Adobe today said that it would stop offering direct downloads of Flash Player for Linux, telling users to move to Google’s Chrome browser, which bundles Flash with its updates.
Today’s demotion of Flash participant on Linux to Chrome-simplest was once the second time in the last three months that Adobe has withdrawn some or all beef up from a model of the preferred media tool: In November, Adobe announced it used to be leaving behind building of Flash for cell browsers, together with the brand new Chrome for Android .
In a roadmap for Flash Player (download PDF), Adobe unveiled its plans through 2012 and into 2013.
The final model of a separate Flash player for Linux, 11.2, will probably be launched this quarter, Adobe introduced in the roadmap file. After that, Linux customers who require browser-based Flash should switch to Chrome, Google’s three-12 months-vintage browser.
Chrome’s developers have been working on a new API (application programming interface) dubbed “PPAPI” (Pepper Plugin API), or “Pepper” for short, to replace the long-standing Netscape Plugin API (NPAPI) that Flash and other plug-ins use in non-Microsoft browsers.
Adobe has been collaborating with Google, the former said, on Pepper implementation for Flash, which will let it create a single plug-in for all systems that Chrome supports. In other words, the same Flash Player plug-in will run in Chrome on Windows, Mac OS X and Linux.
However, the timing is up in the air.
“Google will begin distributing this new Pepper-based Flash Player as part of Chrome on all platforms, including Linux, later this year,” said Adobe.
Chrome already supports PPAPI — it has since Chrome 14, which launched last September — and uses it for the browser’s own PDF viewer.
Flash Player 11.2 will be the last version for Linux that Adobe offers as a download from its own website, but it promised to support that edition with security patches for at least the next five years.
But Adobe stressed it will continue to create new versions of the Flash Player plug-in for other browsers on Windows and Mac, the company said.
On Apple’s OS X, Adobe mentioned it was running on adding sandboxing to Adobe AIR programs — AIR is a cross-platform runtime surroundings that shall we builders craft programs using, amongst different things, Flash and HTML — in order that they may be able to be allotted via the Mac App retailer.
Apple had earlier set a March 1 sandboxing deadline for all software funneled through the Mac App Store, but today extended that to June 1.
Adobe also reported that it’s working on Flash for Windows 8, but said little else than that.
“[Windows 8] includes a number of different user interface configurations (desktop and Metro) and targeted processor chipsets (x86/64 and ARM), which create a number of different development targets for the Flash runtimes,” Adobe said, referring to both Flash itself and AIR.
Microsoft has already stated that it is going to no longer beef up the Flash participant plug-in on windows eight’s “Metro” interface, or at the mostly-Metro home windows on ARM (WOA). The model of web Explorer (IE) that runs in WOA’s computer mode will even shun plug-ins like Flash, in line with Steven Sinofsky, the Microsoft govt who leads the windows department.
Adobe’s decision will impact Mozilla’s Firefox on Linux, likely locking that browser into Flash Player 11.2: Mozilla has said it was “not interested in or working on Pepper at this time.”
Mozilla didn’t respond to questions about whether it’s now reconsidering its place on Pepper, and failing that, what it will counsel Firefox users running Linux do.