Gradle : DSL element 'useProguard' is obsolete and will be removed soon

Removing "useProguard" from build.gradle fixed the problem for me, like:

release {
            minifyEnabled true
            //useProguard true
            proguardFiles getDefaultProguardFile('proguard-android.txt'), 'proguard-rules.pro'
        }

Update 2022, or Details; R8 is nowadays:

• By default enabled,
• And it simply replaces ProGuard,

  But supports existing .pro files (and there should be no need to reconfigure).

• Also, any way to disable R8, or use ProGuard instead, is deprecated (or even removed).

  But debug flavors can set debuggable true, and continue to be debuggable line-by-line.

set the following in your project's gradle.properties file

android.enableR8=true

R8 also has full mode that is not directly compatible with Proguard. In order to try that out you can additionally set the following in your gradle.properties file

android.enableR8.fullMode=true

This turns on more optimizations, that can further reduce app size. However, you might need a few extra keep rules to make it work.