Adobe Flash, the animation and programming platform that long graced the world-wide web, is officially dead. Adobe has ended support for it, will soon issue an auto-update that blocks Flash files from executing in the browser, and issued a stark final recommendation, just in case:
Uninstall Flash Player immediately.
Used to create in-your-face ads and countless web games (I finally learned to make games using Flash in the 2000s, such was its utility to fools), Flash was both reviled and regaled. Long a key feature of the internet, its decline came as a result of chronic security issues, poor performance on smartphones, and improvements in native web technologies such as Javascript and CSS.
Its death makes many classic web games and animations, among other things, unplayable; efforts are afoot to ensure they are not lost for good.