End of Flash Player

Timeline

Adobe announced that it would no longer support Flash Player after December 31, 2020. This would later extend to most known browsers by January 12, 2021.

Windows also pushed for a security update that would remove Flash Player from Windows PCs if it was automatically installed through Windows Updates, but would not remove it if it was manually installed. However, users would continue to see an Adobe Flash Player End of Life prompt that would encourage them to uninstall the program.

What happened to Flash? Why was it removed?

To better understand why Flash was removed, please read the Newgrounds blog post from TomFulp.

Can Paw'D still be played? If so, how can I play it?

Given that Paw'D was created using Adobe Flash, it can no longer be played as a browser game. This means that if you hop over to the Play Now button on the official site, the Paw'D link from Newgrounds, or from icyworlds.net, the game will not load.

However, the game can still be played, by downloading the client instead. The client version of the game runs on Adobe AIR, which is similar to Flash, except it is used for developing applications that can run SWF files. In short, Paw'D has not died out, you simply just need to download it now like any other game.

It is unclear whether or not Adobe AIR requires Flash Player to be installed on your system or not. If the client version of Paw'D does not work, and the Windows update automatically removed Flash Player from your system, then you may need to reinstall the last known version of Adobe Flash Player from a trusted source.