It’s official and it’s unavoidable. Google will eventually cancel all Chrome support for Adobe’s Flash by the end of this year.

In addition, Apple, Microsoft, and Mozilla will no longer treat Flash as a welcome guest on their web browsers. So, the good old Flash has to pack its bags and hit the road by the end of 2016. Why?

Houston, we have a problem, and the name of our problem is – Flash.

So, what went wrong? It turned out that Flash was the true El Dorado for all kinds of cyber-thieves and hackers, who exploited its security vulnerabilities shamelessly and restlessly.

It has been only a matter of time before the IT giants are going to say – enough is enough. The next thing you know, Adobe Flash is gone! Nowadays, if you want to enjoy the multimedia content, you have to embrace the alternatives, such as HTML5, among others.

What does Adobe plan to do about it?

Well, it’s no surprise that Adobe just couldn’t afford itself a luxury of watching silently its “baby” being treated badly.

This is how we’ve ended up with the next big thing called the “Adobe Edge.” Basically, this will allow multimedia pros to be creative without the Flash itself.

Instead, they can take the full advantage of HTML5, JavaScript, or CSS. Great! Problem solved. Let’s enjoy the Adobe Flash-free world. Well, that’s not entirely true.

What’s going to happen with the professionals of the design world?

Flash Fools and Annotation Tools.

Here’s a simple truth every designer knows all too well. If you want to use the most common annotation tools, then you have to use Flash.

All annotation tools are based on Flash. Are they?

Well, the WebProof development team from the very beginning didn’t want to be Flash dependent. That’s why they developed annotation tools that aren’t based on it.

If you are a helpless Flash addict, no one can prevent you from using it. However, under these new circumstances playing their stubborn games is just like building your castles in the air. Sooner or later, you will have to accept the fact that Adobe Flash lost its throne and it’s gone, for good.

So, there’s a way to run a creative and productive design process with no Flash. WebProof’s math was quite a simple one. We didn’t want for our development to have a single thing in common with the Adobe Flash itself.

So, why in the world we would allow the same thing to happen to our customers? We are in this one together, and we say: don’t give up on annotation tools because they won’t give up on you.

Annotation tools have a new best friend, and it is – WebProof.

Other links about same subject:
Adobe description about this problem already in 2011.
Ricky Mondello article from 14. June 2016
Computerworld article from 20. June 2016, (use the translation function, it is in Danish)
BBC News from 16. May 2016, Chrome stop supporting Flash end 2016