What you need to know

• A Windows update to remove Adobe Flash Player will soon be available through Windows Server update Service.
• The update is already available through Microsoft Update Catalog.
• Adobe Flash reached end of support at the end of 2020.

Adobe Flash reached its end of support on December 31, 2020. This month, Microsoft may play its hand in the end of Flash by completely removing Adobe Flash Player from Windows 10 with an update. Microsoft already released an optional update in October 2020 through Windows Update Catalog that removed Flash, but according to a Microsoft support page, the update that removes Flash will also be available on Windows Server Update Service. While this update will become more easy to receive, it will remain optional for now.

"This update is currently not available in Windows Server Update Service (WSUS). It will be made available in early 2021," reads the support page. It also notes that you can import the update manually through the Microsoft Update Catalog Site.

The support page states (emphasis added):

If you installed Adobe Flash Player from a source other than Windows, this update will not remove it from your PC.

A Microsoft blog outlining the end of Flash states that the update to remove flash will be optional in early 2021 and will be recommended a few months later.

As the web moved onto HTML5 and other technologies, Flash fell out of favor. Flash also has several security issues that make other technologies more secure to use in comparison.

Our senior editor Jez Corden shared a tribute to Adobe Flash recently, in which he discusses how it changed his life.

Tomorrow's World was is a classic BBC documentary series, which originally started all the way back in the 1960s. The show focused on futurism, looking at near-future tech innovations and potential emerging markets as a result. Bathed in the radiating hum of a cathode ray TV set, my parents had watched an episode that talked about how the internet would upend society as we know it. Personal computing would form the basis of many future economies, the show predicted, with every home connected via the world wide web. For the most part, the show would end up being correct.

My parents took a loan and picked up a beefy Windows 95 PC for us, with a whopping 700MB HDD, complete with 8MB of high-speed RAM. We even got on board with British Telecom's OpenReach early internet roll-out, complete with a noisy 28 kb/s modem. The whole world was right there at my fingertips, in all of its classic Web 1.0 glory. I recall being mocked for asking kids at school if they had an email address.

I didn't fully understand the power of the tools I had in front of me, and sadly, neither did the UK education system. British IT lessons back then revolved around Microsoft Word and MS Paint, teaching kids how to copy and paste text, or doodle ducks using a mouse cursor. Back then, if you wanted to know more about the potential a PC unlocks, you'd have to look elsewhere.

Back then, there was very little out there designed to educate kids specifically on coding, design, and so on. Luckily, there was one program that had the ability to teach kids the basics of programming, alongside graphic design, web development, and even the earliest forms of social media in one sublime package. That package was Flash, back then owned by Macromedia, later bought out by Adobe. Everything I learned through Flash is probably what led me here to Windows Central today, writing this for all you lovely people.

This is my tribute to Flash, and how the humble format changed my life forever.

Discovering Web 1.0 as a kid

The web was a simpler place back in the late 90s. There wasn't really any social media. There was no YouTube, no Netflix, no Disney+. There was a handful of websites that leveraged Flash to create content for kids, though.

One such website was Neopets.com, which still exists today. Back then, Neopets had a bunch of Flash-based games and services for kids. It was effectively like a Pokemon MMO for the web, with collectible magical pets, battling, trading systems, messaging, and other mini-games. The service was popular at my school among kids who'd rather slack off in IT lessons than learn, again, how to copy and paste.

I noticed that some kids' profiles on the site had unique styling that broke the website's layout, to give their small slice of the web a unique look. Neopets had a guide on how to use HTML to create unique profile formatting, and I was stunned to discover that its guide is still live to this day, largely unchanged. LissaExplains.com is another great resource I used to learn basic CSS concepts for framing websites.

It wasn't long after learning how to hack my Neopets profile that I realized I could apply the things I'd learned to make my own website, but what content would I have? How would I make the graphics?

Back then, entire websites were set up using Flash alone. These were mostly static brand pages that didn't need frequent content updates or strict SEO policies, but for a beginner, learning how to string "pages" together with clickable buttons was incredibly easy to do in Flash.

When not on Neopets, I frequented websites like Newgrounds.com, which remains the world's largest repository of Flash-based games and cartoons. Already in love with video games and inspired by Newgrounds and websites like Stickdeath.com (RIP), I set about creating my very own Flash "game," where you'd choose how to kill a stickman in various grisly ways.

Running a Flash-based website

My first cartoon "Stick Death Showcase," re-uploaded to YouTube, with 400K views.

Content portals based around Flash Player like Newgrounds and Stickdeath.com spawned an entire subculture of stickman-based cartoons, lovingly nicknamed stickdeath. Stickmen were simply easier to animate, particularly for those who didn't have expensive drawing tablets. While there were pretty great guides on HTML, I don't recall using any online help for learning to animate. It was simply a case of viewing cartoons frame-by-frame in a local Flash player, using the arrow keys to slowly scrub through the video, to learn how to animate on a trial-and-error basis.

The community around stickdeath and Newgrounds would spawn careers for all sorts of people. Rob DenBleyker and Dave McElfatrick were both stickdeath animators before creating the blockbuster webcomic and animated series Cyanide and Happiness, over at Explosm.net. Before becoming one of YouTube's biggest creative teams, Smosh was a Flash cartoon community. Others like Felix Massie, legendary in the community for icantcolourin, achieved professional success in the animation industry. The biggest and best, Newgrounds.com, exists to this day, with archives bursting with decades of cartoons from the early 00s and beyond. Its creator Tom Fulp would later make the smash hit indie Xbox game Castle Crashers.

Alas, as you might've guessed, I didn't make it as an animator. Some of my earliest cartoons like the Stick Death Showcase, Assorted Mishaps, and Excuse2Animate found their way onto YouTube, reuploaded by nostalgic stick death fans (cheers, by the way). But as adulthood set in, attention spans waned. Some of those cartoons took literally months of painstaking doodling to create, all using a trackball mouse. I found that my blog posts on my cartoon site often got more hits than my animations while taking a fragment of the time and effort to make.

Flash is dead, long live Flash

The last Flash cartoon I ever made, all the way back in 2007.

I didn't become a famous animator, but the skills I learned while mastering Flash have provided for me a skillset that has helped me find work that my crumbling inner-city school simply couldn't. I was a rough environment that wasn't fit for purpose. It was featured in BBC News for its rat infestation, asbestos problem, and overflowing classes, with upwards of 45 students per teacher. It has since been rebuilt, but that doesn't exactly help me or the class of '05.

School might have failed me, but the worldwide web didn't. Before joining Windows Central I worked as a general IT guy for a small group of charities, building websites and making graphics, using skills self-taught thanks to those early years inspired by Flash. Cartoons are a historically engaging medium for youngsters, and all of the ActionScript practices, graphic design skills, and web building knowledge required just came along naturally. Flash was the perfect tool for me, and many others who couldn't gel with mainstream education.

It might seem strange to be nostalgic for a web video type, but I feel like I owe so much of my career to that format. It would've felt stranger still to simply ignore its passing. Adobe Flash Player will officially die on December 31st, 2020, as Adobe ends the distribution of the format and its security updates.

The Adobe Flash creation tools already became Adobe Animate and focuses on modern formats and video, with the same rich animation tools of its predecessors. Web-based cartoons will live on in much more secure and efficient formats fit for the modern web. Either way, I for one won't forget the legacy of contributions Flash Player gave to the wider web, nor myself personally. Cheers Flash.

What you need to know

• Adobe rolled out the final release of Flash Player.
• Flash Player will no longer be supported after December 31, 2020.
• Flash content will be blocked from Flash Player starting January 12, 2021.

Adobe Flash Player officially falls out of support at the end of this year. We've known about Flash Player's end of support for some time, but Adobe officially rolled out the final release of Flash Player earlier this week.

After December 31, 2020, Adobe will no longer support Flash Player. Starting on January 12, 2021, Flash content will be blocked from playing on Flash Player by Adobe. Apart from within Mainland China, Flash Player will be completely out of support soon.

Adobe expressed gratitude for those who supported Flash Player over the years in its recent release notes:

Flash Player is an older technology that's less secure than alternatives such as HTML5, WebGL, and WebAssembly. It's had a long run and helped shape the web, but it's riding off into the sunset after years of being a core component of the web.

An Adobe blog post from earlier this year outlines some options that are available for enterprises that still need support, including working with HARMAN to transition to alternate technologies.

What you need to know

• Microsoft released an optional, manual update for Windows that kills Adobe Flash.
• The update comes ahead of a wider rollout through Windows Update expected in 2021.
• The update is available via the Microsoft Update Catalog now.

Microsoft this week started laying the groundwork for killing Adobe Flash on Windows. The company released an update on the Microsoft Update Catalog that removes Adobe Flash Player from Windows systems (via Bleeping Computer). The update comes ahead of Adobe Flash's retirement at the end of 2020.

"We are releasing this removal update in advance of end of support to help customers test and validate their environments for any impact that might occur by the removal of Adobe Flash Player," Microsoft said in a support article accompanying the update. "Also, if another security update for Adobe Flash Player is released, customers who take this removal update will still be offered the security update."

Microsoft is officially set to end support for Adobe Flash with its retirement at the end of 2020. December 2020 marks the end of Flash security updates for Internet Explorer 11 and Microsoft Edge (legacy). The new Microsoft Edge will lose Flash Player in January 2021.

This update's arrival lines up with a timeline Microsoft released earlier this year concerning Flash's removal. Under that plan, this update was scheduled to become available in fall 2020. Going forward, Microsoft expects to offer it as an optional update via Windows Update in "early 2021."

The update will move to "recommended" status a few months after it is introduced through Windows Update. In the summer of 2021, Microsoft says it will remova all APIs, group policies, and user interfaces that "specifically govern the behavior of Adobe Flash Player" from Microsoft Edge (legacy) and Internet Explorer 11."

For now, this update is available to manually install via the Microsoft Update catalog. It applies to all versions of Windows 10, along with Windows Server 2016 and 2012, and Windows 8.1.

What you need to know

• Microsoft outlines the end of support for Adobe Flash Player in a new blog post.
• Microsoft's browser will end support for Adobe Flash Player at the end of 2020.
• Adobe Flash Player is being replaced by more secure technologies.

Microsoft shared an update today on the end of support for Adobe Flash Player. Microsoft already announced that support for Adobe Flash Player would end in December 2020, but a new blog post from the company outlines how enterprise users can get continued support. It also provides a more exact timeline of how support will end.

Adobe Flash Player is less secure than alternatives such as HTML5, WebGL, and WebAssembly. Both the legacy version of Microsoft Edge and the new Microsoft Edge will lose support for Adobe Flash Player at the end of 2020. Additionally, Internet Explorer 11 will lose Adobe Flash support at the end of the year.

While many sites have already migrated away from Adobe Flash Player, some enterprises still rely on it. Enterprise customers can contact Adobe's official partner, HARMAN, if they still need support for Adobe Flash Player beyond the end of 2020. Adobe discusses this further in a blog post.

Microsoft will remove all APIs, group policies, and user interfaces that "specifically govern the behavior of Adobe Flash Player" from Microsoft Edge (legacy) and Internet Explorer 11 through a Cumulative Update in the summer of 2021, as outlined in its blog post.

What you need to know

• Online gaming platform Kongregate has stopped accepting new titles.
• Many of the site's social features will be disabled by July 22.
• The moves are tied to the discontinuation of Adobe Flash Player at the end of the year.

Kongregate shared a blog post today annoucing that it will no longer be accepting new titles on Kongregate.com and that it will stop adding badges to existing games. Players will continue to have access to the platform's library of 128,000 games, which can still be updated by their developers.

The platform will also be be closing all chat rooms not associated with a specific game and all but about 20 of the game-specific rooms. Some non-gaming forums such ass Off Topic and Serious Discussions will be entirely removed and most of the other forums will be moved to read-only. Administrators will be able to make announcements, but replies will not be allowed. The forums for Kongregate's games will not be affected. New accounts will also require a verified email address. All of these changes will be implemented by July 22.

The announcement come as the company, which launched in 2006, prepares for the discontinuation of Adobe Flash Player at the end of 2020. While Kongregate has worked to diversify by opening the Kartridge digital storefront and releasing mobile games, many of the titles on Kongregate.com still rely on Flash.

The blog post warned that Kongregate will be primarily focused on developing games going forward, but said that the support team will still "do their best to help players experiencing in-game issues." Several employees posted on Twitter that they have been laid off.

Adobe has announced that it is finally preparing to pull the plug on one of the most maligned names across the internet: Flash. The company says that it will stop updating and distributing Flash Player by the end of 2020.

In addition to Adobe's announcement, Microsoft took to a separate post to outline its plans in the lead-up to Flash's demise. Specifically, for Internet Explorer and Microsoft Edge, Microsoft will gradually phase out support for Flash over the next few years, culminating in dropping support entirely in 2020. From Microsoft:

• Through the end of 2017 and into 2018, Microsoft Edge will continue to ask users for permission to run Flash on most sites the first time the site is visited, and will remember the user's preference on subsequent visits. Internet Explorer will continue to allow Flash with no special permissions required during this time.
• In mid to late 2018, we will update Microsoft Edge to require permission for Flash to be run each session. Internet Explorer will continue to allow Flash for all sites in 2018.
• In mid to late 2019, we will disable Flash by default in both Microsoft Edge and Internet Explorer. Users will be able to re-enable Flash in both browsers. When re-enabled, Microsoft Edge will continue to require approval for Flash on a site-by-site basis.
• By the end of 2020, we will remove the ability to run Adobe Flash in Microsoft Edge and Internet Explorer across all supported versions of Microsoft Windows. Users will no longer have any ability to enable or run Flash.

Microsoft's plan lines up with other similar plans by Google, Mozilla and Apple — all of which have already begun limiting Flash to some extent in their browsers.

Despite its role in bringing rich content to the web, Flash has faded out of favor over time as it has gained a reputation for security woes and its impact on battery life. At the same time, other standards, such as HTML5, have become widely supported and adopted. Flash is still widely used across certain portions of the web, but a 2020 end-of-life date should ensure an ample transition period.

Just a week after delaying its usual monthly Patch Tuesday updates for February, Microsoft has issued a critical Adobe Flash Player fix for Windows.

Rated critical Windows 8.1, Windows RT 8.1, Windows 10 and Windows Server 2016, the update includes patches released by Adobe last week. However, because Flash Player is included with Internet Explorer and Microsoft Edge, any fix from Adobe has to be distributed from Microsoft via Windows Update to cover its browsers. According to the patch notes, this patch fixes security issues that could allow remote code execution by an attacker.

Usually these types updates would arrive on the second Tuesday of the month, otherwise known as Patch Tuesday. However, in an unusual move, Microsoft delayed the monthly batch of updates over a "last minute issue." Microsoft latest clarified that this month's updates would arrive with next month's planned Patch Tuesday updates on March 14.

Microsoft has announced that it will soon start blocking outdated versions of Adobe Flash Player from running in Internet Explorer on Windows 7. Specifically, the company will start using its ActiveX control blocking feature to prevent web pages from loading content with outdated Flash controls on October 11.

From Microsoft:

Starting on October 11, 2016, we're expanding the out-of-date ActiveX control blocking feature to include outdated versions of Adobe Flash Player. This update notifies you when a Web page tries to load a Flash ActiveX control older than (but not including):

• Adobe Flash Player version 21.0.0.198
• Adobe Flash Player Extended Support Release version 18.0.0.241

It's important to note that this only applies to Internet Explorer 11 running on Windows 7 SP1 or Windows Server 2008 R2. If you're running Windows 8.1, Windows 10 or Windows Server 2012R2, you'll remain unaffected since Windows Update automatically installs important Flash updates.

If you're curious, Microsoft has provided a running list of outdated ActiveX controls that it is blocking, including older versions of Java and Silverlight.

Microsoft is pushing out an unscheduled update Windows 10 to fix a "critical" security issue that was discovered this week Adobe Flash Player.

According to Adobe's support page, the company discovered a large number of security bugs in Flash "that could potentially allow an attacker to take control of the affected system." One of these security bug has already been reported as being exploited.

Because Windows 10 embeds Adobe Flash in its Microsoft Edge web browser, the company is pushing out the update on its own. The company is doing the same for Internet Explorer 11 for Windows 8.1, which also embeds Flash in the browser. All other versions of Windows need to manually download the latest version of Flash to get the security updates.

Adobe may have let it slip on its forums that it will no longer pursue development of Flash 10.1 for Windows Mobile 6.5. The question was asked about the availability of Adobe Flash 10.1 and a forum member, that some are identifying as a Adobe representative replied, "As for WinMo, we have made the tough decision to defer support for that platform until WinMo7. This is due to the fact that WinMo6.5 does not support some of the critical APIs that we need."  The same representative also mentions that the HD2 will be first Windows Phone to support Flash.

If Adobe doesn't plan on continuing development towards WM 6.5, instead will focus on WP7S and the first Windows Phone to run Flash will be the HTC HD2 ... could this add more credence to the thought that the HD2 might be upgradeable to Windows Phone 7 Series? Or are we stretching things a wee bit too much?

Read: Electronista.com