Flash Player was installed on almost every PC and it was a must-have set. About 75% of entertainment sites required this plugin. This a story of Rise and Fall of great software. According to some sources, the player was installed on 90–92% of user devices by 2007. Many important sites did not work at all without the plugin, the main example being YouTube. At some point, FP was included in the base OS package. This is not just a story with memories, it is an exploration to understand MF’s contribution to the global internet, animation and even art.
If no one sums up the history of Macromedia Flash (hereinafter MF), it risks getting lost in the trash of the IT basement. Let me remind you that the “magic” Flash Player plugin (hereinafter referred to as FP) was installed on almost all computers in the world. And at some point, this technology was the best for animation, games and multimedia. At first I indulged in memories of how we created Internet projects in the 90s, how cool it was to work with Macromedia Flash… and then I realized that I had to write on my blog. I can’t say that I gave Flash the best years of my life, but now that he’s gone… I want to say something warm about the deceased. In this article I will tell the history of the technology and add a story from the developer’s perspective: what we created, how we worked, the pros and cons of the platform itself and key events. Well, and most importantly, why MF took off to mass distribution, and then suffered defeat and remained in the past. And answer the eternal question “Who is to blame?” Another version of the question: Why did Steve Jobs kill Flash? Spoiler: Jobs is not to blame.
How I devoted five years of my life to technology: the history of the development of Macromedia/Adobe Flash, key events, my experience, what we did and how much we earned; what other flashers did and why this technology is so important.
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