Flash, a-ah...

[Paralytic]

I did quite a lot of development in Adobe Flex, which was a proper programming environment that compiled down to Flash binaries. It was actually pretty nice to work with, the ActionScript3 language was like a better version of Javascript.

Likewise, I was a very early adopter of the technology (when it was called code-named Royale) and part of the Customer Advisory Board that helps shape parts of the product from Alpha, into Beta and then onto release. I was also involved in building unit testing and MVC frameworks around the stack - those were fun days and I did shed a little tear when it became apparent that Flash Player's days were numbered.

<mx:RemoteObject>

[d000hg]

I did quite a lot of development in Adobe Flex, which was a proper programming environment that compiled down to Flash binaries. It was actually pretty nice to work with, the ActionScript3 language was like a better version of Javascript.

[ladymuck]

Whoopsie

Flash is dead—but South Africa didn’t get the memo | Ars Technica

The South African Revenue Service ran into a big problem this month: Adobe Flash stopped working on January 12, 2021, and the agency (still) hadn't migrated all of its e-filing forms from Flash to HTML and JavaScript. So to "fix" the issue, SARS decided to release its own, custom browser with a working Flash plugin preinstalled and enabled.

One wonders if the effort they went to, to make a custom browser for 7 tax forms, could have been better directed to recoding all forms in the three years or so since Adobe announced Flash was no more.

[minestrone]

In 2010 Steve Jobs wrote a scathing open letter called Thoughts on Flash, in which he criticised the software and set out why it wouldn't be allowed to run on Apple products.

Apple are monopolistic fannies.

Facebook (FB) Attacks Apple (AAPL) iOS Changes in Full-Page Newspaper Ads - Bloomberg

Their business relies on not letting software in their platform. I hope FB win this.

[xoggoth]

Used to use it years ago. Think I've got an old manual on it tucked away somewhere.

[NotAllThere]

Randall got there before you.

[SueEllen]

didn't save everyone of us.

It was a bloody pain having to find and install the plugin. Then suddenly the browsers blocked it.

Adobe Flash Player officially discontinued after years of problems | Science & Tech News | Sky News

An internet plug-in that was responsible for some of the internet's best-loved viral animations has officially been discontinued.

On 1 January software company Adobe stopped supporting and updating its Flash Player.

The company has asked users to uninstall the software before it blocks all Flash content from 12 January.

First released in 1996, Flash was instrumental in allowing content creators to make and share animations and games that could be downloaded quickly via a dial-up internet connection.

It also helped early versions of websites like YouTube stream high-quality videos.

But it has been plagued with security concerns and struggled to keep up as internet technology developed and users moved to mobile phones to surf the web.

In 2010 Steve Jobs wrote a scathing open letter called Thoughts on Flash, in which he criticised the software and set out why it wouldn't be allowed to run on Apple products.

Other brands distanced themselves and in November 2011, Adobe announced it was ending support of Flash for mobile web browsers after multiple issues.

But the final blow came in 2014 when HTML5, a program that provided many of the same functions as Flash but did not require users to install a specific plug-in, was released.

As a result, the popularity of Flash started to fade.

That year 80% of Chrome users were visiting Flash sites, but in 2017 Google said that figure had dropped to below 17%.

Big companies like YouTube, Facebook and Netflix went on to stop using Flash and, in 2017, Adobe announced it was discontinuing it altogether in 2020.

Many are mourning the demise of the software which has become synonymous with the early days of the internet.

Meanwhile, other internet users have raised concerns that years of content will be lost when Flash goes down for good.

Developers are working on alternative software that can support old Flash content and a blog called The Internet Archive is currently hosting more than 2,000 items.