DECEMBER 2020 PCWorld 127Microsoft provides patches for various Windows platforms at go.pcworld.com/misp.
Adobe Flash Player would be shelved by the
end of 2020. Adobe said at the time that
enough progress had been made within
open web standards like HTML5 that it was
time to phase out Flash.
With that date almost upon us, Microsoft
is readying Edge (both the new and legacy
versions) as well as Internet Explorer to ditch
Flash once and for all. On December 31,
Microsoft will begin applying this patch (or
something like it) whether you’re ready or not.
There’s one exception: Enterprises that
depend on Adobe Flash for some legacy
application will be allowed to run it via the
Internet Explorer mode feature within Edge,
but without Microsoft support.
Microsoft does allow a little leeway in case
you install the Flash-killing patch, then later
change your mind. One solution involves
creating a Windows restore point, then
restoring your PC to a point before the patch
was installed. Alternatively, users could
reinstall the Windows operating system
entirely, and choose not to install the update
after doing so.
Holding onto legacy Flash code so that
you can access Flash archives of art and
games like Newgrounds.com has become
less important as time goes on, and as
emulators have been developed. In 2019, for
example, Newgrounds said that it is helping
design a browser extension to play Flash in the
browser via emulation, through a technology
developed by Ruffle.rs (go.pcworld.com/rfls).
The site said then that it is first working to
cover animated content, then games.