No more Adobe Flash on Windows! Microsoft is finally bidding adieu to Adobe Flash – once the widely used flash player for displaying rich content like animation, video, audio and more.
According to the latest media reports, the Redmond, Washington-based tech giant, is planning to fully remove Adobe Flash from Windows 10 and its upcoming versions via the rollout of a set of phased software updates in the summer.
In the updated blog post, Microsoft has outlined two main update paths that the company will take related to the removal of Flash from its Windows 10 operating system.
The first would be a cumulative update which will be rolled out within two months. After that, the other would be via the OS version upgrade to Windows 10 21H1. But that’s not all. For all Windows users who are on older operating systems, Microsoft hasn’t forgotten about you.
The company will make available the Adobe Flash removal update for Windows 8.1, Windows Server 2012 and Windows Embedded 8 Standard as well. Now, that being said, the upcoming Microsoft update will only remove Flash installed originally by Windows and not be able to remove the software installed from other third party sources.
Nonetheless, if you are someone who wants to uninstall Flash installed from other sources, you can check out this help page for more details on how to go about it. The upcoming Flash removal update has been named quite straightforwardly.
It is being called the Windows 10 “Update for Removal of Adobe Flash Player”. The update is the latest in what will be a long-running series of various changes that are soon to come to Windows 10 in order to completely eliminate Adobe Flash.
Microsoft has also begun removing Flash from its Edge browser as several other major browser players have also dropped support. This move makes a lot of sense, given Adobe itself has also ceased to support Flash officially as of 2020.
Moreover, one must also note that it is important to uninstall Adobe Flash because it can help threat actors exploit several security vulnerabilities associated with the software.
Also, the Maze ransomware, one of the most active ransomware families, are able to exploit the security shortcoming in Adobe Flash. So, if you are still guessing, your PC/laptop would be far better off with Flash uninstalled.
But then again, while software markers are in a rush to drop support for Flash, there exist some who are currently busy trying to save up thousands of old games and animations built on the Adobe Flash functionality.
All in all, the death of Adobe Flash is inevitable, and Microsoft has simply taken one step closer in the same direction. The software will soon be wiped off and be sent into oblivion as better ones have already replaced it for quite some time. We will keep you updated on all future developments. Until then, stay tuned.
