Manipulative headline aside, this Wired piece by Brian Barrett is a good read. The first half is a state-of-the-union that discusses calls for Flash to have a specific end of life date, last major Flash holdouts (looking at you Facebook), and the game of Whack-a-Mole that Flash security has become.

Two interesting quotes from this first half:

“The Flash Player is a very interesting target for attackers because it really is ubiquitous and runs in all major browsers,” says Jérôme Segura, senior security researcher at Malwarebytes. “On top of zero-days, many end users are still running older versions which explains why the number one piece of software exploit kit writers go after is Flash.”

And:

Segura’s torn on whether Flash should die altogether. “At the moment it is the most responsible thing to do,” he says, “But I also think it may be short sighted. After all, malicious actors can easily move on to a new target.”

The second half of the article focuses on specific instructions on how to get rid of Flash from your environment. If you do decide to follow this path, you might want to read this more comprehensive article as well.

Goodbye, Flash. It’s been an interesting ride.