Adobe said on Thursday that it will stop supporting Flash Player for Google’s Android mobile operating system, starting with version 4.1 of Android.
The announcement, on Adobe’s blog, follows guidance from Adobe in November, 2011, that the company would be discontinuing development of Flash for mobile platforms to focus on PCs and mobile applications that use Adobe AIR. The company said that the pending Android 4.1 “Jelly Bean” release will have no certified implementations of Flash Player.
Starting in August, Adobe will limit access to Flash Player updates to devices that have already installed the Player.
Android users may upgrade from Version 4.0 to 4.1, but Adobe said that Flash’s behavior may be “unpredictable” while future Flash updates will not work. The company recommends removing Flash on devices that are to be upgraded to Android 4.1.
Flash has become a popular platform for mobile malware authors in recent years. In March, Adobe issued emergency fixes for critical Flash Player vulnerabilities that could give attackers unfettered access to Android mobile devices, among others.
Google’s main mobile competitor, Apple, long spurned Flash on its iOS devices, with CEO Steve Jobs saying the technology would be eclipsed by HTML5. Adobe finally did an end run around the Cupertino company, introducing the Adobe Flash Media Server Version 4.5 in September, 2011.
