This is a brief history of Adobe's dropping of Flash Player support for newer mobile devices, first noticed in the Fall, 2012 by owners of the Google Nexus and Amazon Kindle Fire HD tablets.
Most of the text on this page was moved from the blog article on How to install flash to play flash videos on Kindle Fire HDX and HD devices (Yr 2012), for websites using Flash.
There's a LATER article on How to Install Flash on Kindle Fire HD and HDX Yr 2013-2014 tablets to play Flash on websites.
Here's Adobe's official announcement about ending support for Flash Player on mobile browsers.
Also, a more specific earlier ADOBE statement on stopping Flash Player support for newer mobile devices
+ some information on the Android versions involved:
Adobe: "...Beginning August 15th we will use the configuration settings in the Google Play Store to limit continued access to Flash Player updates to only those devices that have Flash Player already installed. Devices that do not have Flash Player already installed are increasingly likely to be incompatible with Flash Player and will no longer be able to install it from the Google Play Store after August 15th.
"We announced last November that we are focusing our work with Flash on PC browsing and mobile apps packaged with Adobe AIR, and will be discontinuing our development of the Flash Player for mobile browsers. This post provides an update on what this means for ongoing access to the Flash Player browser plugin for Android in the Google Play Store.
"The easiest way to ensure ongoing access to Flash Player on Android 4.0 or earlier devices is to use certified devices and ensure that the Flash Player is either pre-installed by the manufacturer or installed from Google Play Store before August 15th [2012]. If a device is upgraded from Android 4.0 to Android 4.1, the current version of Flash Player may exhibit unpredictable behavior, as it is not certified for use with Android 4.1. [Nexus at the time] ...
"Future updates to Flash Player will not work. We recommend uninstalling Flash Player on devices which have been upgraded to Android 4.1."
[Statement found by josh1120 of the Kindle Forums]
Despite Adobe's decision, there was at least one Android web browser that supported the final Flash Player file that still ran fine on mobile devices for Android systems up to v4.1 (Kindle Fire HD was using v4.03), and that file was made available on a developers forum for devices like the older Google Nexus and the Kindle Fire HD.
A Kindle support rep encouraged customer Daryl R. Budd in October 2012 to download the Dolphin browser, which had been a common recommendation of Kindle owners who are regulars on the Amazon Kindle forums.
As time went on, the Nexus OS was updated again, and XDA developers had to find another Flash Player file that would work with it (which also happens to work for the Kindle Fire HD and HDX), and after testing it, an XDA Forum member updated the forum message and a private link for that replacement flash player file.
The Adobe site DOES HAVE this file in their public "Archived" files area. The Amazon Kindle Forum regulars have relied on the XDA Developer Site for latest working files that are tested by knowledgeable XDA forum members and offered for download.
Over the last year (2012 thru' 2013), Youtube's videos have worked sporadically for various devices, with intermittent Flash compatability with browsers using special Flash files, while Youtube developers worked to provide full HTML5 support as needed (the eventual Flash replacement on all websites that keep up to date) in place of Flash.
Amazon has now been able to improve their Experimental Streaming Viewer so that Youtube videos can be viewed without any special work on the part of the user.
(Just be sure to look at your Kindle browser's web menu Settings option and choose to use that experimental feature with a check mark on that box if website Flash isn't working even with the Flash Player file and Dolphin browser mentioned).
Amazon does take you to the mobile version of Youtube as described above. You see a large thumbnail of the video you're about to play and when you click on that, it plays full screen and automatically in HD if the video was done in HD and if your Internet connection is fast enough.
The Kindle Fire HDs (2012) were based on Android v4.03, and the Yr 2013 HDX's are using Amazon's own "Mojito" OS 3.x -- a heavy customization of Android Jelly Bean v4.2.2. The Google Nexus uses Android v4.3.x as of late 2013.
As we've seen, Adobe seems to be reluctantly providing SOME support via their archived file versions.
For reference, here is the Current Global Listing of available Kindle devices.
For daily free ebooks, check the following links:
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Nice post!
ReplyDeleteCan you please tell me how to install flash player in windows 7 ?
ReplyDeleteAlex - several tips in this search-results page: How to install flash in windows 7
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