Adobe Flash Player

[Xenophon PCDGS]

This product seems to appear to be "a product from Hell" from what I read on various websites. How long has this product been the cause of various problems and do Adobe propose to eventually produce a version of it that will not cause such problems when installed.

I disable it every so often, but the problem is that I have to reinstall it to enable certain functions to work.

 

[Bevan Price]

As the Flash player is free, and now over 20 years old (as Macromedia Flash), it would not surprise me if Adobe gave it lower priority than development of Photoshop, etc. But at least they do seem to try and plug security loopholes in it - some other companies might have just abandoned it by now.

 

[yorkie]

Yes, it's a bit of a pain (but nothing compared to Java!) but is slowly becoming redundant.

http://www.computerweekly.com/opinion/Why-HTML5-must-replace-Flash

...And that’s really the final nail in the coffin of Flash – the fact that JavaScript, known and loved by most web developers, is all you need to make HTML5 a rich and dynamic multimedia environment. And, combined with libraries such as jQuery, you only need to know the very basics of the language to get striking results that won’t crash the browser or leave it vulnerable to attack....

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Why do certain sites say that you NEED to install Adobe Flash Player so you can access what they have to offer and offer a link to facilitate that. Are there no other Flash Players available?

 

[SpacePhoenix]

In Firefox (on Windows 8) it crashes near enough straight away whether in protected mode or not and on the BBC weather site it seems to cause FF to crash. A lot of news sites use FLV files for news videos

 

[DarloRich]

I have never had a problem with Firefox crashing on BBC news sites. Can you not just disabled flash via your plug in tab and then turn it back on if you need it.

 

[SpacePhoenix]

I have never had a problem with Firefox crashing on BBC news sites. Can you not just disabled flash via your plug in tab and then turn it back on if you need it.

What version of Windows are you running?

 

[DarloRich]

What version of Windows are you running?

i don't know! An old one. It needs upgrading but it can wait until i get a new computer

 

[mikeg]

I'm glad it's on its way out to be honest, I think there are no plans to replace it but agree it's a piece of software from hell. Standards? What Standards? A huge kludge of proprietary code that only works on certain machines - when it wants to. I'm using Windows 10 at the moment and haven't had much in the way of problems but the problem is larger on GNU/Linux systems where security updates only have been applied since version 13 (I think) and it's incredibly unreliable. The problem I've had is on switching tabs in Firefox it tends to crash the plugin. And not just that plugin, all plugins that are open*.

Thankfully, Flash is used less and less due to the rise of mobile devices on which it is not supported, so it's not as big a problem as it used to be.

* And I know a partial solution is to used Chrome/Chromium with peppermint flash but I prefer Firefox...

i don't know! An old one. It needs upgrading but it can wait until i get a new computer

If it's 7 or 8.1, you can upgrade to Windows 10 free of charge for a limited time only.

 

[DarloRich]

If it's 7 or 8.1, you can upgrade to Windows 10 free of charge for a limited time only.

I think a new computer might be the best option - mine now struggles to run Football Manager.

 

[Dent]

Why do certain sites say that you NEED to install Adobe Flash Player so you can access what they have to offer and offer a link to facilitate that. Are there no other Flash Players available?

Flash is a proprietary format owned by Adobe, and the name "Flash" is a trademark.

There have been some attempts to reverse-engineer the format and create alternative players, with varying (limited) levels of success, and mainly for Linux. VLC also has limited support for FLV files.

 

[Crossover]

Why do certain sites say that you NEED to install Adobe Flash Player so you can access what they have to offer and offer a link to facilitate that. Are there no other Flash Players available?

Due to the fact they are coded in such a way that they need the plugin to interpret and display the results of such. It is usually multimedia that requires it such as games and video. It is no longer (and hasn't been for some time) supported on Apple devices and likewise for Android. Thus, when you get entire sites built in it (as the company I work for still has *rolls eyes*, loading it on an iPad presents a blank white page only!)

With HTML5 now in use, the need for both Flash and Java is diminishing and both have security holes. That said, Flash Player for IE is now included by default within Windows 10 (was in Windows 8.1 too) without the need for a separate download

Thankfully, Java is dying a death and only a couple of weeks ago, Oracle said they are going to start dismantling the plugin, so hopefully within the next few years, it'll be gone

 

[danielnez1]

Thankfully, Java is dying a death and only a couple of weeks ago, Oracle said they are going to start dismantling the plugin, so hopefully within the next few years, it'll be gone

Be very careful what you wish for; would you want to deal with the abomination that is C++?

 

[Crossover]

Be very careful what you wish for; would you want to deal with the abomination that is C++?

I don't care to be honest. I'm not a coder, but a sysadmin, and Java is a constant wind up

 

[danielnez1]

I don't care to be honest. I'm not a coder, but a sysadmin, and Java is a constant wind up

It could be worse, e.g. the general crapfest and hard hack that is GNOME

In seriousness, outside of the nightmare of browser plug-ins, Java is reasonably self-contained, depending on the JRE/JDK etc you have on your systems.

 

[miami]

I don't care to be honest. I'm not a coder, but a sysadmin, and Java is a constant wind up

Then you'll be delighted to know Java aint vanishing. Java applets, sure, but the language and runtime will be around for a long time.

 

[Crossover]

It's really the browser plugin that wastes most of my time. The sooner websites stop relying on it, the better

 

[miami]

Have to say with the exception of ilos I haven't seen an applet for years.

As far as flash goes, with the exception of a couple of forums that embed YouTube using flash, and the bbc news website when I don't fake my user agent, I haven't seen it for ages either. I don't have either plugin installed on my laptop.

Xen orchestrator does a vnc (or rdp) client in html5 for access to machine consoles, I was amazed.

 

[northwichcat]

I disable it every so often, but the problem is that I have to reinstall it to enable certain functions to work.

I'd suggest using Google Chrome as your browser, then use the 'click to play' plugin feature. That way it won't run unless you specifically want it to run without having to uninstall and reinstall it.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

It's really the browser plugin that wastes most of my time. The sooner websites stop relying on it, the better

I'm surprised it's still used at all. I worked on a lot of Flash based projects until early 2011 when most of the big companies stopped wanting to use Flash. That was due to Steve Jobs banning Flash Player from the iPhone and iPad and a lot of people starting to access websites from iPhones and iPads. The websites still using Flash without an alternative are now around 5 years behind.

 

[Bevan Price]

I think a new computer might be the best option - mine now struggles to run Football Manager.

Have you tried using something like ccleaner (free version - Google search "ccleaner" to download) to clean the accumulated rubbish that gets written onto your computer without your knowledge ? It can also clear damaged entries from the Windows registry. That often makes older computers run a bit faster.

 

[SS4]

The sooner flash dies the better. Proprietary piece of trash

Flash isn't even developed on linux outside of the chrom{e,ium} version - a browser with privacy issues

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

The sooner flash dies the better. Proprietary piece of trash

Totally agree. I have noticed that the BT Wholesale Speed Tester and parts of the BT Desktop Help still insist that you HAVE to use their link to install Adobe Flash Player, in order to make access possible.

 

[dgl]

The problem with flash is with all it's problems it's still more efficient than HTML5 which is why some companies still use it. It also is supported by older browsers and things written in flash are usually more consistent than HTML5 across different browsers.

 

[PermitToTravel]

There are alternatives, such as Gnash, but they're likely to be more hassle than they're worth sadly. Happily use of Flash in websites has really declined a lot lately and it'll hopefully soon die the death it deserves to

 

[Crossover]

Totally agree. I have noticed that the BT Wholesale Speed Tester and parts of the BT Desktop Help still insist that you HAVE to use their link to install Adobe Flash Player, in order to make access possible.

You don't have to download specifically with their link. Just that their site relies on it and won't work without, so they provide a link to make it easier for people to obtain the necessary plugins

 

[miami]

The problem with flash is with all it's problems it's still more efficient than HTML5 which is why some companies still use it. It also is supported by older browsers and things written in flash are usually more consistent than HTML5 across different browsers.

How do you define more efficient? Surely not by processing power, or by payload size, or by CPU usage?

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

You don't have to download specifically with their link. Just that their site relies on it and won't work without, so they provide a link to make it easier for people to obtain the necessary plugins

Are you at all surprised that an organisation the size of BT has not come up with a method to make the BT Wholesale Speed Tester and the requisite part of BT Desktop Help function without recourse to such an arcane computer product as Adobe Flash Player?

 

[PermitToTravel]

There isn't the incentive to, as the majority of people have Flash installed (as particularly do the subset of people interested in their internet speed)

The speed tester on BT's site is a rebadged version of the famous one made by Ookla

 

[341o2]

Have you tried using something like ccleaner (free version - Google search "ccleaner" to download) to clean the accumulated rubbish that gets written onto your computer without your knowledge ? It can also clear damaged entries from the Windows registry. That often makes older computers run a bit faster.

I use Glary utilities, a similar program, and another thing to watch is programs which automatically start and are running in the background thereby using memory

Disabling unnecessary programs on start up can improve boot time and performance. Glary utilities has this feature, also a record of boot time

 

[miami]

Are you at all surprised that an organisation the size of BT has not come up with a method to make the BT Wholesale Speed Tester and the requisite part of BT Desktop Help function without recourse to such an arcane computer product as Adobe Flash Player?

What would it cost?
How much profit would they make?
How much money would they save?