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What happens when Adobe Flash Player is discontinued on 12/31/2020

Tags: Windows

I am confused about how the discontinuance of Adobe Flash Player on 12/31/2020. I am using a Win 7 64 bit laptop and I have no idea what will happen with video streaming and whatever else the Flash Player is used for.

I realize they are eliminating it for security purposes, but I have that covered. I am worried about the lack of information about what to do after 12/31/2020. What are the consequences?

I downloaded the latest version as Adobe suggested, but what do I do in the future, if anything? Will it continue to work indefinitely since I downloaded the latest version? Will other software be required to replace it with?

Please someone explain to me with some detail what will occur and what if anything else I should do.

Topic

Re: flash

In reply to What happens when Adobe Flash Player is discontinued on 12/31/2020

Flash will continue to work on sites that use it as long the browser you use supports it. But since hardly any sites still use Flash and most browsers will be updated to remove their support for Flash, it will soon in practice soon die.

Sites that didn’t upgrade to other tools will soon become unusable. Most sites will prevent that by using another way to publish their content. There is nothing you can do for sites that don’t.

IMO? Not much.

In reply to What happens when Adobe Flash Player is discontinued on 12/31/2020

Flash hasn’t worked on iPads and iPhones for a very long time (if ever.)
Nod to https://www.howtogeek.com/436033/how-to-use-adobe-flash-on-your-iphone-or-ipad/

It’s rare to find a flash only site today outside of legacy or archive site.

My view is it was already gone years ago and irrelevant long ago.

I don’t think Adobe Flash and Apple…..

In reply to IMO? Not much.

….have ever been compatible. Apple introduced Quicktime in direct competition and refused to allow Adobe applications to the iTunes store. I don’t know if that has ever changed but that was the original scenario.

Maybe not Flash

In reply to I don’t think Adobe Flash and Apple…..

But Adobe Photoshop has been in the App store forever it seems.
https://apps.apple.com/us/app/adobe-photoshop/id1457771281

I understand…..

In reply to Maybe not Flash

I was referring to Adobe Flash only. Apple doesn’t take too kindly to competition in any products it markets/sells. While I have heard of alternate OS for Microsoft Windows, not as much for Apple computers.

In the 70’s to mid 80’s Apple computer users could only buy hardware and software from licensed Apple stores.

I think that was about the same time when Microsoft got slapped for insisting the MS Windows OS could only be sold/installed on PC computers and Intel got slapped for restricting computer makers from selling PC’s not using their processors.

Other OSes for Apple computers?

In reply to I understand…..

Heresy, but from memory:
1. Yellow Dog.
2. FreeBSD https://wiki.freebsd.org/AppleMacbook
3. ChromeOS via Cloudready.

There are more but hey, just a few neurons to spare today.

As others have said,

In reply to What happens when Adobe Flash Player is discontinued on 12/31/2020

eventually Flash will disappear from sites except for archival types. Some of the older Flash objects MIGHT be compatible with Macromedia Flash (the original maker of Flash, Shockwave), those old players might still be available somewhere. Another option for Windows is Irfanview, it has an older Flash plugin, I’ve used it with downloaded OLD Flash content.
Wiz 😉

I think maybe you are all saying I need do nothing

In reply to As others have said,

It seems that sites I load on Google or Duck Duck Go will be using some other software instead of Flash, and probably already are. This is the gist of what you are all saying, I think. The consequence of that is that I need to do nothing I am assuming.

But, what I fail to understand is why I was warned by Adobe Flash would be discontinued and I needed to download the latest version. If I am storing the latest version, but websites aren’t using it, why am I storing it?

Adobe is still patching security bugs,

In reply to I think maybe you are all saying I need do nothing

that’s why the installer tells you to upgrade. From what I’ve read, there may be some sort of “kill switch” in Flash plugin releases from the past 6 or 7 months or so, in that if you attempt to run Flash content it simply doesn’t run. I haven’t ran into any problems with my Linux installations, none of which have Flash installed, though I do have an old version of the Linux Flash plugin. When booted into WinXP on this old netbook, I do have Flash installed, but can’t remember the last time I encountered any Flash content to activate the player. I’ve also read some reports though not confirmed by myself that Flash will uninstall itself once EOL is reached.

I think maybe you are all saying I need do nothing

In reply to Adobe is still patching security bugs,

Thank you for responding to my question.

I still don’t know what I am supposed to do when Flash is no longer working on my computer. Does it mean some of my older programs won’t work?

if that is true, what would replace it so they do work?

Depends on how old your Flash content is

In reply to I think maybe you are all saying I need do nothing

You can try searching for Macromedia Flash player at places like oldversions.com, archive.org…or maybe Irfanview with the all-plugins…I’ve used it with some of the old Flash (swf) files I have. I don’t know if any of the archive sites held onto old versions of Adobe Flash.

As Flash is just a Video Player

In reply to I think maybe you are all saying I need do nothing

And has not been used for a very long time on current Web Sites I very much doubt that you’ll even notice it not being used as most of the video you see on Web Sites Now will not be run through Flash.

At the moment this system is booting into XP Pro as the Primary OS and I’m just too lazy to press a key yo make it boot into 10 or one of the Nix Distro’s I’ve loaded because unless I need them I stick with XP, which just works for my current needs.

However what I do see now are Web Sites simply not opening or if they open the Address Bar shows the address but nothing else they just sit there making out that they are loading, but that is mostly on Survey Sites which one of the Kids uses when I’m not using this system because it’s a bit more powerful that what thye have despite what is shown when XP is running.

Also because not all the drives are visible in 10 it means I have no reason to boot into it at the moment and while it is running partway well I’m not bothered all that much.

But back to what you asked you do nothing at all I have not seen a Single Web Site that relies on Flash in the current generation of Web Sites and while I’m sure that maybe there are some Archive Sites I have not seen any of them so I doubt that very many people will see them either.

Just continue using the computer as you are and unless you run into issues of video not playing there is nothing to do and if you do run into issues you’ll most likely get a message telling you what that site needs to work. As for flash I think you’ll find it sitting there on the Drive loaded and doing nothing at all for the rest of the time that the current OS resides on the computer till it gets reloaded.

That is what has been happening to Flash for quite a few years now and very few any any the wiser for it.

Also what Adobe means that after 31-12-2020 Flash will disappear only means that they stop supporting it and no new patches just the same as XP or for that matter Microsoft DOS is still available and usable but it is no longer used in the vast majority of systems. Granted 5 or so years ago I was still installing DOS for some Computer Aided Manufacturing Machines in the Power Generation Supply Chain but I believe even those are now no longer being used and the OS has been upgraded for their replacements.

Just ignore anything you get told by the Upgrade Manager in the program and use the unit as you need it.

Thank you for the Flash info

In reply to As Flash is just a Video Player

Thank you for the thorough and comprehensible information.

I use Win 7 on two laptops, Windows XP on another for some older games, and Windows 98 for my dos games. My wife uses Windows 10 and her computer crawls, even with added RAM. I am not interested in Windows 10, and deeply regret the demise of Windows 7 support.

I am going to have Win 7 loaded onto a new hard drive on a laptop which fails to stay on, and am dying to see how that works out, since it will have no updates whatsoever applied. You see, about 3-4 years ago, MicroSoft released an update which destroyed the ability to play computer games which required product codes to be entered. So, that update had to be deleted, and future updates very carefully examined, since MicroSoft seems to believe all computer users are only interested in the latest flashy memory-eating videos and etc….

I simply play strategy games from 1998 until 2015 or so, because they were the very best of the Golden Age of gaming.

[Author]

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