These threats come in the form of viruses and cyber-attacks. But the most important one is the Flash Player’s susceptibility to online threats. As for the reasons, there are many. However, the Flash Player’s popularity continues to go down.
![]() Early daysIn the early 1990s, multimedia tools, such as Macromedia Director/Shockwave or Apple’s HyperCard, allowed multimedia content to be used in apps distributed on CD-Roms. Here’s a look back at the checkered history of this multimedia and malware platform. This worry was exploited, and eventually led fake Flash Player installers to be the leading vector for malware on the Mac.Adobe has officially ended support for Flash on December 31, 2020. Its need for regular – sometimes weekly – updates meant that users were sensitized about the need to frequently updated their plugins. This allowed developers to script actions rather than animate them, enhancing the types of content available, to include web games and streaming media. The software was adopted by a number of major websites, such as MSN and a Disney website, and in December of that year, Macromedia bought the company and rebranded the software as Macromedia Flash.Flash was the leading multimedia software for several years, and in 2000, ActionScript, an object-oriented programming language inspired by Apple’s HyperTalk, was added to the Flash platform. Vector-based animations use much less data than bitmap animations, since the data only needs to describe the relationship between points, along with colors and other data.The company released FutureSplash Animator in May 1996. Bandwidth was a fraction of what people have today, so any such platform needed to be lithe and rapid.FutureWave Software, co-founded by Charlie Jackson and Jonathan Gay in 1993, first worked on some drawing software, but then changed direction to develop a vector-based animation tool to compete with Macromedia Shockwave. But the growth of the internet in the mid-1990s meant that tools were needed to provide similar content in web browsers. ![]() Since it was intended to be a "write once, run anywhere" platform, and it wouldn’t run on the device that more and more people were using to consume media, it was left behind.Symantec recently highlighted Flash for having one of the worst security records in 2009. With Flash unable to be on the soon-to-be-dominant mobile device, there was no future for the software. These included reliability, security, performance, and especially battery life. Since the iPhone didn’t support Flash, YouTube developed technology to display its videos, in an app, without Flash.In 2010, Steve Jobs penned his Thoughts on Flash open letter, pointing out the many reasons why the company wouldn’t allow Flash on the iPhone. The slow demise of FlashIt’s taken a long time, but it’s clear that the 2007 release of the iPhone marked the inflection point for Flash. Flash and securityBecause of these many security vulnerabilities, Adobe was required to issue updates to Flash Player often. YouTube began using an experimental version of its website using HTML5 in 2010, and in 2015 switched to that open standard for all its videos. We have been working with Adobe to fix these problems, but they have persisted for several years now.From this point on, Flash lost its luster. Adobe Flash Player Most Recent Download An UpFor many years, we had to install and update plug-ins to be able to play certain types of content – remember Real Audio? – rather than have these elements installed natively on our computers. Malware such as OceanLotus, InstallCore, SilverInstaller, and MacDownloader all leveraged fake Flash Player installers that year to infect Macs.In 2016, because of security vulnerabilities in unpatched versions of the Flash Player plugin, Apple started blocking old versions of Flash Player in its Safari web browser, with the browser displaying a dialog prompting users to download an up-to-date version from the Adobe website.In 2018, the Shlayer malware surfaced, attacking Macs once again through fake Flash Player installers.Browser plug-ins in general are problematic. Some of this malware was truly malicious, and some of it was scareware, designed to make Mac users think their computers were compromised, and pay to have them "fixed."2016 was a particular busy year. This prompted Apple to release a specific Flashback malware removal tool in 2012.Flash Player updater malware was increasingly common, and became the default way to distribute malware on the Mac. Flashback created a botnet – a network of computers that could be controlled remotely – and it was estimated that it infected 10% of home Macs in 2012, and was still infecting about the same number of Macs in January 2020. Many were duped by websites telling them that they needed Flash Player to view content: they would download what they thought were legitimate Flash Player installers, only to find that malware had infected their Macs.Flashback was a particularly serious Trojan Horse that Intego discovered in 2011. Die., said, "Flash is officially more trouble than it’s worth. A Wired article at the time, Flash. Flash games and videos were so popular on Facebook that even the BBC ran a story about how the company was moving away from the platform, mentioning that they, too, had ported the company’s iPlayer platform to HTML5. In 2015, Facebook’s head of security called for its demise, and Mozilla disabled it by default in the Firefox browser. The end of FlashSince Steve Jobs’ screed against Flash Player, it had become accepted that this software was problematic. Avast offline installer for macBut in July 2019, even Google turned off Flash by default in the browser.So the time has come to say goodbye to a tool that allowed us, in the early days of the internet, to play games and view videos. For some time, Google’s Chrome browser contained its own version of Flash, that was part of the browser, rather than a plug-in, and security specialists long recommended using Chrome for those users who needed to view Flash content. This warning, two and a half years before the cutoff date, gave developers plenty of time to change their technologies, but by then, many steps had already been taken to eliminate it. The reliance on open standards means that it’s rare to find audio or video content that is incompatible with your operating system, and you don’t depend on dangerous or outdated software to experience media on your computer.Farewell, Flash, it was an interesting ride.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorNatasha ArchivesCategories |