back to article Adobe will kill Flash by 2020: No more updates, support, tears, pain...

Adobe has officially set a kill date for its beleaguered Flash. The Photoshop giant said today it plans to end support for the hacker-prone multimedia browser plugin by the end of 2020. This means no more updates for Flash Player after that date and the end of support on many browsers, including Chrome, Internet Explorer and …

  1. JLV
    Happy

    Hallelujah

    1. BillG
      Holmes

      Cuban

      Buggy multimedia nightmare won't see President Zuckerberg's inauguration

      Mark Cuban is going to run for Pres as a Dem.

      You heard it here first.

      1. Michael Thibault

        Re: Cuban

        And disappear like smoke when he comes in second?

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      BTWholesale Speedtest

      Don't worry, I'm sure BT/Openreach (endorsed by slimeballs regulator Ofcom) will be using Flash and their shitty BTWholesale Flash based tester long past 2030 when their "up to" bamboozled, obfuscated Pointless G.fast has long become a can of "legacy firmware worms" to fault find, with Ofcom backtracking saying they were always "Technology Agnostic", wiping their hands of the problem, "Not us - folks, we just provide oversight".

      Fcuking Weasels, the lot of 'em.

      Regulation endorsed attack vectors, and they wonder why there is such a problem with malware infected bots out there. (No one should be forced to Adobe Flash, especially endorsed by a regulator like Ofcom, one hand not knowing what the other is doing)

      BT Spoon fed MP's haven't a clue -"Don't worry BT will do the right thing. Yeah Right".

    3. jennyhannb

      It when come true When Flash Video became popular. [url=https://19216811wiki.com/]192.168.1.1[/url]

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Dear Adobe

    On behalf of the ENTIRE computing public.

    What took you????

    If they shortened the deadline to 18 months, that would really get the ball rolling.

    And the date, just so happens to coincide with the EOL of windows 7.

    Coincidence?

    1. inmypjs Silver badge

      Re: Dear Adobe

      "On behalf of the ENTIRE computing public. What took you????"

      Well. yes. Flash was always a bad idea and Adobe did a terrible job, but, I don't recall Adobe forcing anyone to use it. A multitude of people are to blame for it becoming popular and still being around.

      1. katrinab Silver badge

        Re: Dear Adobe

        When Flash Video became popular, the alternative it replaced was Real Player, and that was much worse.

        1. macjules

          Re: Dear Adobe

          Syphilis is worse than scabies, but you still would not want either ... a bit like Flash.

          1. quxinot

            Re: Dear Adobe

            >Syphilis is worse than scabies, but you still would not want either ... a bit like Flash.

            Yes, but you still wanted to get laid (get the content that caused the problem).

      2. Lotaresco

        Re: Dear Adobe

        "A multitude of people are to blame for it becoming popular and still being around."

        In my experience mostly Italian "web designers" who don't seem to have ever got their heads around HTML. Most Italian business sites are a 640x480 window in the middle of the page in which runs a shonky bit of Flash. Can't be resized, printed and the only page that you can link to is the "Home" page. Pointless flash done using Flash.

      3. Antron Argaiv Silver badge
        FAIL

        Re: Dear Adobe

        But only Adobe is to blame for the constant and unrelenting "You need to upgrade Flash Player", which seems to show up almost every time I try to play a video.

        What is so unique about Flash that requires an upgrade to the latest version to play a damn video? VLC, for example, seems to play everything, and I can't remember when I last upgraded it.

      4. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Dear Adobe

        "Flash was always a bad idea and Adobe did a terrible job, but, I don't recall Adobe forcing anyone to use it. A multitude of people are to blame for it becoming popular and still being around."

        This. This is just one of those tools that allowed graphic designers, albeit talented ones, to start designing webapps with no idea about security or IT technology and then have the gall to say they were "IT Professionals". No! No! No!. You're artists and graphics professionals, simply making a cartoon robot dance in a browser window to the tune of "We Will Rock You" does not make you a veteran IT professional!!

  3. m0rt

    Yeah.

    Will it though? Really? Talk about zombie code...

    BBC will probably pay them to keep it running because, well mind control? I mean maybe the AI Musk is woffling on about is actually ALREADY HERE working out of the networked MILLIONS of INSTALLS of FLASH!!!

    Or not.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      How many millions will the NHS

      be spending in 2025 to patch Flash enabled applications on Windows XP systems I wonder?

      Or will it be billions?

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: How many millions will the NHS

        As someone who works in the NHS, we haven't had XP machines anywhere in our hospitals for years. However if you look at many commissioning group GP phone servers, you'll find most are XP.. and will run that for the next decade unless something is done about it.

        1. Adam 52 Silver badge

          Re: How many millions will the NHS

          You might not have, but "90% of UK hospitals still use Windows XP" according to the headlines in almost every IT news source at the end of last year.

          1. Glenturret Single Malt

            Re: How many millions will the NHS

            I seem to recall an explanation (perhaps even in this venerable organ, I cannot recall exactly where) that that statement actually means that you could find at least one computer running Windows XP in 90% of NHS hospitals. Not quite the same thing but that's the press for you.

            1. Adam 52 Silver badge

              Re: How many millions will the NHS

              Yes, but the AC above said "we haven't had XP machines *anywhere* in our hospitals". A statement than can be disproved by the same one XP box as used to generate the 90% number.

              It's a purely pedantic argument. Well it is until that one XP box becomes the entry point for some nasty.

    2. Richard 22

      Why would the BBC have any interest in keeping Flash running? They've been transitioning over to html5 video for ages. I suspect they'd have ditched flash ages ago if it weren't for the fact that they have to keep things working for non-technical people who may not be running anything more modern than IE8

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        As an ex IM&T junior manager at county level, the XP boxes I was aware of were acting either as basically the command interfaces for MRI/Xray machines, and to serve a web server app to allow authorised clinicians to access scans digitally without needing to print and post hard copy, or were required to upload firmware updates to devices such as AED's.

        Neither of those uses require flash. There is a gaping difference between "90% of the NHS still runs on exclusively XP desktops!" and "90% of NHS trusts has an XP laptop in a cupboard occasionally used for doing firmware updates on half a million quids worth of perfectly functioning AED's"

        IIRC part of our mitigation strategy for the remaining XP boxes was a new image locked down beyond the point of paranoia which had neither flash or Adobe reader installed.

        1. razorfishsl

          if it runs VMware , it needs flash

  4. a_yank_lurker

    Message from Web Team to PHB

    You know that new technology we want to use instead of Flash? Well, Flash is officially dead in 3 years. Can we start migrating now?

    Web Team

    1. Steve Davies 3 Silver badge

      Re: Message from PHB to Web Team

      What Technology? Does it help my Golf Swing?

      Does it involve me spending money that should otherwise go in my Bonus?

      What's the rush. You guys are the best so a wet Friday Afternoon after you have been down the pub (I'm not buying btw) should see it done and dusted.

      Your (N)ever present PHB

      sent from my Galaxy S8+ from the 19th Hole.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Message from PHB to Web Team

        More likely sent from an iPhone

    2. John Brown (no body) Silver badge
      Coat

      Re: Message from Web Team to PHB

      "Well, Flash is officially dead..."

      GORDONS ALIIIII......wait....what?

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Message from Web Team to PHB

      Dunno about yours, but our management see GDPR as something for "next year" and not worth bothering with. Three years away might as well be after the end of the universe.

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Unfortunately, "end of support" for Flash doesn't mean that Flash players already out there will self-destruct, nor that all websites will remove Flash content.

    What it means is that Flash bugs won't be fixed any more after that date.

    Hopefully, browsers will blacklist the Flash plugins But I bet some people will clamour to have a way to re-enable it, so they can still run their legacy apps.

    1. LewisRage

      Or we'll have to carefully deploy an older version of Firefox and prevent updating to allow the plugin to run, doubling down on the problems that will arise from this.

      I'm all for the death of flash and have been purging it where possible but I know of one fairly hefty national UK business who have just invested a fair chunk of cash into a new Learning System that is entirely dependent on flash.

      I am sure that their plan for that high 6 figure investment doesn't involve scrapping it in under 3 years.

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Oh dear, whilst this is great news for just about everyone, I do hope a particular Japanese pet game developer migrate from Flash, as I'd quite like to see what would be the 17th year anniversary event in 2020.

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Why wait?

    Seriously, they could just announce that they will only produce security updates through the end of this year, and the laggards who have stuck with it all this time can move on. If they haven't paid attention to all the years of security and performance issues and stuck with it until now, Adobe giving them until the end of 2020 isn't any different than giving them to the end of 2017. They're going to sit on their hands and do nothing until at least July 2020 anyway, because they don't care.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Why wait?

      Because what about all that VERY expensive equipment that can ONLY be controlled by Flash? And whose manufacturer refuses to replace the software without replacing the whole VERY expensive thing?

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Why wait?

        Which equipment are you referring to? Not saying there isn't such a thing, just that I've never seen it.

        Besides, how the absence of updates prevent this very expensive equipment from working? Keep it off the internet and you don't care if Flash is secure or not. Would you even want to update the flash on it, since that alone might break something?

        1. TRT Silver badge

          Re: Why wait?

          Identity Services Engine Admin portal from Cisco, for example. At least the version our network group have just deployed. Seemed most bizarre that the very thing I'd been tracking down and killing on my user's machines for the past year over security concerns was suddenly required to be on my machine when the network team implemented the new authentication system.

          1. AMBxx Silver badge

            Re: Why wait?

            O2's Business Web site too. I can't get an invoice without using a browser that supports Flash!

        2. phuzz Silver badge
          Facepalm

          Re: Why wait?

          I'm not sure if they still do, but Watchguard firewall boxes used to require Flash for the admin interface. I'm assuming they've moved on in the last few years, hopefully.

          1. Peter2 Silver badge

            Re: Why wait?

            When did WatchGuard System Manager ever use flash? Serious question, i've used 3 generations of watchguard kit and never seen flash used once.

            1. phuzz Silver badge

              Re: Why wait?

              Er, it was a while ago, but I think it was an XTM box? I don't know if that used this "WatchGuard System Manager" of which you speak. I can't remember the model, but it would have been a cheap one.

              1. Jason 24

                Re: Why wait?

                I run many Watchguards, never noticed them needing flash. But then I rarely use the web interface, WSM is much better, prep all your changes in one go and upload.

                Now if only Fortigate could come up with a half decent client, with some decent debugging tools as well please.

        3. Alister

          Re: Why wait?

          Which equipment are you referring to? Not saying there isn't such a thing, just that I've never seen it.

          VMWare VCentre web client is still Flash based. :(

          1. Fuzz

            vmware

            The latest versions of 6.0 and 6.5 don't require flash they have an all html5 client.

            I prefer to use the fat client for anything that still works.

    2. nijam Silver badge

      Re: Why wait?

      > Adobe giving them until the end of 2020 isn't any different than giving them to the end of 2017

      Adobe giving them until the end of 2020 isn't any different than giving them to the end the month.

  8. Dwarf

    Bit academic

    Since most informed people have stopped using it anyhow.

    I expect that the majority of users are just the corporate's out there who aren't sure whats still using it - hint - probably more malware than line of business applications.

    Obviously they are less likely to be running an up-to-date browser that understands HTML5 at which point the need for flash is significantly smaller. .

    I've been running without it for a long while, there are a couple of sites still whine that they want to install it - no I just go elsewhere to providers that have updated to not required this evil technology.

    1. J 3
      Paris Hilton

      Re: Bit academic

      "most informed people have stopped using it anyhow"

      I am afraid "informed people" is far, far from the majority of the populace.

  9. earl grey
    Angel

    but, but..what about my flash pronz?

    Must convert now...

  10. Joe User
    Happy

    Good-bye, Adobe Flash Player

    Don't let the door knob hit you on the way out....

  11. Palpy

    Webmasters, get your act together!

    Remote-troubleshooting a relative's PC, I asked him to go to a speed test website. Yep -- it said he needed Flash. OK, try another -- same thing, must have recent version of Flash enabled. Finally we did find a couple that didn't use Flash, and the "I need a new computer, this one's sooooo slow" turned into "I need a better connection, this one's sooooo slow". Which was the point of the exercise.

    But come on, web-slingers! We need a stampeding herd migrating away from Flash! Now!

    1. Steve Aubrey

      Re: Webmasters, get your act together!

      speedof.me

      HTML5, true blue, through-and-through. Don't know how far it strays from the 'murrican shores.

      insert stdDisclaimer.h - not a shill, no connection, etc.

      1. Palpy
        Pint

        Re: Webmasters, get your act together!

        Yes indeed. We used http://www.bandwidthplace.com/. SpeedOfMe gives about the same results, of course.

    2. John H Woods Silver badge

      Re: Webmasters, get your act together!

      Ookla does actually have an insufficiently publicised nonflash version

      1. Luiz Abdala
        Windows

        Re: Webmasters, get your act together!

        My Chrome crapped itself refusing to install flash as a security risk, and rerouted me straight to the beta site. (was it Chrome?)

        Windows 10 offered me to install the mobile version from Windows store on one occasion. Even the app is cell-phone shaped. Anyway, that doesn't rely on any browser and can be killed instantly.

        I don't know what part exactly turned Flash down, if it was AVG Antivirus (hahahahah perhaps no) if it was actually Chrome, and what other part routed me to the beta site.

        TLDR; I don't know WTF happened but the Flash version of Ookla was stomped and killed with fire ON SIGHT.

    3. Updraft102

      Re: Webmasters, get your act together!

      If you're using Firefox, many sites that want Flash will demand you enable it if the plugin is set to "Ask to activate," but if you set it to "Never activate," then and only then will you get the HTML5 version.

      I'd much prefer it if FF acted like it didn't know what this "Flash" content type was when it's turned off rather than to tell the site, "Well sure I have the Flash plugin installed! It's just not enabled at the moment." That way I'd get the HTML5 version of a site if there is one, which of course is vastly better than enabling Flash, and it would save the "please enable Flash" prompt for sites that truly have no other option (looking at you, US National Weather Service). I probably still won't enable it (how will the webmasters learn if we don't teach them?), but it's good to have the choice and to know what the options are.

    4. LewisRage

      Re: Webmasters, get your act together!

      I believe Speedtest.net have actually moved away from flash (I was presented with the choice of legacy flash or something else last time I visited), but as has been said elsewhere speedof.me is better. It looks like dog poo but works well in a purely HTML5 interface.

  12. Anonymous Coward
    Pint

    Ding dong the witch is (almost) dead.

    Let's have a party.

    1. Tree

      Playing Videos on the web

      Real Player was the best until they turned it into BLOATWARE. Adobe did that with Acrobat Reader, too. The flash and shockwave should only be used if you ask it to. Never used an Adobe product unless required to.

  13. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    End of an era

    Sure, the whole flash thing was like a drunken driver turning down a narrow alley with a flaming dumpster at the end, but it wasn't all bad. A whole lot of creative people expended their precious time to make really cool stuff like Hapland (needs flash). Lunacy of that sort is only now becoming possible with modern web code. Maybe.

    There are hundreds or thousands of fine swf's out there that represent a fair bit of our early web culture, and as such ought not be forgotten. Kinda sad really.

    1. Palpy
      Happy

      Re: End of an era: LOBSTER STICKS

      TO MAGNET. *cue heavy guitar riff*

      That is all.

    2. Jason 24

      Re: End of an era

      You bastard. No work is being done today!

  14. nightflier

    Flash in combination with Flashblock has worked fine for years. Preventing autoplay with HTML5 seems to be more tricky. Hopefully, we'll have good tools to prevent that aberration in a few years.

    1. fidodogbreath

      Preventing autoplay with HTML5 seems to be more tricky. Hopefully, we'll have good tools to prevent that aberration in a few years.

      No lie.

  15. gypsythief
    Joke

    Won't Somebody Please Think of the Children?

    Every year, at Halloween, we hang a semi-transparent white sheet in our living room window, then project a spooky pumpkin / graveyard animation at it, to let passing greb-finks children know that they can raid us for sweets.

    The animation, of course, is done in... **cue moaning ghosts, rattling bones...** Flash!

    What will the poor children do*, when I can no longer let them know that they can raid our home for sweets?!?!?

    *Go to the dentist less, probably...

    1. umbungo

      Re: Won't Somebody Please Think of the Children?

      Yes all the kids now use animated .jif's

    2. bombastic bob Silver badge
      Joke

      Re: Won't Somebody Please Think of the Children?

      "The animation, of course, is done in... **cue moaning ghosts, rattling bones...** Flash!"

      use ffmpeg or mencoder to convert it to something else?

      either that or have a necromancer summon the Flash Player for ya, just for Halloween night. Muahahahahahaha!

      (icon for the 2nd part, and because the original poster had it too)

      1. TRT Silver badge

        Re: Won't Somebody Please Think of the Children?

        Ask Brian Blessed over.

        Flash is alive!!!

        I know, I know, Gordon's alive, but hey.

  16. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Holy shit...

    So 2020 is the Pornocalype.

  17. teknopaul

    lets not be rude

    some of those Flash

    loading....

    things were better than the content at the end of the wait.

    1. umbungo

      Re: lets not be rude

      Those same loading screens for content in HTML5 are going to be much better because its all bootstrap and semantic? The content is not going to vary in delivery size is it? If doing the same thing as 2001 takes about the same time or slightly longer due to the technology is that progress? Lets do animation for the web with 8bit colorspace on a linear timeline using pixels instead of vectors because #progress?

  18. Anonymous Coward
    Childcatcher

    It's going to make life tougher for El Reg

    What are tech journalists to do now that they won't be able to milk the hitherto-reliable stream of "Flash vulnerability causes (insert name of important institution or societal process) to fail." stories?

    1. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

      Re: It's going to make life tougher for El Reg

      "What are tech journalists to do now that they won't be able to milk the hitherto-reliable stream of "Flash vulnerability causes (insert name of important institution or societal process) to fail." stories?"

      There's always Acrobat (reader)!

      1. Antron Argaiv Silver badge
        Thumb Up

        Re: It's going to make life tougher for El Reg

        There's always Acrobat (reader)!

        ...and its loveable mid-meeting, 1/4 screen pop-ups, enabled by default, informing you that "A NEW VERSION OF ADOBE READER IS AVAILABLE! WOULD YOU LIKE TO UPGRADE NOW?"

        Adobe produces to excellent products (I'm a big fan of Lightroom), but they could use a lesson in manners.

    2. Adam 1

      Re: It's going to make life tougher for El Reg

      There is going to be a steady stream of flaws in the HTML5 rendering engine that will no doubt get built into systemd. It will get pwnd by someone using some specific background colour in their CSS, but will be closed as won't fix because users shouldn't use such a stupid colour anyway.

    3. umbungo

      Re: It's going to make life tougher for El Reg

      Dunno it’s been a while since I last read about flash vulns having the ability to take out healthcare infrastructure for example?

  19. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    My problem has never been Flash - just the predominance of Flash Developers being total utter wankers. I don't know what it was in about 2008-12, everyone I met was a complete cock.

  20. Johnny Canuck

    To quote Dickens

    It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way – in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.

  21. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I run Firefox without Flash installed. Never had any problems. The 17% of the web must be shitty games, educational bullshit and other toss only 12yos want to look at. My kids say they have to have it installed then complain their machines run like crap. I take it off reboot and show them it's Flash - you makes your choices. Installing Flash is one I would avoid.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      you have a choice, I don't. My kids do another school curriculum, after school, and 3/4 of the interactive stuff is flash-based, and they pull it from various projects. So we start off with firefox, I see the first "x" (all those blockers! ;) and we switch to... Internet Explorer (shudder). But they will move away from flash. Eventually.

  22. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Gonna be a lot harder

    to play 13 Days in Hell online shooter.

    One of the only useful things to do online. This stupid internet thing might just die off without it.

  23. Colonel Mad

    All 4

    Please take note!

  24. patrickstar

    Here's to hoping that they keep AIR and the standalone player around, or atleast open source the damn thing.

    But the Adobe corporate leaderships are idiots. All of their big successes have basically been coincidences or at best skunk-works projects.

    Flash is a damn good platform to develop stuff for. Trying to do some of the stuff you can do in Flash in HTML5 WebGL whatever, or a GUI toolkit, is just... pain and suffering in comparision.

    No need for a plugin. I'm not referring to stuff that runs in a browser.

    1. coconuthead

      AIR stays

      Yes, AIR will continue, per this statement from Adobe:

      https://forums.adobe.com/message/9723938

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      >Here's to hoping that they keep AIR and the standalone player around, or at least open source the damn thing.

      They've already OS'ed what can be, the (3rd party) licensing is too complex to release all - according to a very reliable source back when Flex etc was gifted.

      The AIR roadmap was published today also - that's supposedly not going anywhere - still a fairly large developer base for this, particularly on iOS ironically, but as Adobe aren't making any money from AIR (Animate is dreadful as an IDE) it's hard to see what they'll gain from investing properly in the SDK.

      1. patrickstar

        There's a lot of stuff that could be opensourced without any license issues - basically all of the runtime itself. There are codecs and other third-party stuff of course, but there should be enough to get a working Flash Player, just without support for some file formats and such. Maybe Stage3D would have to go as well (parts of it were developed by a third party IIRC, don't know about the license) but that's replacable.

        Hell - to the best of my knowledge there isn't even a current open source version of avmplus, which is under a Mozilla license.

  25. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Another thing that Jobs was right about

    Everyone screeched about iOS not supporting Flash, yet clearly he was ahead of his time.

    https://www.apple.com/hotnews/thoughts-on-flash/

    1. patrickstar

      Re: Another thing that Jobs was right about

      There is Flash for iPhone - just not the plugin. It uses AOT compilation to avoid the restrictions on interpreted/JITed code.

      In fact, several App Store best-sellers have been Flash/AIR based.

  26. umbungo

    Adobe is in danger of self immolation before any killing of Flash, the headline has been doing the rounds since 2010 at least. HTML5 is great and everything especially the ease of using sound as a cue for user interaction.

  27. Barry Rueger

    Finally, safe!

    I am just glad that whatever replaces Flash will be 100% secure and will never, ever have any bugs that would make it vulnerable to attack.

  28. Winkypop Silver badge

    Smug mode engaged

    Rid my sites of all things Flash 3 years ago. It took some convincing of business owners.

    Bring it.

  29. Field Commander A9

    Flash will live on in China

    well past 2040 with tons of domestic browsers' support.

  30. Beech Horn

    Need to offer decoding software

    For protected SWF files of proprietary software which has long been abandoned, Adobe should offer a way to retrieve the contents so it can be rewritten. Using swfdec only gets you so far. Would say the same for Adobe Air files.

    Otherwise it'll just be (hopefully) unplugged from the Internet.

    1. patrickstar

      Re: Need to offer decoding software

      There isn't any "official" Flash protector/obfuscator in that sense (just DRM for video), so chances are Adobe couldn't help you any more than any third-party developer .

  31. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I'm sad to see Flash go

    Many fond memories of Flash games (e.g. Squares 2 by Gavin Shapiro) and Flash cartoon animations (e.g. Happy Tree Friends).

    HTML5/Canvas isn't exactly all that fantastic, to be honest. But at least it's an open standard.

    1. JLV

      Re: I'm sad to see Flash go

      Waltz with Bashir, awesome animated Israeli anti-war film about the Sabra massacre in Lebanon, is partially done w Flash. Very nice look it gives too.

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

  32. Mark M.

    Too little, too late

    It won't stop the script kiddies and virus/trojan peddlers from sending out "Your Flash install is out of date, please update to the latest [trojan riddled] version here." popups in dodgy adverts.

    As part of it's death, Flash ought to self-destruct on any computer receiving the last update and leave behind a small piece of plug-in code that pops up "Flash is dead, this is a virus-ridden site don't go there" before automatically re-diverting to Adobe's page about Flash's retirement whenever a website with any flash content gets loaded.

    1. Charles 9

      Re: Too little, too late

      They can't because there ARE things for which high-ups will reply, "But it's the ONLY way we can administer our stuff!" because people like Cisco (Identity Services Engine) don't offer alternatives on their dime (and since this is high-end enterprise stuff, they're expensive, too). You'd be cornering these firms who got the stuff long ago in good faith; they can't use Flash in an environment where they MUST use Flash.

  33. Disgruntled of TW
    Joke

    Have they told VMware?

    ... I'm not convinced they'll be able to completely flush the vCenter flash web client in three years.

  34. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    This is shame

    Flash does good games like farmville :(

  35. Sam Therapy
    Mushroom

    Bastarding Flash and that chuffing Real Player. I hates em both, me.

  36. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Adobe aren't actually killing Flash...

    ...they're just putting it into systemd.

  37. adam payne

    I think Adobe has decided to kill off Flash they know they are fighting a losing battle.

    Flash is and has been a buggy, security hole ridden pile of [insert word here] for many years.

    "Where we’ve seen a need to push content and interactivity forward, we’ve innovated to meet those needs. Where a format didn’t exist, we invented one – such as with Flash and Shockwave,"

    Sorry Adobe but I think you'll find that Macromedia may have had some involvement.

  38. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    To the ungrateful bastards on here

    Long before many of us cared about vulnerabilities and patching, Flash brought us Homestar Runner and for that I am eternally grateful.

    Off to checka-da-email.

  39. Tom Paine
    Headmaster

    "one vector"?

    The announcement will be welcome news for security professionals and administrators, as it is one less attack vector to worry about.

    A bit more than one..!! There are over a thousand with CVEs. Those, as Prof. Lehrer might have remarked, are all the ones that are known about at Havard... there many be many others but they have not been discavard.

    https://www.cvedetails.com/vulnerability-list/vendor_id-53/product_id-6761/Adobe-Flash-Player.html

    Call me a pedat, then. Go on, you know you want to

    1. gypsythief

      Re: "one vector"?

      You're a pedat.

      There, that feels better.

  40. Alister
    Alien

    Scary!

    In a scary coincidence, as I was reading this thread, I got the following email from Currys/PC World:

    "FLASH SALE STARTS TODAY"

    AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGHHHHHHHHHH!

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