Poor old Flash has had a rough time lately, with criticism coming from all directions. In a long overdue move, Adobe has finally admitted that it’s probably time to move away from Flash. In a typically verbose blog post, Adobe shared its new strategy for web animation tools, announcing that they would be dropping the “Flash” name from their Creative Cloud suite. The animation software will now be called “Animate CC” instead of “Flash Professional CC.” Even more significantly, Adobe is now “encouraging content creators to build with new web standards,” which is as close as they’ve come to acknowledging that using Flash is not ideal for modern developers.
While Flash hasn’t been all bad, it’s clear that its time has passed. Sure, Flash was notorious for draining battery life (a major issue in the age of smartphones), introducing security vulnerabilities, and unnecessarily increasing load times. But there were some fun moments, too. Flash gave us animation gems like Magical Trevor and Line Rider, which became iconic distractions for office workers around the world. Flash also helped usher in a new era of web development, moving away from static, table-based HTML websites to more dynamic, engaging web experiences.
However, Flash is now living on borrowed time. The first major blow came with Apple’s decision not to support Flash on its iOS devices, a bold move that turned out to be a pivotal factor in Flash’s demise. As major websites and platforms started ditching Flash, the writing was on the wall. Now, with Adobe’s official announcement, even the last defenders of Flash have disappeared.
So, to mark the end of an era, I thought I’d share a classic Flash animation, now available in glorious HTML5 on YouTube. RIP Flash, and thanks for the good times: