24 Years of Adobe Flash: We knew ye

                        Hello internet, my name is FireTechFilmer and this is my first post on the BenTechCode Blog. Today I will be talking about our dear friend, Adobe Flash. Most of us have encountered flash, whether it be in the form of flash games or other content such as school presentations or videos. For the lesser part of 24 years Adobe Flash has been a staple of the Web and a precursor to the modern-day PWA's (Progressive web apps). Sadly, Adobe Flash will reach EOL (End-of-Life) on December 31, 2020. Flash has had many pluses and deltas over the years, along with a death that will not be in vain. Let's dig into it. 

Troubles

                       Like any piece of technology, Adobe Flash was never perfect. One flaw of flash was that due to it being a proprietary piece of technology, meaning that web developers would have to pay to use it in the construction of their content.

Editors Note: The following paragraph was written by BenTechCoder because of his love and hate of flash games, Enjoy!

So, flash games...where do I start? Flash games were one of the most popular ways to make games for the web with websites such as Lego.com and so many, just so many, school/educational websites that used games to teach math and other topics. The biggest hurdle was installing the flash plugin and while the tech blogger that I am today could probably do it in 2 minutes 5-year-old me struggled heavily with going to adobe's website and downloading the product. 

I was taught from an early age never to download anything from Web because it could have a virus, that just made it even harder. Whilst the youth of today are used to interfaces such as the Google Play Store and Apple App Store flash had no such place to live. You downloaded an executable file that was an installer that then installed the plugin, from that point you just opened a flash website and it just worked, well kind of. It doesn't sound like much, but it was ridiculously hard and scary for a 5-year-old me who still didn't really understand Android. For the rest of people, it could still be cumbersome but for most it was just a normal Windows installer.

Now in the triumphs sections I will detail some of the best flash games I ever played and my good memories but mixed in are also some terrible, buggy, and just flat-out bad flash games and apps. Sometimes the game would crash the browser, sometimes the game would freeze to oblivion never to unfreeze until the tab was either closed or refreshed, and sometimes the Game just didn't look good. 

I understand that developers had extremely limited options when designing games for the web and respect those who used flash, but as time went on the Web got better. PWA's and Web apps technologies in general have gotten better than flash and fixed its problems, much more reliable and much easier to use. Flash games were an overall failure that amounted to a proof-of-concept, flash games were a precursor to the web game masterpieces such as geo-fs that push the web to its limits.

Back to your regularly scheduled blog post.....

 
Another issue would be its security issues. These security issues would later be the cause for Adobe to announce that is would discontinue the Flash Player Plugin in the year 2020. An example of Flash being a security risk would be the fact that in 2010 tech giants Adobe and Google collaborated to move Flash into a sandbox within chrome. This sandbox would ultimately serve the purpose of better protecting the plug-in from attacks. This was because Flash was a huge target for hackers. In fact, Adobe had to push out many patches to better protect its product. Flash's security reasons were also the reason that Apple pulled it out of the operating system for one of its most important products. 

 
 

Along with its security issues, Flash is no longer in its prime and is clearly showing its age. An example of this would be the fact that nowadays Adobe struggles with more complicated content production. This has led to the sandboxing of Flash within many major browsers. Clearly the end of Flash had been in the works for many years. 

Triumphs

Editors Note: The following paragraph was written by BenTechCoder because of his love and hate of flash games, Enjoy!

So, flash games.... where do I start? This is less about the quality or the technicality of Flash games it's more about the experience and how they shaped my childhood. I remember constantly waiting for my school break to head over to lego.com to play the simple games such as a simple superman game or a dino hunter game or something else of the genre. 

They were simple games that were based on a high score with no real story or rewards. Then came the quest for R2-D2, this was one of the first flash games I had ever seen that I wouldn't have minded being a level on the next Lego Star Wars game for my DS. It had the usual storyline that was typical of any Lego games, RD-D2 had a piece of random clone wars intel and you chose to either be Asaji Ventress or Anakin Skywalker to... well, rescue R2-D2. 

The game was fluid, fast (when it worked), and had respectable graphics for a Web Game. The blaster bolts, the lightsaber swings, it was a quality game. I had as much fun playing this game as I had playing the real Lego Star Wars games on real consoles.  It was such an important part of my childhood that just wouldn't have been possible without Adobe Flash.  

 

This led me to question how many others had that one game that shaped their childhood, that one website they appreciated like Lego.com was to me. None of it would have been possible without Adobe Flash, and for that I'm eternally grateful. 

Back to your regularly scheduled blog post.....

Along with flash games, another win for Flash would be that this technology worked well with other web browsers. Flash's ability to work well with videos and animations also made it a popular choice for web building.  

Your Death will not be in Vain

As mentioned before, Flash will meet its end on December 31, 2020. That date might be today, or maybe tomorrow, depending on the publishing of this article. Regardless, Flash has served its purpose to the world. Its purpose was to be the tool that was used to create animations and content for a variety of browsers. 

 

Despite having flaws such as security issues and struggling with more modern content, flash did have its pros. These pros were its compatibility with many browsers and its popularity. 

Flash has paved the road for others to replace it. Flash offered us so much these past years, such as awesome flash games and being used to construct websites. It's been an honor living beside you flash, we'll never forget you. 

Best, FireTechFilmer

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