Adobe Flash Player Nears its EOL, Will this Affect your Blog?

Adobe officially announced that it would be retiring its famous Flash Player by 2020. In fact, Adobe originally made public that no new versions of the Flash Player will be developed after 2017. They have announced that regular operations will pursue until the end of the year. This includes security patches, bug fixes, support, operating systems maintenance, and so on. However, by end of this year, Flash Player would be completely removed from Adobe’s download pages. All current flash-enabled media will be blocked from running the Adobe Flash Player plug-in as well.

Bloggers will definitely be affected by Flash Player EOL. Image Source: Pixabay

Moving on from Adobe Flash Player

The EOL (or End of Life) of the plug-in signifies a variety of things. One of these is that there will be no further updates available for Flash Player, and this has been a fact since 2017. This is will definitely affect operating systems and browsers, where the regular maintenance of Flash Player is essential. If your blog has videos, games, or any elements that require a Flash Player plug-in, it might be a good idea to change it up and move on to HTML5. This lack of further updates will include new features and new capabilities.

Users could still download and install Flash Player now while it is still available. However, keeping it will not make sense in the long run and will surely create further problems for the blog. Remember, user satisfaction plays a great role in the life and popularity of a blog. Unplayable elements (videos or games) on a website can be frustrating for users and create a bad image for the webpage.

In addition to this, which seems to be the most important, bugs will not be fixed and security patches will not be performed post EOL. Any issue or problem rooting from Flash Player will not have any further fixes. To add fuel to the fire, Adobe would not be providing any support for this particular plug-in. Nobody wants a technical issue on any webpage. Keeping a page working both fast and clean is important for managing a website or a blog. The speedy, clean, and working page ensures the steady stream of internet traffic.

Who will be most affected?

The retirement of the Flash Player actually does not come as a surprise for many web developers. In fact, many website builders do not use Adobe Flash Player anymore. This is after Google and Facebook announced that it is not including it in its future updates. Also, most web designers and developers have since moved on to HTML5 and CSS3 after Adobe’s announcement in 2017.

Adobe’s statistics show that thousands of applications on multiple mobile app markets are built using Flash technology. If this is true, then tens of thousands of apps will definitely be put down by the end of the year. This does not include mini-games on Facebook which run on Flash technology as well. Some suggest that multiple interactive and animated content that is used in schools are going to be affected by this End of Life announcement by Adobe.

Given that Adobe has given the world enough time to re-design without the Flash Player, not many blog owners and website builders are affected. However, this is not true with app and game developers. This is the industry most affected by the Adobe Flash Player EOL. Most definitely, older websites and games that have not been updated recently will be affected by the kill-off of Adobe Flash Player.

The good thing is that there are newer and more powerful players available nowadays like HTML5 and jQuery. These plug-ins function like the Flash Player but are not only more powerful but are also easier to use. The most important aspect of these new plug-ins is that they are safer, a good point of consideration for bloggers and web designers.

Flash Player Mishaps

Many web designers and developers actually felt relieved that Adobe was finally killing off the Flash Player plug-in. They think that it is about time that it is put to rest. This is after Flash Player has been experiencing security vulnerabilities.

Just imagine, there was a time when entire websites were run on Flash. There were mini-games, animations, and more. This might be the reason why big tech names stopped including Flash Player on its updates. The fact that it was the most widely used plug-in on the internet has put its users to great security risks.

To add to this, the player simply is too outdated that many web developers and tech enthusiasts started getting exhausted by it. The fact that it played such an important and symbolic role in the development of social media, blogging, and the internet in the mid-2000s means that maybe it is time to retire it and keep it in the Internet’s Hall of Fame.