Why didn't Macromedia Flash technology survive?
Last year I made it big
fast
about the history of Macromedia Flash. Thank you all for your interesting comments and questions. Based on the results of the post and discussion, I recorded an hour-long video adding small details, several personal stories (for example, about salaries), my experience in Flash, what we did and how. Here is this video, and inside the post I made a chronology by year: what and how happened in the world of Flash technologies.
Macromedia Flash technology has enabled designers and other developers to create animated and multimedia content on the Internet. Flash was a revolution, as several platforms were implemented in 1 software package and 1 plugin, which gave developers greater freedom: animation, vector graphics editor, video and sound support, music file support, built-in programming language, external file swapping system and exchange with DB. For a detailed story about the history of Flash, see the first post.
CHRONOLOGY OF MACROMEDIA FLASH
1992
The Macromedia company appeared (as a result of the merger of the little-known companies MacroMind and Authorware Inc.).
1993
Programmer Jonathan Gay began creating the FutureSplash Animator program
1994 year
In the fall, the new and in the future most popular browser Netscape Navigator is released
1995
The first version of FutureSplash Animator is released and the finished content (animations) is played in Macromedia Shockwave
Content on FutureSplash Animator appears in small quantities, and in the summer there is a breakthrough – it is used by Disney and MSN portals
In the fall, negotiations begin: Macromedia wants to acquire the company FutureWave.
1996 year
Macromedia Flash 1.0 hits stores and looks little different from FutureSplash
1997
Macromedia Flash 2.0 is released. Sound synchronization, file type expansion, support for new audio files, new font types (TrueType, PostScript), image processing and vector file integration from Macromedia Freehand.
Macromedia Flash 2.0 goes on sale
1998 year
NewGrounds.com – a new portal appears that will become very important for the distribution of flash animations and games (formally founded in 1995). On
Cartoons with black humor can play without warning
Macromedia Flash 3.0. New player (Flash Player, FP) version 3, new clip creation capabilities, JavaScript integration, PNG file support, image transparency, standalone player and output file size control.
1999 year
FlashKit.com is launching and will be like Git Hub for developers today (
)
Macromedia Flash 4.0: New player version 4, MP3 support, appearance of its own ActionScript language. The interface as a whole and the timeline have been noticeably improved.
year 2000
Macromedia Flash 5.0: Player version 5, full ActionScript 1.0 language, XML support, partially HTML. New types of clips and full Macromedia Flash standard. The most popular version of Flash 5.0: in this version the package reached the peak of functionality, it was ideal for animation, for web designers, for game developers.
year 2001
OS Windows XP
will be released with a built-in Flash player.
2002
Macromedia Flash 6.0: new context menus, subfolders in the timeline, improved work with color, support for new video codecs, etc. FP 6 comes out.
2003
Flash distribution on websites reaches 70-75% of all websites, player distribution – 80-85% of all users accessing the Internet
Macromedia Flash 7.0: Many updates in the interface, some of which were received with hostility by users. The second version of the language: ActionScript 2.0, which provided significantly greater opportunities for both creating games and web interfaces (automation of scripts, sending and receiving external data, etc.).
2005 year
Macromedia Flash 8.0: A division appears into the full and Basic versions, since the full version has acquired a large number of additional features and the interface is overloaded tens of times compared to versions 2-3. New FP 8.0
Adobe buys Macromedia Flash for $3.5 billion. Gay joins Adobe, and many older products are closed (like FreeHand, which was in direct competition with Illustrator).
YouTube portal launches where videos are played via FP
2006
Around this time, FP has its greatest distribution: 92-95% of all devices accessing the Internet have Flash Player pre-installed. And about 70-75% of all websites of companies from the F500 list have at least 1 Flash element on the site.
2007 year
The YouTube portal begins testing FL replacement via HTML5 and video file playback, primarily for users of compact devices (PDAs, smartphones)
2008 year
Version 10 of the package is released — Adobe Flash CS4. Important: the interface is more complex, work with animation is improved, and work with 3D is added.
2010
Suddenly Steve Jobs releases an open letter “Thoughts on Flash”. In the letter he lists the shortcomings of the technology and essentially says: Flash’s time is gone, there is no place for FP on touchscreen smartphones, bye, goodbye, we will never allow FP to work on Apple devices. Letter
,
.
2011
Adobe is ending support for Flash for Android.
year 2013
Questions to Adobe are being asked more and more often: What will happen to Flash? Have you figured out how to solve problems and how to save the product? Game makers are most worried. At the same time, Abobe ignores the questions.
2016 year
Adobe, realizing that the end is near, is renaming the Flash Professional package to Adobe Animate in order to leave this version for animators.
There has been a turning point in statistics: since this year, there are more mobile devices on the Internet than PCs and laptops. Let me remind you that in 2012, PCs/laptops provided 80%+ of all traffic on the Internet, and PDAs and smartphones only +-10%.
2017 year
Adobe stated that as of December 31, 2020, support for Adobe Flash and, more importantly, Adobe Flash Player will be discontinued.
The Ruffle project (then Fluster) was launched, which today (2024) is the only mass replacement for Flash Player.
2020 year
The legendary Internet Archive portal is starting to use the Ruffle plugin by default for playing archived flash files (swf). Game example
. And what’s remarkable is that it works in the WayBack Machine section!
2021 year
Since January 1st, you really can’t download updates or FP itself. All official resources are closed or redirected to other projects.
In the summer, Microsoft
stops
Installing Flash Player in Windows 10 distribution
2024
Flash technology has remained available to the general public thanks to
and enthusiast groups. It is almost impossible to stop the fading of technology, but portals with old games are popular.
Reasons for the Success of Macromedia Flash
A subjective review of the reasons for the success of the technology, the program and the wide distribution of MF:
- The Wow effect that almost everyone experienced when they saw MF for the first time (against the background of the usual Internet of 1996-1998)
- The only cross-platform mass solution with multimedia
- Easy to install the plugin on almost all mass devices
- The versatility of the MF package, which allowed working in one package with sound, code, animation (and most importantly, you can work only with what is required)
- Stability of the solution as a whole (the plugin and package rarely glitched)
- Relative versatility (you can make a *.exe presentation file and take external media (CD) to a meeting)
- Hidden opportunities for designers (a decent vector editor) and for media artists (the ability to create your own world, your own art, example URL Oleg Pashchenko)
- Built-in ActionScript programming language that could be used minimally for animation and deep dive for games
- Many customers wanted Flash just because they saw cool animation on this **** site.
- Low entry threshold for the developer: from downloading the package to the first animation (which can be published, which can include music, sounds…) in a matter of hours
Reasons for the decline and death of Macromedia Flash technology
- The “Back” button and URLs of specific pages do not work
- Problem with indexing in search engines
- Not supported on Apple devices
- The load on the computer is high: morphing can load the PC
- Problem with the database, connecting any external modules
- Security Risks: Flash Is Theoretically a Backdoor
- Editing the project is only possible in the source file.
- It’s hard to read the text if it’s more than a paragraph
- Flash does not adapt well to different playback resolutions
- The touchpad does not work (a mouse is required), the logic is broken
- You have to wait for downloading and playing, you can’t get the content right away
- It is difficult to update the project in the future (add a page, text)
- Disorientation of the user, who should know what an active link looks like
The main part of Macromedia Flash history is in post #1. Thanks for reading.
