Microsoft outlines end of support for Adobe Flash Player

Microsoft Edge
Microsoft Edge (Image credit: Windows Central)

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.

Sean Endicott
News Writer and apps editor

Sean Endicott brings nearly a decade of experience covering Microsoft and Windows news to Windows Central. He joined our team in 2017 as an app reviewer and now heads up our day-to-day news coverage. If you have a news tip or an app to review, hit him up at sean.endicott@futurenet.com.