End of Life Adobe Flash

Microsoft officially published on their website that Adobe Flash will not be supported as from 31 December 2020. This news was published on the 9 September 2019, giving people over a year to prepare for the conversions needed from Adobe Flash to html 5 on their sites. Adobe Flash end of support on December 31, 2020

In layman's terms, the Adobe flash plug-in that majority browsers currently cater for will no longer be supported. Those quirky little ads, games, snippets and videos that you have marked in your favourites, will alas, no longer work. Instead you will get that dreaded flash icon, or just a blank, white, empty, hollow space where there once was fun filled memories of clicking Lenny Loose Jocks across your Internet Browsers.

The impact of Adobe Flash coming to end of life 31 December 2020 is that if any of your site content is based and built on and around Adobe flash, it will no longer work. Talk about a Y2K scenario if you are not prepared!

Adobe Flash started its slow downward slope when the legendary Steve Jobs brought Apple to mobile devices. Steve strongly believed in using HTML, CSS and JS as the way forward, and believed that Flash would lose popularity in the future. Cheers Mr Jobs!

The biggest industries to be hit by Flash being trashed is unfortunately the educational sector. So many educational websites with such amazing content that inspire little minds to learn everyday, are purely built on Flash!

With educational games and content being my absolute passion, this makes me sad and really hope that these sectors are prepared, or atleast start preparing for this knock that was predicted in the middle of the 2010 era.

Adobe Flash to HTML 5 conversion TODO list

Don't leave it to the last minute like a year 12 student before finals! You need to get on top of updating your web content before the cut off date. And I am not only talking about 1 or 2 months ahead of time, start planning now!

You need to ask yourself these questions:

• Is my content worth updating to HTML 5, or would it be wiser to scrap it?
• How much content is needing updates ?
• Should I upgrade or do a total new revamp of my content I.E: Start from scratch.

This could be a good time to do some house cleaning, buy new curtains, change your colour schemes, modernise your content. If you have the financial capability, throw out those 1980’s polka dots, and bring in the twenty first century glitz and glamour!

What Conversion choices do you have?

• There are tools that are widely available on the internet that take your flash project files and directly convert it to HTML 5. They make it sound as if its a foolproof solution that is as easy as pie!
  Well, from having personal experiences of Flash to HTML 5 conversions, this is not the truth!
  As always in development, there will always, and I mean ALWAYS, be problems. So if you are adimont on using these tools, maybe test it one by one, test on all platforms I.E mobile, desktop, tablets etc etc before moving onto the next one. There is nothing more frustrating than spending hours on “converting” all your content, thinking its working, to then realise hours later nothing worked!

• Another way to go is to use tools that strip out the images, audio, video’s etc and rebuild it with gaming engines similar to Construct 2, Construct 3, Unity, (Although unity does not build for HTML5 but only WebGL at the moment.)
  One of the tools that I have used for this exact task is : SWF-Extractor. It got the job done, and I could easily recreate the flash games that were tasked to me to HTML 5.
  With having all the assets readily available after extracting them, the content can be remade and published as HTML 5 content on your site. FYI the iFrame tag is used to embed content into a site.

• Some companies convert their flash content with in-house tools that they have developed for the purposes of creating HTML 5 content. My opinion on in-house engines is if you have the cash flow and team, then great, create another engine, otherwise use what's already out there.

Once all the number punching, extracting, and questions are answered, the final question would be; Who is going to do the work? There are hundreds of companies that offer this service remotely. No need for office space rentals, new hires, and extra coffee cups. If a reliable remote freelancer, or company caters for your needs, then why not! This will take some research and meetings to find your preferred Adobe Flash to HTML 5 conversion team. Don't cut this process short, or be penny stingy here, this is your name on the line, and the wrong person or team hired can be as detrimental as not doing the conversion at all!

Talk is cheap, and a salesman stays a salesman. Try and get portfolio's, previous project examples and more than single worded answers! I.E research, research, research!

This article has now either stressed you out even more about the task on hand for the Adobe Flash to HTML 5 conversion, or it has helped you prepare of D-Day! I am hoping its the latter.

Credits

Adobe Flash End of Support
Removal of Adobe Flash from Microsoft Edge
Lenny-Loosejocks
History of Adobe Flash
Converting Flash to HTML 5