Adobe Flash or Shockwave Flash was the computer software for multimedia development such as animation, desktop applications, mobile games, video, and other interactive menus and it was released on January 1, 1996. It used a Flash player or AIR or a third party player to view graphics and animations on a desktop or mobile phones. With the advent of interactive multimedia effects on websites, flash development services was a hot practice in its time. Offshore flash development was one of them. The reasons for its popularity was stemmed by a number of factors that are mentioned below.
Flash was an all in all solution: Offshore flash development offered an enhanced and advanced experience in video, transitions, animations, and music handling. Flash was a vector-based technology that allowed bitmaps to be incorporated where needed. So, flash was competent to work with HTML to make websites visually beautiful and interactive.
Flash was easy to learn: It was relatively easier to learn and operate. For this reason, there were a number of development companies that offered skilled developers to take care of such requirements. Moreover, Flash offered a designer-friendly environment for the web designers with a sound knowledge on computer graphics to offer offshore services.
Affordable: Offshore flash development was cheaper than getting an in-house team to get your development work done. It offered easy and a cheap deal to customers without compromising on quality when it comes to offshore development. Moreover, Offshore companies hired skilled and trained programmers and designers, so that they could produce high-end products for people. However, they would quote competitive market prices to sustain the competition.
It provided the customers with the ease to download large numbers of in-built Flash files for free and at a very low price. For this reason, many small and mid-size companies went for it.
Constant technical support: Offshore flash development companies not only made websites for their clients, but also provided 24*7 technical support to them. During the production phase, clients could interact and communicate with these offshore agencies and get constant updates. After completing the project, most of these organizations offered free services for maintenance. Moreover, Flash was supported by a wide community of developers (over 3.5 million).
Offshore development services were supported by a strong and skilled workforce. They offered good quality products with all the customized features within the deadline. Moreover, they also provided technical support after delivering the websites. Client companies could contact customer support at any time for technical help.
Bandwidth efficiency: Web designers were able to integrate Flash technologies with other designing technologies, for the simple reason that it was highly bandwidth efficient.
Video Player’s unique features: Flash video player was a USP of the client's website. The features it provided were unique and upgraded, compared to other platforms. Offshore companies offered powerful and flexible video players built on this technology with 3D effects.
During its times, more and more companies tried their hands on offshore Flash development services, not only for reaping profits, but also to sustain in the competition.
End-of-life Flash (EOL)
Image source: Chromium
Adobe made an official statement in July 2017 stating "In collaboration with several of our technology partners - including Apple, Facebook, Google, Microsoft and Mozilla, Adobe is planning to end-of-life Flash. Specifically, we will stop updating and distributing the Flash Player at the end of 2020 and encourage content creators to migrate any existing Flash content to these new open formats."
On 31 December 2020, Adobe blocked support to Flash player and on 12 January 2021, it blocked Flash content from running in Flash player and then most prevalent technology came to the end of the road. Nevertheless, the company made sure to provide enough time to the developers, designers, and businesses to move their Flash content to new standards by announcing the news three years in advance in July 2017.
The reasons for the downfall were many but a few of them were emphasized.
- It was introduced by being designed for the PCs and it did not do well in the time of touchscreen smartphones.
- With time, it shrunk in terms of security, reliability, and performance by not providing regular and timely security updates. This put the user’s data at risk and which became a major reason for them to drift apart.
- It belonged exclusively to Adobe which made it’s availability quite a matter of question. Hence, the users had to download and purchase Adobe Flash browser plug-ins to use the program.
- The meltdown of the computer software began in 2010 when Apple CEO, Steve Jobs refused to use Flash for Apple devices and along with that stated several reasons that impacted its position in the market.
A jump from Flash to HTML5
As 2020 brought the end of Adobe Flash across all platforms, users were looking for a way out to save the content and make it available for users on the web and Flash to HTML5 conversion came as a great concept. In 2007, when Apple rejected to use Flash as the iPhone’s operating system, that was when its downslope began. Following that, Youtube, Google Chrome, and other browsers made a major switch from Flash to HTML5. Eventually, users stopped using Flash as their default. The lack of security, functionality, usability issues, and other barriers it brought the developer’s way were the major concerns. These shortcomings forced content creators to switch to the rich HTML5 platform. There are several tools that can be used for the conversion depending upon the types of files.
The usage of Flash in the web design industry dipped but for some time it was continued to be used for streaming video content. And now, even YouTube has adopted HTML5 video players which has made managing video content so much more easier. Anyways, web developers are looking for ways to improve the users' interaction and their experience. And, HTML5 is an effective way of coding that offers an enhanced web experience to users.
HTML5 and its applications
HTML5 (Hypertext Markup Language) is the markup language used on the World Wide Web and not a software program which is used to structure and display content on the web and is supported by various modern browsers. It is the 5th generation of the HTML web standard and is a combination of HTML (Hypertext Language), CSS (Cascading Style Sheets), and Javascript.
The PC Era was the time when websites were built using Flash and the browsers did not support Flash but the user had to add the Flash plugin to their browser which did not work well in terms of SEO. There was a time when Flash supported functions that CSS and HTML did not and over the times, the web standards have mushroomed radically. HTML5 opens the door of capabilities for the users and developers. It is supported by numerous browsers like Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Opera, Apple Safari, and also by various other mobile web applications. It allows creation and management of a website to be simple, fast, secure, and affordable. It is a no plug-in application. Above all, HTML5 has made the web on mobile devices like iPhone, Android, Tablets, and iPads useful.
That said, Evon Technologies in Dehradun, India is among the best software development companies in India and owns a team of over 250+ technology enthusiasts & evangelists. It has been providing cutting-edge software development outsourcing solutions to diverse industry verticals in India and overseas. The developers are sure-footed with years of experience in HTML5 and create engaging and appealing websites and offer quality and affordable web and mobile app development services.