14 DAY TRIAL // The world is joining forces against Flash Player, and while some are looking into ways to keep loading Flash content without Adobe's software, others are trying to move away from it completely and switch to alternative solutions.
Microsoft is the latest big tech company that's making a step towards a world without Flash Player, as the new Spartan browser, which will debut in Windows 10 as the default browser, will come with options to disable it completely with the press of a button.
Right now, Flash Player is bundled into Internet Explorer, so Microsoft is working with Adobe to update its software through Windows Update every Patch Tuesday. This way, Redmond makes sure that all Windows computers are getting the update for Internet Explorer 11, but also that the very latest vulnerabilities are being patched on time.
In Spartan, however, Microsoft is finally giving users options to disable it, thus making HTML5 the default option on websites where it exists. YouTube, for instance, is already using HTML5 as the default mode for viewing videos, so Spartan users shouldn't feel any difference when accessing Google's video sharing service.
How to disable it
Often described as very insecure, Flash Player is slowly fading away, and with Windows 10, there's no doubt that many users would simply disable it to make sure that their computers are not vulnerable to attacks due to flaws found in Adobe's software.
To disable it in the existing versions of Spartan, users only need to press the settings button in the right side of the browser screen and scroll down to an option called “Add-ons.” There's a toggle that lets you enable or disable Flash Player, so simply click/tap it to turn it off.
This feature is very likely to make it to the final version of Spartan, as Microsoft isn't willing to expose users' computers with third-party software. Mozilla is also developing its own replacement for Flash Player, Google has already switched YouTube and ads to HTML5, so Microsoft is just another tech giant that's contributing to the death of a very popular (and insecure) piece of software.