A recent report has predicted that in the next 2 years, there is a good chance that the Flash standard used on the web could be dead. While a darling back in the day of web design and web development, Flash over the years has proven to be a bit of a security risk, leading to several websites and services, such as Twitch, to make the switch to HTML5.
Unfortunately for Adobe, it does not look like the abandoning of Flash is slowing down anytime soon either. According to a recent announcement by Google AdWords, it seems that they too will no longer be supporting Flash. In their announcement, Google has revealed that starting 30th June, ads built in Flash can no longer be uploaded into AdWords and DoubleClick Digital Marketing.
Also starting from the 2nd of January, 2017, display ads in Flash format can no longer be run on the Google Display Network, or through DoubleClick, essentially killing off any support for Flash once and for all. This means that for advertisers, they will need to convert to HTML5 ASAP. According to Google’s announcement, they have at least until mid-2016 to do so, and until 2017 to make the switch completely.
As to how this will affect regular users, chances are you might not be able to tell the difference, but at least as far as any security risks or compatibility issues are concerned with regards to Flash, you won’t have to worry about that anymore moving forward.