“In the next version of Microsoft Edge (built on Chromium), we will continue to retire Flash in the same timeframe as other Chromium-based browsers,” said Colleen Williams, senior program manager, Microsoft Edge. “Flash will initially be disabled, and the user will need to re-enable Flash on a site-by-site basis; Flash will be completely removed from the browser towards the end of 2020.” Security conscious users will be pleased with this decision. Researchers have been poking holes in Flash’s security for close to a decade now, and Adobe itself plans to retire it in 2020. As of April, only 5% of sites still used Flash, most of them unlikely to be ones with major traffic. Nowadays, CSS3 and HTML5 largely take the role of Flash, enabling more advanced animation and functionality. These technologies are open, in contrast to Adobe’s closed system. However, with so many classic games and apps build it Flash, the eventual removal will have some effect on users. Assumedly, they’ll still be able to download games and play them on the desktop, but with no support from Adobe, that could lead to security issues. For Flash users, the classic Microsoft Edge or Internet Explorer could be a better option for the time being. “For both the in-market version of Microsoft Edge (built on EdgeHTML) and Internet Explorer 11, the current experience will continue as-is through 2019 Specifically, we no longer intend to update either Microsoft Edge (built on EdgeHTML) or Internet Explorer 11 to disable Flash by default,” explained Williams. Chromium Edge is currently in testing, with Dev, Canary, and Beta channels available. The full version of the browser is rumored to release in late 2019 to early 2020.
