Adobe to finally 'kill' Flash plug-in by 2020

Firm will end Flash because other technologies, such as HTML5 provide alternatives to the plug-in

Global software major Adobe Systems is planning to "kill" off its Flash Player plug-in, a software to play videos and games online, by the end of 2020.

"The firm had chosen to end Flash because other technologies, such as HTML5, have matured enough and are capable enough to provide viable alternatives to the Flash player," BBC reported on Tuesday, quoting Adobe's Vice President (Product development) Govind Balakrishnan.

Flash plug-in, that was acquired by Adobe in 2015, received tremendous criticism due to the flaws in its codes and its vulnerability that paved way for hackers to breach computer networks.

Further, HTML5 appeared as its tough rival which offered much of its functionality without much flaws.

"One of HTML5's benefits is that it can be used to make multimedia content available within webpages without requiring users to install and update a dedicated plug-in," the report noted.

One of the prime critics of Flash was late Steve Jobs who publicly raised concerns about its performance. Apple's iOS mobile devices do not support the plug-in.

"It fulfilled its promise for a while but it never saw the mobile device revolution coming and ultimately that's what killed it," Malcolm Barclay, who had worked on Flash in its early days, was quoted as saying.

Flash's usage on Google Chrome has fallen off dramatically. According to Google, it was used each day by 80 per cent of desktop users in 2014, but the current figure stands at just 17 per cent.

"This trend reveals that sites are migrating to open-web technologies, which are faster and more power-efficient than Flash," the report quoted Google as saying.

Google phased out full support for Flash software at the end of last year.

Balakrishnan said it did not expect the demise of Flash to affect profits at Adobe.

Adobe claims that the phasing out of Flash plug-in would not affect profits of the company.