The earliest signal of Flash’s fall came in 2007, when Apple decided not to support it in the newly introduced iPhone. Internet archivists are already dealing with that difficulty, and recent developments in browser support for Flash are making their task all the more urgent. That doesn’t just mean Flash is at risk of becoming obsolete it also makes Flash content difficult to preserve for future generations.
Flash wasn’t included in the study, but also would have fallen into the high-risk category: It’s a complex and largely closed format that has gone through many versions, and has just one vendor supporting it. The file formats found to be at the highest risk were MAC (macro files), SXW (OpenOffice documents), and DXF (AutoCad files)-all outdated formats with niche user bases.
