Goodbye, Flash

“The end of an era”… that’s the title Microsoft used to announce it will stop supporting Flash in their web browsers. Flash is disabled by default in Chrome (starting in version 76), Microsoft Edge, and FireFox 69. Soon, we’ll also move on from Flash in indexing for Google Search.

Flash was the answer to the boring static web, with rich animations, media, and actions. It was a prolific technology that inspired many new content creators on the web. It was everywhere. The Flash runtime, which plays Flash content, was installed 500 million times in the second half of 2013.

I still remember my son playing endless number of Flash games until my wife yelled at him. It’s time to go to bed, son. Hey Flash, it’s your turn to go to bed.

Google Search will stop supporting Flash later this year. In Web pages that contain Flash content, Google Search will ignore the Flash content. Google Search will stop indexing standalone SWF files. Most users and websites won’t see any impact from this change.

Flash, you inspired the web. Now, there are web standards like HTML5 to continue your legacy.

Jalgayo /tʃɑlˈgɑjɔ/ (goodbye in Korean), Flash.

Posted by Dong-Hwi Lee, engineering manager, Google