Η Google κυκλοφόρησε σήμερα τον Chrome 88, καταργώντας μόνιμα την υποστήριξη για το Adobe Flash Player and ending an entire Internet era.
Adobe Flash officially reached the end of its life (EoL) on December 31, 2020, when Adobe stopped supporting the software. On January 12, Adobe also began blocking content playback in Flash.
Google isn't the only company to stop supporting Flash. The decision was made together with Adobe and other program makers toursuch as Apple, Mozilla and Microsoft, since 2017. Apple and Mozilla have already stopped supporting Flash, and Microsoft is scheduled to end support later this month.
At present, according to web technology research site W3Techs, only 2,2% of today's websites use Flash, down from 28,5% in early 2011.
But today's version of Chrome 88 comes with more features, removals, bug fixes and security updates. One of the most significant changes is the removal of support for accessing FTP (ftp://) links from within Chrome.
With Chrome 88, Google also completed a project it launched last year. With today's release, Chrome will now block some file downloads over the HTTP protocol.
One case in which Chrome stops downloading is when a user accesses a webpage that starts with HTTPS, but the file they are trying to download comes from a URL that starts with HTTP. Chrome considers this case "mixed" and "unsafe" and Chrome 88 will completely block download for the protection of users.
