Now it’s over: Adobe stopped support for its Flash Player. With that the end of Flash has finally come. With the end of support from Adobe, some questions arise that we will answer for you.

Uninstall Flash Player I always get the message that the Flash Player will be released from 31. 12. 2020 is no longer maintained. What does this mean and what should I do?

It is best to uninstall Flash Player immediately. In theory, you could still use it. But since it no longer receives updates, it becomes an ever greater security risk on your system because security gaps are no longer closed.

If you use the If you really want to keep Flash Player, to be on the safe side, only run it on a system that is not connected to the Internet and only use Flash files from sources that you are absolutely sure of being serious.

Adobe is no longer developing the Flash Player and is discontinuing support. Since the middle 2020 a warning has appeared for users.

Adobe has also announced that the player will be released from the 12. January 2021 blocks the execution of Flash-based content.

Play videos Can I still play videos from media libraries and other platforms without any problems?

Adobe announced already in the year 2017 indicates that the end 2020 with the Flash Player is over because important system and browser manufacturers such as Apple and Google turned away from the Flash format at an early stage. Since then, browser and operating system manufacturers have worked to encourage web and game developers to switch to modern alternatives such as WebAssembly and HTML5.

Flash was never supported on iOS devices and YouTube already rose 2015 from Flash to HTML5, which greatly accelerated the decline of the format. The public broadcasters have meanwhile said goodbye to Flash, the ZDF around the year 2018.

Alternative Player What is with beautiful, interactive websites and Flash games?

If the Flash plug-ins have disappeared from the browsers, you can still play Flash content on other players. For example, there is a Flash player as an extension for the IrfanView image viewer. The newsgrounds game site has also released its own player. With Ruffle there is even a Flash emulator for the browser.

We are not aware of any security problems for these programs. In particular, and paradoxically at first glance, Ruffle is also more secure than the original: Ruffle is implemented in WebAssembly, a technology that all modern browsers can handle. Unlike the Flash plug-in, it runs in the browser sandbox, where emulated Flash content cannot cause any damage.

To read a Flash file with a player or To use Ruffle, you have to work out the Flash file from the website: You can find the URL of the Flash content by calling up the HTML code of the page. With Firefox and Chrome, select “Show page source text” in the context menu or the key combination Ctrl + U. Look in the source text for the link to a file with the extension .swf.,

If a complete path is given, e.g. in the form www. .de / [irgendwas] / [dateiname]. swf, you can enter this directly in the address line. If a relative path is given, so there is a reference to main.swf, for example on the site of the designer Jonathan Yuen, then you have to put the full path together: http://www.jonathanyuen.com/main.swf.

When you go directly to a SWF file, Chrome offers you to save them on the PC. Most of the time Firefox displays the Flash file as a long, jumbled string of characters. Save them via the menu “File / Save page as …”. Downloading Flash files and running them with a player worked for us in most cases, but not always. The method reaches its limits with Flash files that want to reload content.

Perhaps you are lucky and don’t have to tinker with your favorite game or animation at all to be able to use. The Internet Archive is dedicated to preserving Flash content. In his collection there is around 2000 hand-picked Flash content, which makes it playable with the emulator Ruffle even for modern browsers without Flash Player. Authors or collectors of Flash files are encouraged to add further exhibits to the collection.

Convert videos What about my private files?

If you have Flash videos, it’s best to convert them to a modern format with free converters like Movavi. Flash videos and interactive elements based on Flash can also be hidden in PDF documents: Examples of this are interactive transitions in older PDF presentations and navigation in older PDF portfolios that contain several individual documents. Embedded videos can no longer be played without a Flash player. The navigation in the PDF is less fancy, but it still works. Newer PDF documents with interactive elements use JavaScript instead of Flash.

Support in 2021 Our company still needs a while until all files are migrated.

Companies that use Flash Player over the year 2020, you can get information about further support options from Adobe partner Harman.

2 / 2021 In c’t 2 / 2021 take a look at the Glass ball and shed light on the IT trends of the coming years. You will learn how you can surf privately and securely, and which browser supports this particularly well. In the IT salary report, we examine whether the pandemic is a good job engine. We test multifunctional printers for the home office, show you how to protect your NAS from hacker attacks and introduce a universal Windows boot stick. You can read this and much more in c’t 2 / 2021. The issue will be available from January 1st 2021 in the Heise shop and at the well-stocked newspaper kiosk available.

(kim)