Android 4.1 to be free of Flash Player

Adobe has confirmed that it will not be supporting Flash on Android 4.1 as it has ceased development of the Flash Player on Google's platform entirely. In a blog posting, Adobe says that only devices that it has certified are supported and these are typically devices that came with Flash Player installed; uncertified devices have, however, been able to download the player from the Google Play store and "in most cases it worked". With the release of Android 4.1 though, there will be no certified devices.

The company also plans to use the Google Play Store to limit access to Flash Player from 15 August by only allowing Flash Player updates for devices that already have it installed. The company reasons that devices that do not have Flash installed are "increasingly likely to be incompatible with Flash Player", and it is therefore removing the ability to install it from that date. It also warns users who upgrade from Android 4.0 to 4.1 that any installed version of Flash "may exhibit unpredictable behaviour" and it should be uninstalled before the upgrade.

Adobe will keep existing mobile Flash versions available in its archive but these versions will not update from the Google Play Store.

(djwm)