Adobe Flash Player received its last and final update in the first half of December 2020. Released in 1996, Flash used to be one of the most popular ways to stream videos and play online games.
However, despite its popularity, Flash was plagued with security issues and “failed to transition” into the smartphone era.
Now, Adobe will no longer be offering security updates for Flash and people are being urged to uninstall it. Videos and animations will also stop running in Flash Player from January 12.
Adobe has issued instructions about how Flash can be removed from Windows and Mac computers and has urged all users to do so.
“Uninstalling Flash Player will help to secure your system since Adobe does not intend to issue Flash Player updates or security patches after the end-of-life date,” Adobe said.
How to uninstall Flash for Windows
– To uninstall Flash for Windows you need to first download the uninstaller for Flash Player from here.
– To uninstall Flash Player beta, use the corresponding Flash Player beta uninstaller available in Adobe Labs.
– Next, exit all browsers and programs that use Flash. The uninstaller will not work if any program using Flash is still running on the computer.
– Run the uninstaller. Click on ‘Yes’ if you see the message “Do you want to allow the following program to make changes to this computer?”.
– Choose Start and click on Run, next copy and paste – C:\Windows\system32\Macromed\Flash – and then click on OK. Then Delete all the files in this folder.
– Finally, after this is done, restart your computer. Then open your browser and check the status of Flash Player.
How to uninstall Flash for Mac
– Click on the Apple icon and choose “About This Mac”. Find out the MacOS version you are on and download the uninstaller for Flash for that version.
– Close all the browsers.
– Next, go to downloads and run the uninstaller program.
– Once the process is complete you will receive a message stating that, click on OK.
– Restart your computer and check status of Flash Player to verify uninstallation.
