Adobe Uses DMCA To Kill The Project That Still Uses Flash

Adobe Flash is actually officially dead since the beginning of the year. However, there are exceptions, on the one hand, official and on the other hand unofficial. Because there are projects like the one called Clean Flash that want to keep the software alive. But Adobe is not happy with that.

Flash is dead. Or rather: Flash is dead with us. Because although the multimedia software platform reached the end-of-life time at the end of 2020 and has been categorically blocked by all browsers since the beginning of the year, there is one more or less major exception. Because the Flash Player is still available in China and is distributed there by the Zhong Cheng Network – officially because it has been authorized by Adobe.

Of course, this has to do with corporate systems that still work with applications based on Flash. The same reason that led Internet Explorer to be a software zombie for many years.

However, there are also users in the West who value and maintain certain Flash content, including games and other interactive content. But these archivists and enthusiasts are faced with a problem because it is not possible to get a secure copy easily.

So an enthusiast grabbed the Chinese version of Flash. This is freely available on Flash.cn and is updated once a month in terms of security, but there is a significant but: Because an adware program called Flash Helper is preinstalled in the Chinese version. As TorrentFreak reports, there is a project called Clean Flash Installer that removes it from Flash.

Clean Flash Installer

The Chinese Flash is cleaned of any unwanted software and also kept up to date. “This means that Clean Flash Installer can be used by anyone to use a relatively safe version of Flash Player after support for Flash has been discontinued,” explains the developer named darktohka.

But that doesn’t have the blessing of Abobe and the company is also taking action against the Clean Flash Installer. It was removed from GitHub via a DMCA complaint. You seem to have every right to do so, but the programmer is extremely disappointed: “Since this is my heart project, I am very disappointed with Adobe’s approach. The repository in question only contains the installation code for the project that was written by myself and none directly infringing code.”