Adobe Decommissioning Flash Player Download Links this Month (UPDATE)

Adobe is finally taking the action many has wanted for some time. The company announced that it will start decommissioning Flash Player links on Sept. 29. Many providers have already ditched the unsecured platform and Adobe is finally caving to market pressure.

Over on the official download page for the Flash Media component, Adobe has added a warning. The red text clearly tells us that the company is shuttering the page and links on the 29^th. That means general users will not be able to download the service after that date.

However, some organizations still rely on Flash Player. For those customers, a special distribution license will be required. This license will help organizations distribute the media player internally for their apps.

“Organizations that distribute Adobe Flash Player internally must have a valid license and AdobeID to download and distribute Flash Player binaries.”

Changing Times

Last month, Google announced it will be removing all traces of Flash from the Chrome browser. The company will begin the cull in September and will have removed Flash entirely by December. Google has already disabled all Flash-based ads on Chrome since last year.

Flash was once the de facto multimedia software platform. It was the underpinning of huge amounts of content and reigned supreme in the internet space. However, in recent years Flash has become increasingly vulnerable.

While Microsoft has not been as drastic with its Edge browser, the company has taken action against Flash. In April Microsoft rolled out new performance controls for users to manage Flash better. At the same time the company said that web designers should be moving towards more modern solutions.

In August, the company came back with improved security measures against Flash. The player now update automatically inside of edge, and also be contained in a separate AppContainer. Surely it is only a matter of time before Microsoft removes Flash support entirely.

UPDATE: It seems Adobe is still making Flash Player available through other link sources. The company sent out a statement after we and other outlets misinterpreted the decommissioning warning.

The company says it is rearranging some of its pages. In a statement, a spokeswoman said “The warning message shown in your article was done by the Flash team as a courtesy for people who may have bookmarked the soon-to-be outdated URL”.

Also, thanks to mola2alex for a similar heads up on the situation.