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Comment by eska | Hacker News Reader

Mozilla FAQ:

> Will switching to a different browser allow me to use Flash?

>No. Adobe and other browsers will also end support Flash at the end of 2020. Even if you install an older version of Firefox, the Flash plugin itself will stop loading Flash content after January 12, 2021. See Adobe’s Flash Player End of Life information page for more details

Adobe:

> Since Adobe will no longer be supporting Flash Player after December 31, 2020 and Adobe will block Flash content from running in Flash Player beginning January 12, 2021, Adobe strongly recommends all users immediately uninstall Flash Player to help protect their systems.

Am I only one who finds this disturbing?

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I don't have a horse in the Flash race -- it had a ton of issues but also enabled many content creators to deliver over the web in a way straight HTML/JS was incapable of -- and yes, Flash had its time and that time is now over, but yeah. Agree. Disturbing.

Flash games and animations were a treat of the early/mid-2000s web, and many folks got their start as creators there. Adobe hasn't just stopped distributing a player/plugin for Flash content, they're blocking the existing players from playing existing content. Even if you were an archivist there's nothing to do.

So yeah, this is disturbing. I can go to my city's library and browse microfiche if I want. I can install a Gopher or a Usenet client and connect to those widely-unused protocols that still serve content. But Adobe's reaching back and making all Flash content completely unplayable, even with players that should support it.

Wow.

You may be interested in watching the Lightspark (https://lightspark.github.io/) project - an open source implementation of the flash player.

The reason it's disturbing is exactly why it's good that it went away. It was a proprietary plugin supported by a single vendor, so when that vendor chooses to stop supporting it, it's gone. We've been lucky that it's been supported for so long, in that regard.

Although in practice it is still hard for independent parties to implement support for all relevant open web standards, at least they are open and already have existing independent implementations.

Allow me to rephrase what you wrote: It's good that Flash will abruptly stop working because that will force people to stop relying on software supported by a single vendor, the problem with which is that it might abruptly stop working, which would be bad.

That's not precisely what I was trying to say. Another attempt: Flash was bound to go away when it was supplanted by something else at some point, and it is a good thing that that "something else" was open standards, and that most content has been built on those rather than Flash for a while now, because the same is unlikely to happen for that.

>Adobe will block Flash content from running in Flash Player beginning January 12, 2021

What exactly does this mean?

Will the Flash Player projector still work after that date?

I still have some old files in my Flash archive that I would like to play occasionally, so I really hope that the projector does not have some kind of time bomb.

You can still download the Flash Player app from Adobe's web site and it loads .swf files just fine.

Doesn't concern me. Flash has been on an EOL track for a long time now, and I'm actually pretty happy they're being this aggressive about killing it, as otherwise it could linger on indefinitely, causing security bugs across the web.

Why do you find it disturbing?

Not GP, but I think what they find disturbing is that Adobe could block a plugin running on their computer, either by the plugin being timebombed, or by it checking in with a mothership.

Welcome to the world of proprietary software. Flash was always a closed source product controlled by Adobe. I don't find that disturbing because it's incredibly common in the closed source world.

Hell, this is precisely what Gatekeeper does on macos, in that it reaches out to the cloud to decide if you should be allowed to run software on your machine.

It's even justified on the same basis: enhancing security.

Plenty of legacy enterprise software which is costly to upgrade still relies on Flash for UI.

Which is exactly why I'm glad Adobe is being so aggressive.

The death of Flash isn't news. If enterprises haven't reacted to that, frankly, they never will short of killing it as is being done here. Letting is linger on just ensures it's a source of ongoing security breaches, and I think we've all seen how dangerous those can be (thanks Experian!)

That being said, there's always Ruffle:

https://ruffle.rs/

You can always start a VM with flash inside.

I find it a reason to celebrate, flash was a blight on the web for far too long

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