Google to Stop Accepting New Flash Ads in June

Days are numbered for Google ads that use Adobe System’s Flash technology.

Google has announced that it will stop accepting ads developed with Flash software on June 30, and instead will only allow ads written in HTML5. Flash ads will disappear entirely from Google’s advertising businesses, Google Display Network and DoubleClick, after Jan. 2.

The move is the latest blow to Flash, a multimedia and software platform used to display streaming video, advertisements and interactive content on Web pages.

While popular in the late 1990s and early 2000s, Flash has fallen out favor in recent years as hackers discovered ways to use the application to install malicious software on computers. Hackers also manipulated people into thinking their Flash plugin needed updating, using the bogus “updates” to gain access and deliver the malware.

Apple founder Steve Jobs led the charge against Flash by banning it on iPhones. Last year, Facebook’s chief security officer pushed Adobe to retire Flash. Overall, mobile devices haven’t used Flash for years and generally work better than desktops.

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In September, Google took on Flash by blocking some of its content accessed through Google’s widely used Chrome browser. Instead of the ads playing automatically, users had to click on them to activate, making it much less likely the ads would be viewed.

Stepping up to fill Flash’s void is HTML5, the latest version of the Web’s native language. The improvements to HTML have meant most of the common applications can be done without Flash.

Even Adobe admitted in December that HTML5 has merits and said it had developed a tool called Adobe Animate CC for creating HTML5 content.

Still, Flash has its uses. Some software systems used to manage employee history, budgets and other internal tracking often need Flash for web apps running in browsers. So Flash may continue to exist in company intranets for a while, but its use in the public Web is dying out.

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