Adobe Flash Player's final release rolling out before its end of support

Flash Player support ends as 2020 wraps up, and Flash content will be blocked in early 2021.

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:

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.

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.