On January 8, Adobe also released new updates for its Flash Player on Windows 10 and other platforms. Surprisingly, this update does not fix any security vulnerabilities in Adobe Flash Player for Windows 10.

Windows 10 KB4480979 (Adobe’s Flash Player) update introduces general fixes and improvements. In a document, Adobe explained that the purpose of this update is to improve the performance and squash bugs in Flash Player.

Though Flash Player in the past was well known for many issues and bugs, causing instability, fortunately Adobe, with each update, is fixing issues and adding.

“Adobe has released updates for Adobe Flash Player for Windows, macOS, Linux and Chrome OS. These updates address feature and performance bugs, and do not include security fixes,” Adobe explains.

According to Microsoft’s support document, all supported versions of Windows 10 are eligible for new Adobe Flash Player update. If your device is running on any supported version of Windows, this update should install automatically through Windows Update.

To download and install Windows 10 KB4480979, you can head over to Settings > Update & Security > Windows Update and click on Check for updates button. It’s likely that the update has been installed automatically, but if you’re unsure, go to Settings > System > Update & security and open the update history page.

Adobe Flash Player to be retired soon

Adobe plans to stop end support for its Flash Player and stop distributing the software at the end of 2020. While Flash is still being used, it continues to be one of the biggest security risks to computers.

Adobe explained that open standards like HTML5, WebGL and WebAssembly have matured over the past several years. These technologies have most of the features that were in Flash. As the web does not interactive formats anymore, the use of Flash Player could be reduced.

Adobe Flash Player is the high performance, lightweight, highly expressive client runtime that delivers powerful and consistent user experiences across major operating systems, browsers, and mobile devices.

Adobe Flash Player is the choice of both individuals and organizations when it comes to a highly powerful and extremely adaptable multi-platform client runtime. Flash has many new features and continues to be the ubiquitous Web standard; this software is included with all major Web browsers.

Adobe Flash Player supports several data formats including AMF, SWF, XML and JSON. The multimedia formats which are supported by Flash Player include .MP3, .FLV, .JPEG, .GIF, .PNG and .RTMP. Other supported features include accelerated graphics rendering, multi-thread video decoding and webcam support for StageVideo. Adobe Flash Player also enables greater privacy controls, utilizing protected HTTP Dynamic Streaming (HDS).

Key features include:

• Advanced compression technology and multi-threaded video decoding provides High-quality, Low bandwidth video.
• Crisp artistic text, utilising an advanced text rendering engine.
• Stage 3D accelerated graphics rendering.
• Engaging Flash video, content and applications with full screen mode.
• Real-time dynamic effects consisting of numerous filters for Bevel, Glow, DropShadow, Blur, Displacement Map, Color Matrix, Convolution, Gradient Glow and Gradient Bevel.
• Blend modes, stroke enhancement and radial gradient.

The versatility of Adobe Flash player is second to none, with animations that can incorporate both text and vector graphics. These animations typically do not take up large amounts of disk space and the contents of Flash animations can also be compressed to reduce their file sizes further.

Adobe Flash Player is available across all major operating systems, tablets, smart phones and browsers, and it can deliver high quality digital content via a powerhouse package.