. A.P. Veening Silver badge

          That was included in those ten lines.

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        mathletics used by schools uses Flash, or did, its had a revamp so I hope they have ditched the flash pages

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      the BBC's web site was responsible for keeping flash enabled in lots of businesses! If you disabled it random news videos or content would break

  29. karlkarl Silver badge

    "More specifically, what's happened is that Adobe snuck a logic bomb into its Flash software some releases ago that activates on January 12, and causes the code to refuse to render any more content from that date."

    I really don't like the idea of *anyone* doing that. In my opinion, it seems to be verging on criminal damage.

    .... but I also hate Adobe Flash with a passion (and could never run that shite on OpenBSD anyway).

    I am so conflicted. Looking forward to seeing the "logic bombs" added to Windows 10, Unity3D and SteamDRM in a few years :)

    1. My other car WAS an IAV Stryker

      In that vein, doesn't Windows Genuine Advantage and the "upgrade to 10" alerts count as logic bombs -- if some condition isn't true, bork the system?

      1. karlkarl Silver badge

        Yes, absolutely. I would never recommend anyone running such software.

  30. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    A Shame, in a Way. But Time Strolls On

    I have fond memories of Flash.

    Back in the day, I built entire sites using it. ActionScript was fun, even if it did break (or allow you to break) a lot of coding rules.

    Even after I stopped all that due to security concerns, it was still a very useful vector drawing package - though as I remember, the JPG export was not very good, so I often resorted to screen capture for further manipulation. I use Gravit now.

    But time affects all things.

    RIP Flash.

  31. heyrick Silver badge

    hoping no one ever creates software as insecure as that ever again

    Way too late.

    I have an IPcam with a borked version of the GoAhead server. A fat fingered moment in writing some code had me making an http request without the leading '/'.

    The camera's response? To serve up the file requested, completely bypassing all of the password stuff.

    I suspect a lot of IoT tat is similarly crap.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: hoping no one ever creates software as insecure as that ever again

      "I suspect a lot of IoT tat is similarly crap."

      Always remember, the 'S' in IoT stands for 'security'.

      (Stolen from another commentard)

  32. chivo243 Silver badge
    Meh

    So long and thanks for all the Flash!

    Some gaming sites must have tumbleweeds blowing by... I'm waiting for the youngin to complain some more about some sites not working.

    1. William Towle
      Meh

      Re: So long and thanks for all the Flash!

      Nod.

      I noticed this through seriously enjoying an online version of xkcd's Hell Tetris (ref https://xkcd.com/724/ - strangely calming once you've got the knack and if you're annoyed at it you can just smash the bricks around instead!...)

      The proposed resolution for Chrome users seems to be the SuperNova extension, but on Chromium the flash interstitial depicted here becomes an alternative "we recommend SuperNova" one which at present reappears no matter how many times you (re)configure the plugin, click the widget, insist flash runs just this once, and reload the page etc.

      Fortunately I haven't ever needed it for anything serious.

  33. AJames

    Narrow viewpoint

    My small company produced a specialized course for law enforcement using Flash back in 2012. It's still in regular use and it's an essential part of our business. It took hundreds of hours of work to create the original course, and unfortunately today we don't have the resources to re-create the course in another format any time soon. So in an attempt to satisfy the fanatical zeal of the Flash haters by killing every possible way to run Flash, Adobe has just done a drive-by sideswipe of our business that will be hard to repair. Thanks a lot! I understand the reasons for gradually getting rid of Flash, but there was no good reason for this hard cut-off that unnecessarily cripples legitimate uses that have no security risk. I think most of the zealots have a mental picture of Flash as being used only on web pages for simple graphical animations, and think it should be "easy" to switch to an alternative format. That's too narrow a view of a tool that was used so extensively for so long.

    1. A.P. Veening Silver badge

      Re: Narrow viewpoint

      and unfortunately today we don't have the resources to re-create the course in another format any time soon.

      This hard cut-off was announced several years ago, so you had enough time.

      Besides that, there are enough alternatives to run .swf files, several have been mentioned earlier in the comments.

  34. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Speak for yourselves! Lots of poor applications out there written that used Flash that we've had to suppress the 'eol' update. Ok, so the vendors themselves have released updates that replace the flash compromised application but, y'know, red tape.

    Fricking joke that the SCM guys manage to procure things so wrong... Welcome to what damage budget cuts invite.

  35. unbender
    Devil

    Rumours of its demise may be premature

    Here in the frozen North the SQA are keeping the monster alive with the aid of the Surpass Viewer. As if things were not bad enough for students trying to self school from home, the SQA seems to have built everything on Flash and is pedaling a windows only workaround which most famously will not run on the Chromebooks that the Scottish Government have been doling out to students from deprived backgrounds.

  36. Bruce Ordway

    Faint memories

    I still remember seeing my first demo of Macromedia Director.

    Along with Fractal Design Painter, it became a favorite of mine.

    Later, when Flash became available I did spend a good about of time learning the basics

    However, I lost my appetite for working Flash pretty quickly.

    I can't remember today, exactly why I didn't like using it.

    It wasn't too long that I also started looking for ways to actively block Flash from running on my systems.

    The reasons for this are fresher in my memory, security issues but mostly just didn't like the way so many web sites with Flash were slow and trashy.

    Oh well, at least my love for Painter has survived the test of time.

    (now from Corel instead of Fractal Design).

    PhotoShop? Pft.. you're kidding right?

    Now that I think about it, there's not much from Adobe that I really care for anymore.

  37. dancecat

    Bye, bye old web

    For all its faults, Flash made the 90s and 00s web come alive.

    Now the plugin mainly serves to maintain compatibilty with old pages and some corporate tools so I can't join in with the celebration.

  38. WolfFan Silver badge

    Dropping support is one thing

    Remotely killing it is a whole different beast. I hadn’t thought that it was possible for Adobe to get more obnoxious. I was wrong. If I still used any Adobe products I would be looking for replacements just now, they have just shown that they cannot be trusted.

  39. cbruiners

    It wasn't that bad

    Sure, Flash in its later years was plagued with security issues (and early doors, we just didn't know it lol).

    But in a world of HTML5, of course it's obsolete, but lets not forget that Flash was the way forward 15+ years ago. Back then, I javascript was getting ripped down for XSS attack vectors, etc.... Flash brought us animations on the web like nothing else @ the time, and I think whilst younger developers mock it in light of HTML5, back then we really had little else to offer the level of animation / video / games online (I would say 3D but it was actually pretty poor @ that).

    I will remember flash / shockwave with fondness, but glad its gone now...

  40. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    AMF3

    For me, the one thing about Flash that I'm going to miss is AMF3.

    It was simply the fastest way to load large amounts of data into the browser. JSON, XML+XSLT, XHR, etc, just didn't even come close.

  41. man_iii

    Shockwave and Flash

    While during the HTML w3c 4.0 days I think Flash was the one of the ways to do browser and platform compatibility. Not that it was good or anything. .. I dunno why Mozilla killed the NP plugin which was waaay more useful than flash.

  42. tip pc Silver badge
    Megaphone

    Steve was right

    Everyone thought Steve Jobs was a loon for not wanting flash on Apple portable devices, turns out in the age of much faster, capable and efficient hardware Flash is now thankfully dead.

  43. Celeste Reinard

    Flashit

    It's not me being silly, dancing naked in the street, it's you still wearing clothes! Free at last! ... The amount of times I had to remove the McAfee 'software' from dad's computer that came for free whenever he updated this digital sadness without juvenile supervision... Free at last!

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