Software maker Adobe has announced it will stop updating and distributing the Flash Player within the next three years.
The plug-in was initially released in the late nineties and was a requirement download if Internet users wanted to view multimedia content created using Flash software.
In a statement, Adobe management says: "Where we've seen a need to push content and interactivity forward, we've innovated to meet those needs. Where a format didn't exist, we invented one - such as with Flash and Shockwave.
"And over time, as the web evolved, these new formats were adopted by the community, in some cases formed the basis for open standards, and became an essential part of the web.
The company says with this in mind it is planning to end-of-life Flash. IT encourages content creators to migrate any existing Flash content to new open formats such as HTML5, WebGL and WebAssembly.
The company says it will still support Flash until 2020 to give companies - working in video, education or gaming - who have built businesses using the technology to migrate.
"This will include issuing regular security patches, maintaining OS and browser compatibility and adding features and capabilities as needed."
In 2015, Google stopped supported for adverts using the software in its Internet browser Chrome. It said at the time that it hoped this move would increase page-load speed and reduce power consumption and bring better performance to rich media on Chrome.
Google had been encouraging developers to use HTML5 rather than Flash for some time.
Most Flash ads uploaded to AdWords, Google's advertising service, have been automatically converted to HTML5, which is similar, but more efficient when compared to Flash.
In 2010, Apple's late CEO Steve Jobs said the company would not allow Flash products on any of its mobile devices, as he believed Flash sapped battery life, was not secure enough, did not perform well and could not be relied upon.
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