Adobe Flash Player

Adobe Flash Player, formerly Macromedia Flash and Shockwave Flash, was a multimedia and  that was developed by  to deliver dynamic web content. It was since been acquired by, Microsoft has started to phase out Flash from its Edge browser by including a click-to-run option. Adobe Flash Player has been discontinued since December 31, 2020 and no longer loads Flash content since January 12, 2021. The plug-in now displays a warning recommending that you remove Adobe Flash Player from your PC as soon as possible. Microsoft 365 blocks Flash content by default for security reasons.

History
In December 1996, Macromedia acquired FutureSplash Animator, which became Macromedia Flash and eventually overtook Shockwave to become the leading multimedia plug-in for the web. Macromedia Flash was occasionally referred to as "Shockwave Flash" and even shared the file format extension (swf), leading to confusion between the two. In 2005, Macromedia was acquired by, which renamed the products to Adobe Flash and Adobe Shockwave. Adobe Flash Player is included with Microsoft Edge by default.



Discontinuation
In April 2010, Apple CEO Steve Jobs criticized the Flash platform and stated that the company would not allow it to run on its iOS devices. Developers of third-party web browsers began to the Flash plugin by default due to security issues. In July 2017, Adobe announced that it would phase out support for Flash by the end of 2020.

In February 2016, the authoring application was re-branded as with support for web-based standards such as.