Flash is gone – HTML5 is here to stay

On December 31 2020, Adobe Systems will officially stop updating and distributing Adobe Flash. However, the final countdown started back in 2010 when Steve Jobs banished it from the iPhone. According to Jobs, Flash was too proprietary, too resource-intensive, too insecure, and too unaccommodating for touch-based navigation. With all that being true, what is next?

There are some significant concerns with the burial of Flash.

One of them is Security Concern

With Flash ending, there will be no more security updates. Any new security exploits will not be given updates which then creates a gap in any company’s network security. The lack of security updates will put those companies at risk who continue using Flash-based content and platforms.

Browser Support

Google Chrome discontinued the use of Adobe Flash in update 53 of their browser. Google will completely block Flash from being able to run under the Chrome browser.

Mozilla, Explorer, and Safari will eventually do the same.

What are then the options?

Since a vast majority of all eLearning has been designed to be delivered via a browser, the year 2020 is a year of transition from Flash to HTML5.

As a universally supported framework, HTML5 provides responsive design for the content to be delivered through mobile and desktop devices. It is also a platform that enables integrations with systems and other platforms more seamlessly than Flash was able to do.

But there is a problem, or three

Firstly, your IP (Intellectual Property) needs to be protected. If you want to convert your Flash content into HTML5, you need to make sure that the tools you use don’t have unsavoury fine print in their legal terms that enable your IP to be leaked. It is easy to convert, but after the conversion has been done, you must make sure that you still own your stuff.

There is also the concern of layout, content consistency, and relevance. The basic conversion does not work because your content most likely needs to be updated, and the responsive design layout requirements need to be addressed.

The third issue is security. The simplest converters will package together the content and file structure to compress the file, making it easier to upload and download. There is no way to know if the conversion process does not inject extra code, which will open the backdoor for vulnerability, then allowing your content to be exploited.

The way forward

You need to work with professionals that can help plan your HTML5 conversion properly. By doing that, you can protect your intellectual property maintaining the course structure that you want to carry over.

Taking all this into consideration, Skills Consulting Group, previously known as Shift, has prepared a process and offer to make the conversion of Flash to HTML5 cost-effective, secure, and easy for our customers.

We can look at your old content through the lenses of Instructional Design, media production and security. In that way, you can be sure that your content will be up-to-date and accessible when Flash is gone.