Flash Plugin

The Beginning

Flash was a new and exciting software for websites to get animations and games on their site. It allows the web to have more interactivity and make websites more appealing to users. It was the first step to adding design to websites and Flash was able to run on all computer and browsers, as long as the
y had the Flash Plugin installed. Flash guaranteed that the content would run the same for anyone who loaded it, regardless of the computer or browser they were using. After a while a computer would have to have the Flash Plugin because it was so common on websites. 

The Fall

The fall started by 2007 because Apple decided not to support the plugin when they introduced the Iphone, and about the same time, the fifth version of HTML was about to be released and would replace some of the functions that Flash did. After a while, websites started to use HTML 5 more than Flash, causing the fall of Flash. In 2010, Steve jobs wanted the Apple site to rely more on HTML 5. The biggest site still using Flash to today is Facebook, with their Flash games, they are attempting to change the browser games to be able to play on mobile but was given up by 2011. YouTube used to be run by Flash Player and was th ebest way to watch videos. HTML 5 was slowly taking over the web.

Adobe Software

In 2011, Adobe released a new software called Edge Animate, and it was the new way to create HTML 5 content. Also making HTML 5 the better solution for making content for browsers across mobile platforms. YouTube announced in 2015 that they were now going to be run play HTML 5 video player. A few months later, it was exploited that hackers were into the Flash Player and Facebook told Adobe that they had to set an "end-of-life" date for the plugin. They then discontinued Edge Animate at the end of 2015, and changed the name to "Animate CC".

Modern Flash

The last major company still using Flash to today is Facebook, over 650 million people are still playing the Flash-based games on the website. For years, Facebook as been trying to convert so that their games are playable on mobile devices, but was eventually given up in 2011. Google announced recently that they will be blocking Flash by default in Chrome, making it hard to play Flash games or watch Flash videos. Internet Archive websites are trying to save Flash Websites so that people can view Flash content before it goes extinct on the web. Today, people are still arguing over if Flash should be blocked on all platforms and browsers all together.