Adobe and Microsoft to Abandon FLASH in 80 Days

Adobe Flash is that wonderful product with origins dating back to 1996 and a company called Macromedia. Adobe bought the company in 2005 and has been paying for that mistake ever since.

I only half-jokingly talk about the morning security patches and then the afternoon security patches.

And, while Flash was useful in 1996, they is no reason for it to exist in 2020.

Which is why Adobe decided a couple of years about that they did not need to be the butt of the joke in the tech world any more.

Adobe said back then that they will no longer support a product which has had thousands of patches over the years after December 31, 2020.

Dogpiling on, Microsoft says that Edge will no longer load it’s integrated version of Flash after that date either, although you can revert back to Internet Explorer. Not sure what could go wrong if you do that.

So what does this mean to businesses?

There are a couple of scenarios:

#1 – You run a web site that still, after all this time, uses Flash.

After January 1, any users that are in a regulated industry (they are required to disable any software that is no longer supported by the vendor) and also any half way intelligent company that is not regulated will get a blank spot or blank page when they visit your web site.

#2 – Your users use a web site that still requires Flash

Again, if you are smart or following the rules (because you turned off Flash in their computers), your users will get a blank page or blank spot, depending how Flash is being used. This could impact your operations.

#3 – Your business partners or vendors are using Flash enabled web sites

This puts your data and your business at risk.

Given that there seem to be at least dozens of patches to Flash every month and sometimes multiple times a month, you cannot keep using it.

As a Band-Aid workaround, you could create a virtual machine that you require users to log into if they need access a Flash-enabled web site. Not very convenient, but at least it contains the damage.

So what do you need to do:

First, you need to disable and remove Flash from all of your machines now (disable first to see what breaks and uninstall by the end of the year).

Obviously, if you run a web site that uses Flash, you need to recode that site – two months is not a lot of time to do that. Most people have used standard HTML 5 features to replace Flash.

Last, you need to confirm that your vendors and business partners are not using Flash either. They should confirm in writing what their Flash exorcism plans are. Credit: Microsoft

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