Site Question for Robert (or other techies) re: Adobe Flash

[rp2813]

This week I've had advisories from Firefox on various sites stating that my version of Adobe Flash is outdated and vulnerable (see image below).  Here on aw.org, it happened when I opened the home page, and the advisory message appeared where the agitating washer normally does.

 

I opted to "allow" Adobe to operate anyway and all was well.

 

Today I read an article that suggests everyone remove Adobe Flash from their PCs because it supposedly offers an open door to hackers.  I'm hesitant to do this until I understand what would take its place, and if I need to do anything.  Like if I uninstalled Flash, how would the washer on the home page appear, or how would I view YouTube clips, etc?

 

Is there an alternative, or do the individual sites direct you to the recommended download to enable viewing?

 

Suggestions in layman's terms would be appreciated.  I have three machines operating Windows 7 pro, Vista, and XP here.

 

[washman]

There was an upgrade

to flash yesterday I believe

http://https//support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/adobe-flash-protected-mode-firefox?redirectlocale=en-US&redirectslug=flash-protected-mode-settings

 

[earthling177]

Ben (Washman): it's true that Flash has been upgraded recently. It's also true that Flash has been upgraded more often than weekly in the last few months. There's no hope for Flash.

Ralph (rp2813): Flash is dead.

It was once, long, long ago, a practical way to put video on the web. But the thing is, it was never well designed/engineered, it worked out of brute force -- it took too many resources, it kept crashing computers, eating batteries and, in the last decade, spreading malware. When smartphones showed up, it became even more clear that Flash was not in our futures. People laughed at Steve Jobs for saying Flash was dead in 2010, but the truth is that over 2 years ago even Android and Microsoft dumped Flash for portable devices.

Given that portable devices like tablets, smartphones etc now outnumber computers accessing websites, if you want your website to be seen and interacted with, you put out videos using HTML5's resources. Youtube has made a serious effort to dump Flash, Chrome (which used to come with Flash pre-installed) now makes Flash optional and is dumping it very soon, even Facebook, which used to have lots of Flash-based games, recently asked Adobe to sunset Flash.

Cheers,
-- Paulo.

PS: sorry, I forgot to suggest what to do. Me, personally, I went to Adobe's website and downloaded a removal tool and got rid of Flash altogether. Another alternative is to go to Adobe's website and download an updater to bring Flash up to the latest version -- you'll be doing this very often. Do not click on random links particularly if they are in porn sites, which will send you malware, get the software straight from Adobe. Good luck!

 

[rp2813]

Yes, I'm aware of the recent update and it was supposedly a fix to make Firefox happy again.  I think I downloaded that one yesterday.

 

So does HTML5 eliminate the need for any sort of "player" software on my machines?  I know that on my XP laptop, there are issues with Quicktime and it won't update (fails due to some reason I don't remember), it won't uninstall (fails due to some reason I don't remember), won't install without the old version gone, and it's useless as a result.

 

 

 

 

 

[earthling177]

Ralph:

HTML5 is supposed to be able to show videos from the web that don't have digital rights management, and you shouldn't need any extra players, but you may want to keep those for when you are looking at videos you already have in your computer (let's say "educational videos").

I'm not sure what's going on with your quicktime installation, apple may not be distributing upgrades to Windows XP anymore, and other software, like iTunes, and hardware like iPods, iPhones etc depends on quicktime.

If you're not using anything that depends on QuickTime and want to remove it from the machine, I've included a link to an Apple article on how to remove it.

Cheers,
-- Paulo.

http://https//support.apple.com/en-us/HT204313

 

[rp2813]

Thanks Paulo,

 

I'll give the Apple process a try.

 

[washer111]

Something I Have to Ask...

Somewhat repeatedly, at that:

In 2015, most of our computers lie behind modem/router devices fitted with Network Address Translation and a Firewall program (both on the router, and the largely useless Windows one). NAT means the computers within your network, as far as they are concerned, don't really know about the internet, at least in a directly-connected sense as we had in the Dial-Up days.

So how is it that these people will get in?
Everyone's Firewalls on these modem/router devices are probably configured to block connections, except under specific circumstances, where they will direct traffic from an open port to a specific computer (as I do, with a locally-hosted Webserver).

This is why I am not at all interested in the new IPv6 addressing standard. Basically, it does away with the "internal network" created by using a router supporting NAT. This means every single computer, device or other internet-connectable "thing" on your home network has a direct connection to the internet, and ANYONE can see your computer, and get into it.

With this standard, I feel as though we'll be loosing privacy, but once again, as was popular earlier in the internet age, the Firewall programs like ZoneAlarm and others will become very popular again!

On my computers, Chrome blocks Flash objects a lot of the time. I also make use of AdBlockers, as there are more and more malicious advertisements on the web these days, which could possibly try to "get in" to my computers. A popular site, Airliners.net, goes through phases of being clean, and then trying to fly all sorts of crap onto your computer. I just don't go there anymore.

With Safari on my Macbook here (which runs the older Snow Leopard release), I also use ClicktoPlugin, which allows me to choose how Flash videos, such as those on YouTube can be displayed (i.e. QuickTime, HTML5, Plugin). I can also choose to block things like Java(Sludge).

All in all, I think we'll be FAR better off once JavaSludge and Flush (Your Life Down the Drain) go the way of the Dodo. Except, unfortunately, I think we'll see other things take their place.

 

[launderess]

Everyone Has Known For Ages Adobe "Flash" Is A Hot M

But while desk and even lap top computers dominated the market it sort of was a necessary evil. As point out above so much was built around Flash that disabling and or uninstalling would often make navigating the Internet a cumbersome process.

After several nasty malware infections on my old Dell and one on the newest disabled Flash, but that just slowed things down and or in some cases websites simply wouldn't work at all. It becomes a huge pain to research which sites to give permission to work versus those you didn't want. More so as sites became infected with malware that their owner's didn't even know about. If they don't know and you either simply visiting a site or worse downloading something from it causes all sorts of problems.

 

[Unimatic1140]

Yes you don't need flash to view anything on automaticwasher.org except the home page Frigidaire washer animation. I created that animation 12 years ago and I do want to replace it at some point with a more simple animation.

In 2003 I thought it was the coolest thing on the internet lol! Now of course it's outdated. Just need to find some time to create something new, which will be rather time consuming unfortunately.

So getting rid of flash wont effect the functionality of any of the threes website I run.

 

[rp2813]

Thanks Robert.  This is one site where I don't want to create any navigational issues for myself!

 

[sudsmaster]

The flash update I downloaded Wednesday has fixed the Firefox error message.

 

Give it a try.

 

 

[rp2813]

Oh yeah, it was fixed before I launched this thread, but the article about Flash being a gateway for hackers is what concerns me, along with the whole "Flash is dead" thing.

 

[sudsmaster]

It was something called the Ground Zero attack, or similar. Adobe kept on patching it but Firefox kept on saying it wasn't enough. I guess Adobe finally got it right after three tries.

 

You can always set Firefox to ask first before enabling Flash (Shockwave Flash). This may also help start some web pages faster, since often the Flash automatically tries to load some video which can take a while.