The End of Flash - Does it Affect You?

The constant tug of war that has been happening between Google, who is looking to preserve your experience online, and digital advertisers, who are trying to grab your attention, reached a critical point today.

Starting September 1, 2015 Google Chrome browsers will automatically pause web ads that use Flash. These would be your typical banner ads that are animated and any videos using Adobe's Flash that play automatically when you visit a site.

User Experience Dominates

So why end these ads? Google's "mission" is to make your web experience the best that it can be, and Flash technology is very counter-intuitive to that experience. Flash takes a lot of your battery life on mobile to run, it is burdensome on your browser and will often make it slow, and there are a ton of cyber security risks associated with Flash ads.

All for One, and One for All

Google is not alone. Last month, Mozilla and Facebook blocked Flash from running on their platforms in favor of alternative video sources (HTML-5) because of the security risks associated with Flash. And with the string of high-profile, security hacks that have been going on recently many leaders in the tech community have called for an outright end to Flash on all browsers. Behind the scenes, there has been a huge push to slowly replace all Flash media with HTML-5 based alternatives.

The issue is that many advertisers have delayed the process of switching over. They have held out for Flash, hoping that Adobe would be able to weather the storm and fix its underlying issues. Fortunately for you, the user, larger tech companies with tons of leverage have been vying for the end of Flash to make your web experience better. Amazon has said that it will no longer accept Flash advertisements on any of its sites, and with Google's move to pause ads effective today, we could be seeing the beginning of the end for Flash.

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