The era of Adobe Flash Player has come to an end

Who does not know Adobe Flash Player? The application that allowed us to play countless online video games. However, technology changes daily, and this software has stopped working since the December 2020. 

He Flash Player It worked until this past January 12th after 24 years of supremacy. It even stopped working while still installed on the computers.

11 versions of Flash Player

Years ago, if we wanted to watch a video on a web page, we had to install a plug-in. There were several, but the most famous was Flash Player, since it came installed on many computers. Over time, its creators, Macromedia, were releasing new updated versions.

Macromedia Flash Player

It all started in 1996, when they create the Flash Player with vector animation. Such as those from FutureWave, which was later acquired by Adobe.

Then the following year they launched Flash Player 2, with motion vectors and raster graphics, a type of bitmap image, raster or pixel image and stereo sound in a limited way.

Next, in 1998, appeared the version 3 with license for MP3 compression and alpha transparency: It also came with improvements in animation and allowed interactivity for the first time.

Then, in 1999, the time has come version 4. With it, MP3 streaming was also introduced. Starting with this version, they decided to include it in the most popular browsers without having to download it from a website. So, in 2000, it was available in AOL, Netscape, and Internet Explorer.

He Flash Player 5 appeared in 2000It brought with it an evolution in Flash scripting. It also allowed for customization of the interface environment.

Meanwhile, version 6, from 2001, was responsible for improving support for Flash Remoting (AMF), Web services (SOAP), screen readers via Microsoft Active Accessibility, live audio and video streaming (RTMP), among others.

For him Flash Player 7, in 2005, the programming language was object-oriented, with the ability to create graphics, tables, and additional effects for text.

With version 8, from 2006They've improved runtime performance and bitmap caching. Not only that, they've also developed a new On2 VP6 video codec.

Adobe Flash Player

In it Flash Player 9, they're releasing a new ECMAScript scripting engine, ActionScript Virtual Machine AVM2, and EX4 with an XML parsing focus. It's worth noting that this version includes three updates: 1, 2, and 38.

Then, In 2009, Flash Player 10 arrived with new features such as vector data types, 3D object transformations, custom filters, an audio codec called Speex, and dynamic sound generation. Enhanced features included a context menu, hardware acceleration, bitmap support, and an anti-aliasing engine.

A year later, In 2010, Flash Player 10.1 arrives. This version enabled hardware decoding of H.264-encoded video. Additionally, they created a dynamic HTTP stream and a garbage collector. And for Apple devices, they launched the Cocoa interface and the use of OpenGL for full-screen displays.

Flash Decay

From the very beginning, any web development that used videos, animations, or games had to rely on Flash Player, even though there were significant vulnerability and stability issues.

But everything changed in 2014, since that year the end of Flash Player began, with the arrival of HTML5. Because it presents an excellent alternative for placing animations on web pages.

First it was Apple, then Mozilla, and now Google.It all started when Apple launched its iPhone in 2007, introducing its first touchscreen smartphone without Flash Player. Criticism was swift from consumers and developers.

Three years later, Steve Jobs himself gave his reasons why. He didn't use this format on his cell phones. Among the complaints, he mentioned that it was insecure and unstable. It reduced the battery life of the devices. Furthermore, it wasn't compatible with touchscreens and there was interference between the interface platform and the developer. Thus, iPhones were geared toward the HTML5 platform.

YouTube was another one that decided to switch in 2010. Thus, all developers presented their videos in this HTML format. By 2015, virtually all content on the website could be viewed in this new language.

The same thing happened with Google Chrome. Since 2015, the Flash Player plug-in has been disabled in the browser. In 2016, the developers announced that background videos would also be blocked.

Will it remain in the memory?

Time will pass, it is no longer being used Flash Player and will no longer receive support from Adobe, so most people will likely forget about it.

But there are several initiatives to keep some of the most famous games and animations alive, even if only partially. For example, there is the project Flashpoint, which includes over 8,000 animations and over 60,000 games. Obviously, you'll need plenty of free space on your hard drive.

There are also other animation and video game projects such as Newgrounds and The Internet Archive who seek to keep the Flash Player flame alive. This way, the most nostalgic will have a place to retreat to.

For this reason and more, dear reader or developer, do you miss this Flash Player plug-in? What game or animation do you remember vividly? Let us know in the comments section.

Image: Geeknetic