As you may or may not be aware Adobe made an announcement earlier this week that it has set an official timeline for the funeral of Flash. You can grab the full details here from the Adobe blog. What needs to be understood is this – as of the end of 2020, Adobe will end support and distribution of Flash.
"as of the end of 2020, Adobe will end support and distribution of Flash."
On July 25, 2017 Adobe announced 2020 as a definitive end-of-life for Flash.
Adobe made this announcement along with many of it’s partners such as Google, Apple, Mozilla and Facebook with the intention that any video/applications/games etc. that are currently operating in a Flash environment will have time to migrate to another format.
Until the end of 2020 Adobe will continue to fulfill it’s obligations by providing updates, patches etc. in order to ensure Flash is secure and compatible with different operating systems and browsers. Adobe Flash is still used on prominent websites such as YouTube.com, Facebook.com, Yahoo.com and Amazon.com.
"Until the end of 2020 Adobe will continue to fulfill it’s obligations by providing updates, patches etc."
What does this mean for Flip Page clients?
We have stated multiple times in recent blogs that Flash based content is in steady decline. That said, some of our publications are currently using the Flash viewer or interface for displaying paginated content (read about our different viewers or interfaces here). Although technically there is a 3 year window before a change would be required we are suggesting that all of our clients begin transitioning to the HTML5 interface. The many benefits of the HTML5 viewer can be found here but to summarize the most important benefits;
1. A singular and consistent interface and reading experience for users on all devices
2. The transition away from a software with a stated end-of-life
How do you transition from Flash to HTML5?
Any of our full-service clients are already receiving the HTML5 versions of their publications based on our recommendation. For self-service clients who are not currently publishing in HTML5 it is as simple as selecting the HTML5 option from the dropdown menu when setting up a new issue.
Although the decision has not been made to date it can be expected that as the end-of-life for Adobe Flash nears we will transition all publications, including archives, to the HTML5 version to prevent any disruption.
Please contact your representative if you have any additional comments or questions regarding this announcement from Adobe!