Information on the Flash Projector Support/End of Life after 2020.

Forum|Forum|6 years ago
February 11, 2020
4 replies
3598 views

Hi All,
I'm looking for some specific information on the Flash Projector Support/End of Life.
I understand that at the end of 2020, Adobe will end support for flash and all browser will remove flash also at the end of 2020. We sell a network product that uses flash as it graphically user interface that our customer access via a web browser (I know this will not work at the end of 2020) but costumer also can create a standalone flash projector executable. Will flash projector still work after 2020?

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Correct answer jeromiec83223024

The picture is much clearer now, and I just wanted to follow up with some additional information.

Original Flash Player EOL announcement from 2017: https://theblog.adobe.com/adobe-flash-update/

Flash Player EOL FAQ for Consumers: https://www.adobe.com/products/flashplayer/end-of-life.html

Flash Player EOL FAQ for Enterprise: https://www.adobe.com/products/flashplayer/enterprise-end-of-life.html

HARMAN Flash Player Support Program for Enterprise: https://services.harman.com/partners/adobe

Also, for convenience, here are links to the Flash Player uninstallers.

Uninstall Flash Player - Windows:
https://helpx.adobe.com/flash-player/kb/uninstall-flash-player-windows.html

Uninstall Flash Player - Mac:
https://helpx.adobe.com/flash-player/kb/uninstall-flash-player-mac-os.html

jeromiec83223024

Correct answer

Community Manager

The picture is much clearer now, and I just wanted to follow up with some additional information.

Original Flash Player EOL announcement from 2017: https://theblog.adobe.com/adobe-flash-update/

Flash Player EOL FAQ for Consumers: https://www.adobe.com/products/flashplayer/end-of-life.html

Flash Player EOL FAQ for Enterprise: https://www.adobe.com/products/flashplayer/enterprise-end-of-life.html

HARMAN Flash Player Support Program for Enterprise: https://services.harman.com/partners/adobe

Also, for convenience, here are links to the Flash Player uninstallers.

Uninstall Flash Player - Windows:
https://helpx.adobe.com/flash-player/kb/uninstall-flash-player-windows.html

Uninstall Flash Player - Mac:
https://helpx.adobe.com/flash-player/kb/uninstall-flash-player-mac-os.html

T

Test Screen Name

Legend

Adobe have been particularly silent on all questions about what will happen after end of life. My personal view is that your company needs to plan for Flash going away, or your product may go away too. Does Flash Projector even work on the latest Mac system, Catalina? Will it work on the next? Doesn't Flash Projector actually use Flash Player to work, and this may be completely unobtainable?

jeromiec83223024

Community Manager

The folks that answer here work primarily on the engineering team. The EOL stuff is really primarily a set of business issues over which we have little input or control. Those decisions happen WAY above my pay grade, and getting business people and lawyers and all of our industry partners to come to consensus is a slow, expensive process.

That said, there's not a lot of mystery here. Flash Player is going away. You should migrate to something else. You should be doing that work now. Flash Player will not work indefinitely. It will not be available to the broad population after it reaches end-of-life.

The appropriate folks are working through the final bits of the decision-making process now, with the goal of publishing a super clear roadmap of exactly what EOL looks like, but the fundamentals have not changed. The major US browsers are removing plug-in support by the end of 2020, which is in-line with Flash Player's EOL timeline.

At the point that we stop publishing updates, attackers gain the upper hand in terms of exploit development and deployment. You shouldn't ever be running an outdated version of software that's tasked first and foremost with processing untrusted content. That typically boils down to your operating system, browser and Flash, and maybe Outlook/Office, depending on where you work and how you pass documents around. At that point, you should definitely uninstall Flash Player as needed, to ensure that you don't find yourself vulnerable in the months or years that follow.

jeromiec83223024

Community Manager

The best solution would be to remove the Flash dependency from the application before the end of the year. The projector might work, but it's going to be unsupported, just like the browser plug-in. At the point that a future underlying OS change breaks the standalone player (because it's probably "when", not "if"), you're going to be hard-pressed to find a solution. It might be viable as a stop-gap strategy, but your customers and your business are probably best served by doing the work to migrate.