Summary
Browsers stopped running Flash years ago, and Adobe ended support for Flash Player at the end of 2020. We wanted to know how much Flash code is still sitting in live websites.
The answer: 215,839 homepages crawled in 2026, or 0.54% of 40.3 million, still contain the Flash MIME type in their page code. That is about 1 in 185. Almost none of it loads anything, though.
What we measured
We searched the page code of 40,295,452 homepages crawled between 1 Jan and 14 Oct 2026 for the exact term 'application/x-shockwave-flash'.
The search covers the full homepage source, so a match means the string is in the page code. That includes legacy embed fallbacks and hidden templates that no longer render anything. These counts could not be confirmed in a second dataset.
As a separate check, we looked at HTTP Archive's Sept 2026 mobile crawl of the top 1M sites to count homepages that actually request a Flash file. That is a different measure on a different sample, so the two numbers should be read on their own.
Flash code lingers, but almost none of it loads
215,839 of 40.3 million homepages (0.54%) still carry the Flash embed type in their code, about 1 in 185. The count includes legacy fallback code that no longer renders, so it measures leftover markup rather than working Flash content.
Platform sites have mostly moved on. Only 0.26% of WordPress homepages and 0.02% of Shopify homepages still carry the Flash embed code.
Very little of this code does anything. In HTTP Archive's Sept 2026 crawl, only 522 of 782,850 top 1M homepages (0.07%) actually request a Flash file. Modern browsers do not run Flash, so leftover embed code usually sits in the page as dead markup.
0.54%
Share of 40.3M homepages crawled in 2026 whose page code still contains the Flash embed type.
What this means for your site
Leftover Flash code will not play for anyone, but it is a clear sign of a page nobody has reviewed in a long time. Any content that once depended on it, such as a video, banner or interactive map, is now missing for visitors.
- View your page source and search for 'application/x-shockwave-flash', '.swf', and old object or embed tags.
- Replace any Flash video with an HTML5 video element or a standard video embed, and remove Flash banners outright.
- Check older templates, footers and archived pages too, since the code often hides in places the homepage edit never touched.
Sources
- PageSpeed Matters analysis of 40,295,452 homepages crawled 1 Jan to 14 Oct 2026, October 2026
- HTTP Archive crawl of the top 1M sites, September 2026, mobile
Frequently asked questions
Do websites still use Flash in 2026?
215,839 of the 40.3 million homepages crawled in 2026 (0.54%) still contain the Flash embed type in their page code, about 1 in 185. Very little of it loads: only 522 of 782,850 top 1M homepages (0.07%) request a Flash file.
How do I find leftover Flash code on my site?
View the page source and search for 'application/x-shockwave-flash' and '.swf', and look for old object or embed tags. Check older templates and archived pages as well as the homepage.
Old Flash embeds are dead weight that is quick to remove, and replacing them restores content visitors can no longer see. Need help with this? See our website maintenance services.