Despite a long list of technological disadvantages and better technology emerging, Adobe’s Flash Player has refused to die on its own. That’s finally going to change, however, as Adobe has announced today that it will ‘end-of-life’ the plug-in by the end of 2020.

Adobe Flash Player for Mac lets you access Flash content in Web sites when using browsers like OS X's Safari. Adobe flash cs6 free download - Adobe Illustrator CS6, Adobe After Effects CS6, Adobe Illustrator CS6 Update, and many more programs.

Adobe says it’s working with companies including Apple and Google to prepare for the upcoming death of Flash.

Given this progress, and in collaboration with several of our technology partners – including Apple, Facebook, Google, Microsoft and Mozilla – Adobe is planning to end-of-life Flash. Specifically, we will stop updating and distributing the Flash Player at the end of 2020 and encourage content creators to migrate any existing Flash content to these new open formats.

Install Adobe Flash Player Mac

Leading up to the death of Flash by the end of 2020, Adobe plans to regularly continue supporting the plug-in with both security and browser compatibility updates. In some regions where older, insecure versions of Flash are heavily distributed, however, Adobe plans to ramp up EOL efforts “more aggressively” as part of the effort.

As part of the announcement, Apple offered this message from the WebKit blog:

Apple is working with Adobe, industry partners, and developers to complete this transition.

Apple users have been experiencing the web without Flash for some time. iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch never supported Flash. For the Mac, the transition from Flash began in 2010 when Flash was no longer pre-installed. Today, if users install Flash, it remains off by default. Safari requires explicit approval on each website before running the Flash plugin.

Apple also points to HTML Video and Media Source Extension, HTML Canvas and WebGL, CSS Transitions and Animations, WebRTC, and WebAssembly as supported standards through WebKit.

As Apple’s comment notes, the death of Flash will have no consequences for iOS devices which never supported the desktop plug-in. Steve Jobs famously published his “Thoughts on Flash” piece back in 2010 to address what was a major point of criticism at the time for iPhones and iPads as computer replacements:

The avalanche of media outlets offering their content for Apple’s mobile devices demonstrates that Flash is no longer necessary to watch video or consume any kind of web content. And the 250,000 apps on Apple’s App Store proves that Flash isn’t necessary for tens of thousands of developers to create graphically rich applications, including games.

New open standards created in the mobile era, such as HTML5, will win on mobile devices (and PCs too). Perhaps Adobe should focus more on creating great HTML5 tools for the future, and less on criticizing Apple for leaving the past behind.

Ten years later, the death of Flash will finally be cemented with Apple and the iPhone and iPad largely to credit.

Are you tired of seeing an update like this on your Mac? Adobe asks you to download and install an update to Flash Player because they have made some significant improvements in the new version?

Years ago, Adobe confirmed that they have a major security vulnerability related to Flash Player, as discovered by Trend Micro and reported BGR. There doesn't seem to be signs that those vulnerabilities are completely fixed as Adobe keeps releasing new versions for their Flash Player app.

While updating Flash on Mac is just a few clicks away, I found the process tedious and most of the time — unnecessary. Because unlike the old days we had to use Adobe Flash Player to view web videos as they were mostly encoded in Adobe’s proprietary Flash format.

Not anymore! These days modern web browsers (i.e. Safari, Chrome, Firefox, etc.) all work seamlessly to YouTube, Vimeo, and many other live streaming web services — leaving Flash Player off the table.

So, it makes sense to uninstall Adobe Flash Player from your Mac so you won't be bothered by the annoying updates and potential security issues.

In this article, I'm going to show you how to do that step by step. Note: two methods are introduced in case the first one doesn't work out.

Adobe Flash For Mac Revewing

Method 1: Remove It with Adobe Flash Player Install Manager

Please note that the screenshots below are taken from Flash version 29, based on macOS High Sierra. If your Mac is running an earlier macOS or an older version of Adobe Flash, minor user interface differences may apply.

Step 1: On your Mac, go to Applications > Utilities, find this app 'Adobe Flash Player Install Manager'. Click to run it.

Alternatively, you can do a quick search on Spotlight and select the 'TOP HIT' result.

Adobe Flash For Mac Chrome

Step 2: Click the Uninstall button in the new window called Adobe Flash Player Uninstaller, where it says 'This program will remove Adobe Flash Player from your computer.'

Step 3: Input your Mac's username and password and select 'Install Helper'. Personally, I find this annoying but there isn't a way to avoid installing the Adobe helper tool.

Note: the helper tool by Adobe is harmless. It's common for third-party applications like Adobe to ask user's permission to perform certain tasks such as removing items with special permissions, uninstalling items from Mac App Store, etc., because macOS puts many limits restrictions on this.

Step 4: DONE. A new window pops up saying Flash was removed from my system.

This is the recommended yet standard method for deleting Flash Player from a Mac. It should take you less than a minute to complete. The only downside of this method is that once you uninstall Flash Player, you end up with installing another Adobe app — the Helper tool.

Adobe Flash For Mac Recent Download

Some Mac fellows reported that they encountered issues using the Adobe Flash Uninstaller app on their Macs, it's unclear what caused that. But if Method 1 didn't work out for you, turn to the second method — it's even quicker.

Method 2: Uninstall Flash Player with CleanMyMac

CleanMyMac 3, is an app developed by MacPaw Inc. that aims to make Mac cleanup and maintenance easy. While its core features are related to cleaning, the app also allows you to quickly uninstall third-party apps or extensions in batch, and removing Adobe Flash Player can be achieved easily as well.

Here's how:

Adobe Flash

1. Download CleanMyMac and install the app on your Mac.
2. Open it. On the left part of the main panel, find Extensions > Preference Panes, there you should be able to find 'Flash Player'.
3. Select it and click the 'Remove' button.

Install Adobe Flash For Mac

That's it. Pretty easy, right? It's worth noting though, CleanMyMac isn't freeware (it has a free trial). We use the app quite often on our Macs and it works amazingly well and has saved us tons of time handling complex/techy tasks such as freeing up disk space, cleaning third-party apps or launch agents, finding large old items, and more. The app is definitely a productivity booster for most Mac users, especially if you are not a computer person.

Mac Adobe Flash Player Download

Additional tip: Adobe actually has a dedicated article here in case you failed to install or uninstall Flash on your Mac. For example, an error message appears. There you'll find detailed troubleshooting guide.

Alright, now that we've shown two ways to get rid of Adobe Flash Player from your Mac. Are they helpful? Or do you have another 'secret' way to help get the job done?

Either way, leave a comment below and let us know.

Chris is a computer geek for a decade. He loved talking to computers via codes, and now he finds it more interesting communicating with the real people. He now writes everything related to computer issues and loves helping people solve problems.