Flash usage in freefall

Flash’s days are coming to an end

The Global Media Format Report 2016 from Encoding.com predicts that the Flash video codec — which the late Steve Jobs despised — will pretty much vanish within 24 months. While Flash is still being used for specific uses and edge cases such as banner ads and legacy browsers, it’s days are numbered, according to the cloud media processing service.

I haven’t had Flash installed on my MacBook Pro for over a year now, and only occasionally miss it. The big offender is the BBC, which still tries to serve me Flash, unless I have Safari pretend to be an iPad, in which case the video plays fine. What I don’t (and won’t) miss is the battery drain Flash brings.

(Remember when the “iPhone would fail because it didn’t have Flash?”)