But the growth of the internet in the mid-1990s meant that tools were needed to provide similar content in web browsers.
They were the basis for some of the earliest interactive software and games, such as the Encarta encyclopedia, Silly Noisy House, and Myst. In the early 1990s, multimedia tools, such as Macromedia Director/Shockwave or Apple’s HyperCard, allowed multimedia content to be used in apps distributed on CD-Roms. Here’s a look back at the checkered history of this multimedia and malware platform. This worry was exploited, and eventually led fake Flash Player installers to be the leading vector for malware on the Mac.Īdobe has officially ended support for Flash on December 31, 2020. Its need for regular – sometimes weekly – updates meant that users were sensitized about the need to frequently updated their plugins. But it was also a security nightmare, presenting vulnerabilities that were regularly exploited by malware creators. In order to go beyond the text and static image limitations of early web pages, a number of companies began developing tools to display rich multimedia content on the web, and the platform that became dominant was Adobe’s Flash.įlash had the advantage of being lightweight, and, with a browser plugin, could run on multiple operating systems.
If you were an early adopter of the internet, you remember how the height of multimedia was the "blink" tag, that made text on a page flash.
Security & Privacy The History of Adobe Flash Player: From Multimedia to Malware