Goodbye Adobe Flash...

[Artman2004]

It's the beginning of a new year, but the end of Adobe Flash Player. Starting today, Adobe will pull the plug on Flash, and all your favorite Flash games and animations will be gone forever. (Unless you've downloaded Newgrounds Player of BlueMaxima's Flashpoint.)

 

Anyone want to say their last goodbyes?

[Taw Tu'lki]

Rest in peace

 

[MarsHappyNation]

I grew up with a really tight-knit community for a flash game making site so this hits especially hard. The memories I made during my 11 years there and the people I've gotten to know are beyond precious to me.

[Dark Pulse]

[printz]

Finally. I thought it was dead already. I guess this official event was quite overdue.

[Biodegradable]

2 hours ago, Artman2004 said:

Adobe will pull the plug on Flash, and all your favorite Flash games and animations will be gone forever.

 

If you're worried about any classic games or animations on Newgrounds you used to enjoy as a teenager then you have nothing to fear. They had prepared months in advance to archive and preserve everything from the past 20 years of its history and ported it all over onto their own designated player software. So anything you remember from Newgrounds back in the day is safe at the very least.

[CBM]

[song: Living Next Door To Alice - Smokie]

 

Oh, I don't know why flash is leaving (well ok, actually I do)
Or where flash is gonna go
I guess adobe got some reasons
But I just don't want to know
'Cos for twenty-four years (1996-2020)
I've been looking at animations made in adobe flash

Twenty-four years just waiting for a chance
To try using it and seeing how it feels, maybe get a second glance
Now I've got to get used to not looking at stuff made with Flash...

 

EDIT

 

all homestarrunner flash videoes are on an official youtube channel, so they are (kind of) safe as well (no interaction on youtube videos)

Edited January 1, 2021 by CBM

[ReaperAA]

1 hour ago, Biodegradable said:

If you're worried about any classic games or animations on Newgrounds you used to enjoy as a teenager then you have nothing to fear.

 

This begs the question. What is the best Flash player available right now. I only know about BlueMaxima's Flashpoint and this Newgrounds Flash player.

[Wadmodder Shalton]

I've bet that those fake Flash Player update scams would also disappear soon as well.

[Biodegradable]

Good ol' Mr Weebl put out a funny little video tribute.

 

 

[Wadmodder Shalton]

Apparently the only exception would likely be Mainland China due to the Chinese Government's lack of resources necessary to transition from aging HTML4, HTTP & Flash technologies to HTML5 & HTTPS, likely due to their internet censorship Firewall software & hardware being incompatible with HTML5 & HTTPS, and being incompatible with later versions of HTML5-based web browsers like Google Chrome or Microsoft Edge.

 

Here was the statement made mentioning Mainland China before Adobe pulled the plug on Flash Player yesterday:

Spoiler

Today marks the final scheduled release of Flash Player for all regions outside of Mainland China. We want to take a moment to thank all of our customers and developers who have used and created amazing Flash Player content over the last two decades. We are proud that Flash had a crucial role in evolving web content across animation, interactivity, audio, and video. We are excited to help lead the next era of digital experiences.

Adobe will no longer support Flash Player after December 31 2020, and Adobe will block Flash content from running in Flash Player beginning January 12 2021; Adobe strongly recommends all users immediately uninstall Flash Player to help protect their systems.

How much longer the Mainland Chinese version of Adobe Flash Player is going to be supported is up to debate, especially on Adobe's side of development.

 

Possible reasons why the Chinese Government doesn't want to spend the time, money and/or resources necessary to transition from aging HTML4, HTTP & Flash technologies are as follows:

- it costs too much money to maintain support

- it's difficult to develop for HTML5 & HTTPS, as there's barely any internet companies in China that allow HTTPS & HTML5

- not alot of professional coders in China to support HTML5 & HTTPS, unlike HTML4, HTTP & Flash

 

Those might be the reasons why Mainland China has more Adobe Flash services than in other countries. So therefore, the Chinese version of Adobe Flash Player will likely stay supported much longer (a few more years even) compared to the global vanilla version of Flash Player, but how much longer once again is up to debate.

 

Unfortunately, the Chinese version of Flash Player is commonly labeled by many Chinese internet users as rogue malware due to it's intrusive popups, so it is not recommended to use that version as a replacement to the global vanilla version of Flash Player.

[FractalBeast]

Given the historical importance of flashgames, I eagerly await the archival processes that will be coming.

[Dark Pulse]

1 hour ago, Wadmodder RiderPùdu said:

Possible reasons why the Chinese Government doesn't want to spend the time, money and/or resources necessary to transition from aging HTML4, HTTP & Flash technologies are as follows:

• The rich and powerful few at the top of the leadership don't give up that sweet yuan to make their citizens' lives better

That's all it really boils down to. "Socialism with Chinese Characteristics" indeed. Don't see much difference between that and Capitalist socieities, really - the rich have all the fucking money, the rest of us get whatever crumbs we're given. The only difference is that we can theoretically vote our assholes out every handful of years, whereas the CPC is the place to be for eternity.

[Wadmodder Shalton]

8 hours ago, Biodegradable said:

Good ol' Mr Weebl put out a funny little video tribute.

It is essentially the equivalent of the Nine Inch Nails song The Day The World Went Away

Spoiler

 

Spoiler

 

Such a shame that Apple opposed support from iOS since the beginning. With Flash Player finally EOL, it's very unlikely that Fur Affinity is going to integrate Ruffle.rs to their existing Flash projects anytime soon, or better yet, they just put all efforts on a Flash Player alternative in development hell and/or on hold until Ruffle.rs has complete ActionScript support.

Edited January 1, 2021 by Wadmodder RiderPùdu

[Wadmodder Shalton]

Also, Adobe stopped developing new features after the Early-2010s due to numerous security problems. But there are a few videos devoted to Adobe Flash after January 2021.

 

Here's a few of these videos:

So technically not all Flash animations & games are lost. But there are other Flash projects that were lost in time, even before Steve Jobs' Thoughts on Flash open letter was published in 2010, the announcement of Adobe Flash Player's End-of-life date in 2017, and the recent shutdown of Flash Player security updates in 2020-2021, due to not many preservation projects not existing at the time, and this predates the FlashPoint preservation project by a decade.

[Wadmodder Shalton]

Also, other browser plugins that had games or fewer were Microsoft's ill-fated Silverlight, Adobe's Atmosphere & Shockwave, Oracle's Java, Unity Web Player, 3DVia Player, 3D Groove, WildTangent's Web Driver, etc. There might be more browser plugins that had a few games released, but these are the ones that I am aware of.

[Lizardcommando]

I remember watching tons of flash cartoons at Newgrounds and eventually making my own shitty Flash cartoons, hosting them on my crappy Geocities page. Good memories.

Edited January 3, 2021 by Lizardcommando

[SilverIce]

 

[Nevander]

It's already been dead for years for me. Eventually I got tired of updating it and decided I'd just get rid of it for good. YouTube didn't need it at that point so why bother.

 

The only thing I did use it for was this obscure flash based gear calculator app for the first Borderlands game, for tweaking gear and making guns. I tried to download it and run it standalone but it never worked for some reason.

[MFG38]

Young me got so many hours worth of entertainment from all the Flash games on various sites.

 

Rest in peace, Flash. You'll be missed.

[ReaperAA]

There are people mourning over Flash's end of life.

 

And then there is me, playing Strike Force Heroes 2 on BlueMaxima's Flashpoint

[Wadmodder Shalton]

Just recently today, all Flash content has been blocked from the Flash Player plugin on nearly every web browser, meaning you have to use an older version that didn't include the timebomb feature or in rare cases modify the Flash Player files to remove the timebomb feature. Otherwise use the FlashPoint project for now.

Edited January 12, 2021 by Wadmodder RiderPùdu

[Woolie Wool]

On 1/1/2021 at 11:06 AM, Dark Pulse said:

• The rich and powerful few at the top of the leadership don't give up that sweet yuan to make their citizens' lives better

That's all it really boils down to. "Socialism with Chinese Characteristics" indeed. Don't see much difference between that and Capitalist socieities, really - the rich have all the fucking money, the rest of us get whatever crumbs we're given. The only difference is that we can theoretically vote our assholes out every handful of years, whereas the CPC is the place to be for eternity.

China is a capitalist society, as were the post-Stalinist "Eastern Bloc" countries before it. Just because the state owns most of the capital and many of the most important people wear different costumes from the "free market" world doesn't make capital cease to exist.

[Wadmodder Shalton]

Actually three places in China are not part of the Mainland region of that country. These are Hong Kong, Taiwan & Macau. Reasons for that is because they don't use the Mainland Chinese internet censorship & those places internet structures are completely different & independent from Mainland China, and therefore aren't victim to the Mainland Chinese version of Adobe Flash Player (which is available, even though the vanilla global version of Flash Player was blocked from playing Flash content today), which many Mainland Chinese users complain about that version being spyware and/or malware.

 

I even wonder, even though Adobe Flash has reached End-of-Life, Why is HTML5 difficult to develop for, even if it is cheap & an open standard?

[Wadmodder Shalton]

I wish to see a GMod memorial video paying tribute to Adobe Flash with characters from Valve's Games & Characters other video games during the early days of GMod machinima and maybe even a few modern Indie games giving condolences to Adobe Flash.

 

One would have to make a model for the Adobe Flash tombstone or modify the Soldier Statue from TF2 (the one that pays tribute to Rick May, The Voice Actor of Soldier who passed away last year) to feature the Adobe Flash logo on it.

 

Wish to see this video be made in GMod, if it ever gets made.