Quick as a Flash

What Is Flash?

Everyone knows Flash. You probably have, even if you don't know it. Flash games dominate school computers, where sites like Coolmath Games and Miniclip are widely used. As a general definition, Flash programs are interactive animations or videos that were widely used in the transitions stage of the web. It guaranteed universally identical content, not dependent on the user and their operating system.

Deterioration

Flash was still widely used when Stave Jobs announced in 2007 that the new iPhones would not support the plugin, marking the downfall of the program. This was in part due to users utilizing the program's ability to automatically run complex scripts on any website for malicious purposes. Among the other companies not supporting the program, Google has announced that Chrome 53 may be the last version that includes Flash standard, putting most companies at this point passed the Flash era. Flash's future is fairly bleak, because all media tends to deteriorate over time.

Still Important

Despite its rapid decline in recent years, Flash is still useful in many ways. In all, the program is the pioneer of video sharing services that most everyone is able to use, unlike the newer HTML5. The Flash Media Server is much more secure than sharing HTML5, keeping the content that is being shared on the creator's side, which in turn makes stealing their content much more difficult. Adobe acknowledged the decline of Flash in 2011, releasing Edge Animate, an HTML5 creator, that was mainly for mobile content sharing; most modern phones do not come with Flash Player installed automatically, and some do not have access to it at all. In doing so, they also stated during a press release: “This makes HTML5 the best solution for creating and deploying content in the browser across mobile platforms.” Among the sites that still run the program (mainly free gaming sites), Facebook reigns supreme, with games like Farmville and others that are still i use by many to the day.