Indeed, even if a time-based killswitch was embedded into current versions of Flash, it would make no sense for versions of Flash from before the whole "Flash is going out of style; Flash is deprecated; Flash is dead" arc to contain such a killswitch. Flash used to be one of Adobe's tent-poles!

Conveniently, given that any Flash content published as SWF was probably authored at least 10 years ago, you could very likely get away with using such an older version of Flash to view such sites.

Rather than tracking one down yourself, I'd suggest, for best compatibility, just using a VM of an OS that ships with an older version of Flash. For example, later releases of Windows XP.

That's what the blog One Terabyte of Kilobyte Age (https://oneterabyteofkilobyteage.tumblr.com/) uses to generate its screenshots, and they almost always work.

This is when I wish we could demand that Adobe release the source code to Flash, at least the player part.

> The existence of Flash Projector softens the blow somewhat, but there will be some content that must be viewed within a web browser.

FWIW, Ruffle appears to be able to play Flash content within a web browser: https://ruffle.rs/demo/

Yes, but its compatibility is very far from 100%. It will likely get better with time; it is unlikely to ever be perfect.

I just wanted to note that the problem you mentioned is being actively addressed by the Ruffle team. As you mention, it will continue to get better with time.

(Related Internet Archive post on their new Flash collection: https://blog.archive.org/2020/11/22/flash-back-further-thoug...)

I should point out that while the Projector doesn't download the killswitch policy file, it does honor it, so you'll have to jump through extra steps to use files in the projector after January.

Would you be able to explain how the killswitch is actually implemented? It sounds like you may know! :)

> I suppose you could set the VM's clock back, but that's a major PITA which could potentially cause other issues.

Like breaking TLS cert validity date checks.

Though, I suppose if some website hasn't migrated off Flash by 2020, it's probably reasonably likely to also be in the subset of websites that haven't implements https by now as well...

IKEA still hasn't migrated:

https://www.ikea.com/us/en/planner/besta-planner/

Ah, yes, I remember I have facepalmed big time when I did run into it ~1 year ago.

I'm wondering if the IT team which produced that pice of software is gone since years.

Edit: I somehow missed that my spell checker replaced "have facepalmed" with "gave poisoned"...

I was also thinking of https, yes. The Wayback Machine uses https even if the sites in its archive originally did not.

If there is, there will certainly be cracks.

The copyright stance on breaking DMCA for preservation is far more clear when the original owner is explicitly dropping support.