Do you hear that? It’s Adobe Flash’s last dead breath, which could eventually become obsolete with Mozilla’s release Firefox 85 Tuesday.
Until now, Firefox had been the last old guard to support Flash. Apple first broadcast the software in 2010, banning it from the iPhone and then again in 2020, refusing to support it with Safari 14, and Google and Microsoft abandoned it earlier this year with the releases of Chrome version 88 and Edge 88, respectively. Although software was an early pioneer for web gaming, video, and animation, Adobe had previously announced a long-term strategy to stop Flash Player updates and distribution, encouraging creators to migrate any content based on more modern open formats.
In addition to some notable omissions, Firefox 85 has added some interesting new features, including network partitioning which works to protect users from supercookie tracking by sharing the site-based browser cache.
“Over the years, trackers have been found that store user identifiers as supercookies in increasingly obscure parts of the browser, including Flash storage, ETaguri, and HSTS flags, “Mozilla wrote in a blog post. “The changes we make to Firefox 85 greatly reduce the effectiveness of cache-based super-cookies, eliminating a tracker’s ability to use them on websites.”
Other great additions include changes to how bookmarked pages are stored in the browser and an option for remove all saved credentials at the click of a button, which could make life easier users who share a computer or must delete their browser for privacy reasons.
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