If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em…sort of. That’s what Adobe is doing with Flash. With longstanding complaints about its stability and security vulnerabilities, Adobe has decided to rename its latest version Adobe Animate. While it’s an improvement over Flash, most of us in IT support will take a wary view of Animate as Adobe rolls it out.

Why are we skeptical? Flash has been a staple of online advertising, which continues to grow. Website developers have hated it for years, but it wasn’t until Steve Jobs slammed it in 2010 that Adobe began rewriting it. One of his major problems is that it was designed, as he said, for the PC era and did not work for touch screens – which is the staple of Apple’s mobile devices and everyone else’s.

At times, too, its security was so bad that we and other IT specialists regularly advised clients to uninstall it. Adobe’s rewrites have made it a better product, but it still has a bad reputation.

So, Adobe will release Animate next year, essentially rebranding the programming tool. It will enable developers to work with HTML5, a programming language widely used for the web and many other animation applications, and you won’t need download the Flash Player to make it work. While Adobe wants to put Flash out of mind, we’ll be on the watch for security vulnerabilities. We’ll be sure to let you know when we see problems that require action, ranging from installing updates to uninstalling it.

Be sure to keep an eye on email warnings from us or postings on our Facebook page for news on Animate. If you have any questions about Adobe Flash right now, call us – 973-433-6676 – or email us for advice.