[PrawnSkunk]

Although it's not too immediate, we now have a date to work towards if we want to, and have the developer power to, completely remove the Flash aspect from the game engine. Of course, R^3 and the legacy engines will always be accessible without opening a browser through the use of standalones.

I am looking into how standalones (aka debug player or content debuggers) will be distributed after Flash is no longer supported by Adobe. This is a problem because we cannot legally link to third-party downloads, or host downloads for flash player without a license to host them on our website. I have applied for this license, however I have not received a response from Adobe since July 24th, 2016. In light of this breaking news, I will be re-submitting my application.

Here is a summary of the Flash support roadmap by company I found on r/programming:

Originally Posted by Adobe

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.

Originally Posted by Google

Chrome will continue phasing out Flash over the next few years, first by asking for your permission to run Flash in more situations, and eventually disabling it by default. We will remove Flash completely from Chrome toward the end of 2020.

Originally Posted by Mozilla

Starting next month, users will choose which websites are able to run the Flash plugin. Flash will be disabled by default for most users in 2019, and only users running the Firefox Extended Support Release (ESR) will be able to continue using Flash through the final end-of-life at the end of 2020. In order to preserve user security, once Flash is no longer supported by Adobe security patches, no version of Firefox will load the plugin.

Originally Posted by Microsoft

In mid to late 2018, we will update Microsoft Edge to require permission for Flash to be run each session. Internet Explorer will continue to allow Flash for all sites in 2018.

In mid to late 2019, we will disable Flash by default in both Microsoft Edge and Internet Explorer. Users will be able to re-enable Flash in both browsers. When re-enabled, Microsoft Edge will continue to require approval for Flash on a site-by-site basis.

By the end of 2020, we will remove the ability to run Adobe Flash in Microsoft Edge and Internet Explorer across all supported versions of Microsoft Windows. Users will no longer have any ability to enable or run Flash.