Flash Player no longer usable?

[Perry5E87]

I am finding it difficult to understand *why* it was necessary to no longer allow anyone (read:  not commercial use) use Flash Player anymore.

Now, I realize that the answer to this might be obtained, after wading through an overly technical and overly legal description about... hmm... not sure.

The problem is that I have read the document about "end of life" for this product many times, however it does not address the reason directly.  Certainly not with any specifics--explained to a native English speaker.  Even more, it's unclear to me and this is after working in the software industry in Silicon Valley for decades.

Therefore, I would appreciate an answer that directly addresses why the end of life had to occur.  And why would someone who had installed it prior to the end of support date, would still not be able to use it.  Never, ever having the need to discuss anything with "support" during the long time it had been used previously.

Because intruding into the personal computers and "at home use" by creating a "death" of its ability to be used under any circumstances is seemingly stupid.  And to be honest, it makes Adobe Inc., come off as a bit arrogant and overly confident in it's position within the market overall.  It's not a wise place to put one's company in, obviously.

There will always be another generation of young engineers graduating from colleges across the country looking for an opportunity such as the one this creates.  (Writing a software workaround or creating a program that allows the use of all that used to be this "dead" product of yours...  And perhaps many of the other programs that Adobe licenses currently.)  Right?

Everyone is always looking for something better.  Why in the world would Adobe, an otherwise successful company, want to create such marketplace?

Regardless, please reply with a clear reason that Adobe needed to effectively kill the Flash Player product for individual users in the comfort of their own homes.  Who had never and would never need support of any kind.

Thank you

[speedingdragon]

seems they dont giev a crap  - they just killed our busienss - all we want is an old evrsion of the flash palyer and we cant get ti off them - help keeps sending us to the page saying its ended

[jeromiec83223024 · Accepted solution]

Here's the EOL announcement from 2017 and accompanying background:

https://theblog.adobe.com/adobe-flash-update/

Here's the consumer FAQ: 

https://www.adobe.com/products/flashplayer/end-of-life.html

Here's the enterprise FAQ: 

https://www.adobe.com/products/flashplayer/enterprise-end-of-life.html

[Guest]

The problem is that it's a very complicated and very powerful program that can be used by bad actors to invade your computer and steal your information. People are always looking for new ways to attack your computer, so software like Flash Player has to be continually updated to prevent those kinds of attacks. Flash is software made by one company and it has to be installed as an add-in in your browser. The new technology is standard across all companies, needs no add-in, and is smaller and uses less power than Flash. Since very few websites are still using Flash, it's not worth it for Adobe to maintain it and keep it safe and then give it away free.

If they let you keep using it, you might think it was their fault and you might sue them if someone stole all your money. They need to make an effort to stop you from using it and then it won't be their fault if something bad happens.

[Robert Mc Dowell]

your opinion lacks of logic, let me explain why:

- Today every lambda citizen knows that nothing, really nothing is secured on a computer or mobile. At anytime corporations like wel known one grab zillions of data from users, what you click, say (! yes microphone are open even when phone off, chipset patent as proof), etc.... to find any kind of I.A in realtime. So to say in 2021 that Flash as security threat is just laughable as only 10% of websites use it.

- You say that uniformize, standardize technologies is better than add-ins etc... I regret to say it's not true since if a kind of communist system using one tech, one brand or one seomthing else is very dangerous, first against freedom of choice, democracy and creativity, but also one successful attack can put the entire internet down which is not desirable. Today there are many levels of protocols, network, with heterogeneous system and yes, I agree, it's more complex to manage, but less threats can succeed too.

[Perry5E87]

O.k. Or how about let each user/individual be responsible for their own
computer(s) at home. Breaches in security? Really? This is, of course,
not the biggest problem--in any way--in terms of internet security and
personal information being breached.

Removing its use from every man, woman and child is such an overreach that
you, I'm afraid, have vastly missed the mark.

If you want a headline... and you might, restore it for home users. Easy.
If this applies to online gaming sites. So be it. If there are problems
you have with certain sites--run a script to determine which ones you have
a problem with and fix them.

None of this is rocket science. I would expect more from a company such as
yourselves at Adobe. A long held/once held standard for use of computer
users across the globe.

I cannot imagine anything that would be a higher priority for you all.
Make the stockholders happy? Yes. This would make them happy. Drive
stock price up? Without question.

Handling it the way you seem to have currently adopted is simply opening
the marketplace is opening you up to the "next best thing"--always around
the corner in the software industry.

~Perry Phillips

[Guest]

This is a user support community. I'm just a user. It wasn't my decision.

I'm just thinking about what Adobe's reasons might be for doing it the way they did. I think they are cutting it off because they don't want to get sued. It would be irresponsible of them to expose the computers of users to attacks. Since they are no longer actively patching the software, such attacks are inevitable.

[Guest]

There are some workarounds, by the way, depending on what you are doing with it.

[Паша5FE5]

Мое мнение о действиях Адоб - Очень плохой ход по flash plair у меня сложилась четкое мнение об этой компании- необходимо избавляться от ее продуктов, поскольку они в любой момент могут просто подставить. Можно легко обойтись и без них. Компания - дрянь не кому не нужная.

[Nancy OShea]

The same thing happened a few years ago with Java, Silverlight, QuickTime, Shockwave and other plugins that don't exist anymore.   Nobody misses them now.  Before long, nobody will miss Flash Player either.