Adobe is preparing to end-of-life its popular animation and sometime game development tool Flash with updates and releases of its Flash Player set to stop in 2020.

According to Adobe, Flash has largely become obsolete due to the rise of other open-source technologies and plugins. HTML5, WebGL, and WebAssembly are all cited as much wider-used than Flash.

Winding down

The company has said it will continue to support Flash Player with security updates and maintaining compatibility until its eventual end date. It will be working with its major partners such as Apple and Google to ensure the security of its plugin.

Adobe will also be working to more aggressively end-of-life Flash in markets where unlicensed and outdated versions of Flash Player are still being distributed. It is unclear if this means certain regions will lose Flash before 2020.

On mobile, this is unlikely to make any difference. Steve Jobs famously slammed Flash Player in 2010 when explaining why it wasn't being used on iOS, and it was dropped from Android in 2012.