Adobe Releases 'Critical' Update for Flash After Security Vulnerability Discovered

[Lynn Becker]

and the Adobe Flash download page goes poof . . .

 

[Michael Goff]

I dislike Flash, but I can't argue with all your other comments here about its reliability compared to other platforms, however the argument that Apple started too soon is silly.

What should they have done? Delayed the iPhone launch for a couple of years until HTML5 matured? We're way past 2 years now, and HTML5 still doesn't compete on features with Flash. Should they have just installed it anyway, despite the alleged battery drain and performance problems? By Adobe's own claims, Flash was widespread on the internet so a poorly performing Flash player would have crippled the early iPhone.

Apple disagreed with your assessment. They didn't see 'the problem' as, there's no viable alternative to Flash, they saw the problem as people thinking they needed it. Adobe was using the promise of cheap mini games and pointless graphical frills as a lure to getting the public to install something they didn't need, thus eventually obtaining a stranglehold on the internet. In Adobe's own words, you couldn't access the 'full web' without Flash. How creepy is that? Adobe's grip was a far bigger problem, and unlikely to get better on its own.

It seemed like we needed Flash because all websites used it, and all websites used it because all users had it. That kind of cycle doesn't break itself. I'm not saying Apple acted selflessly to break it, but their published rationale when it came down to it, was pretty solid and hindsight has shown they made the right choice. There still isn't an alternative to Flash, but you have to wonder whether the world really cares.

The html5 market still hasn't matured, so no that's not what I meant. They should have tried to have an intermediate between now and then. Maybe have flash for a little, or something that translates flash.

http://www.cnn.com/2011/11/09/tech/mobile/flash-steve-jobs/


Yea pressing Command Q is such a chore. [/QUOTE

And I still find it funny that he had the balls to say something like that about flash given a couple of the things that Apple was putting out at the time.

LOL.

I do not use Flash for anything vital and I'd rather not have my identity compromised.

Adobe has dropped the ball with security measures big time lately (the CC user information breach etc.) An easy decision for me to let it go.

Everyone has dropped the ball.

 

[Thunderhawks]

Who are these people?

Good question Mr. Seinfeld.

 

[username:]

Flash is no longer working on my MBA 2013, with mavericks.
Anybody else having this issue?? If anything that needs flash tries to load it says flash out-of-date but as you can see I have the latest version installed.

 

[failur3d]

And people still want to try and give Apple crap for trying to rid us of this hot mess of a format.

Several people made comments similar to this, as though Adobe is the only company with glaring vulnerabilities. Apple chose not to put flash support on the iPhone or iPad, despite the fact that these two platforms offer Apple's largest weaknesses.

Surely you people must realize that "Jailbreaking" of an Apple Device is literally exploiting a security vulnerability to run arbitrary code and take over the entire device... exactly what Flash is fixing right now. The difference is that Apple has one of these vulnerabilities in each and every one of it's IOS releases, and they're unpatchable without a complete firmware update.

You're safer using Flash than an iOS device, according to the statistics if you were to break the numbers down.

 

[C DM]

What a joke Flash! You're like the swiss cheese of software.

The "joke" isn't that funny when it's already been made before.

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LOL.

I do not use Flash for anything vital and I'd rather not have my identity compromised.

Adobe has dropped the ball with security measures big time lately (the CC user information breach etc.) An easy decision for me to let it go.

Dont forget all the children that will be insulted and upset when Flash is used too.

 

[JAT]

As usual...always a lot of people that think disliking Flash is a terrible, terrible thought to have. Bummer, some of us hate Flash. Get over it.

 

[Shrink]

As usual...always a lot of people that think disliking Flash is a terrible, terrible thought to have. Bummer, some of us hate Flash. Get over it.

I used to think that hating Flash was terrible, but the post above convinced me that I was so wrong and that some of us hate Flash.

I'm over it!

 

[Noctilux.95]

I can't install this crap! It keeps showing me an error.

 

[inkswamp]

I didn't say they did it out of spite. I said they did it before an alternative was ready. The problem was that while flash was bad, it filled a hole that nothing else was ready to fill.

It sounded like you were implying Apple did it out of spite or for no good reason. But you yourself admit that Flash was bad. That's confirmed by everyone who has used it on mobile so why would Apple have used it even if it filled a hole (a premise I'm not so sure I buy, but for the sake of argument I'll let it go.)

As for what can't do today what Flash does? An easy example is cheap and quick games. Even if they are possible with HTML5/JavaScript? That relies a lot on you having the right browser. Install flash and you don't have to worry about whether or not your browser supports certain features or how quickly it renders JS. You dont have to worry about whether or not your browser will pick up asm.js.

Games, huh? Let's leave aside all discussions about the importance of porting over a bunch of old games and the fact that games are going to be a billion times better when rewritten in Objective-C. You complain instead that Javascript and HTML5 rely on browser compatibility but then apparently ignore the fact that a majority of Flash games require a keyboard and mouse to play as well as the fact that Flash had no support at the time for mobile-specific features like multi-touch, gestures and device movement (tilting, shaking, etc.) If I'm not mistaken, Adobe still hasn't fully supported mobile-specific features in Flash. That's incompatibility taken to a whole other level than concerns about a browser.

So, I guess I'm at a loss to understand the complaint. Flash was a lost cause and it was not Apple's fault. Apple just had the guts to point it out and not include it.

 

[Le Big Mac]

That's because when they update their software its almost always for a security vulnerability. And generally its a fairly massive one.

And it seems to be necessary every 2 weeks or so.

 

[ControlC]

I see no reason to bash them for being responsive. There are plenty of companies that leave known security leaks for months on end...

They're bashing Adobe for even having this flaw in the first place. And what I care about more is the fact that Flash has been getting slower and slower with the updates despite each one claiming "increased performance". An iMac G3 used to be able to play anything in Flash with no problem. Now, YouTube is unusable on a G5 and even lags in Chrome on a RMBP sometimes (but only Chrome for some reason).

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I can't install this crap! It keeps showing me an error.

BMW 2002!!! Nice! Oh, sorry about the error.

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Flash is no longer working on my MBA 2013, with mavericks.
Anybody else having this issue?? If anything that needs flash tries to load it says flash out-of-date but as you can see I have the latest version installed.

It's happened to me in one of the earlier versions. Apple's blocking mechanism has serious issues. You could try going to your Safari security settings and setting Flash to always be allowed to run.

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The html5 market still hasn't matured, so no that's not what I meant. They should have tried to have an intermediate between now and then. Maybe have flash for a little, or something that translates flash.

The problem is that Flash was way overused. Every single video required it, and most of the ads used it and killed your battery. Sure it has some valid uses, but it was abused… kinda like Comic Sans. YouTube still does for many of its videos, though Click2Flash allows me to watch in QuickTime player instead

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You could also launch the terminal in OS X and run

yes

There's also a Linux stress package that'll let you specifically test your HD, RAM, or CPU… unless I'm mistaken, it'll compile fine for OS X, too. Doesn't have a means for stressing your GPU, though.

On Windows there are plenty of apps with GUIs that were made for stressing different parts of your computer… including your GPU, if I'm not mistaken.

The problem with yes is that the Terminal kinda bottlenecks it. I've found that the best way to cause a system-wide freeze is to make a C program that calls a malloc(9000) 9000 times then creates threads in an infinite loop, each thread running a while(1){}.

 

[designgeek]

Good on them for patching it quickly. I still have to wonder why we're still using this dinosaur. Can some web professional answer this?

 

[MacMan988]

No matter how hard I try to improve my mac's security, Flash and Java is always there to make sure that there are at least two backdoors in my mac

 

[Michael Goff]

It sounded like you were implying Apple did it out of spite or for no good reason. But you yourself admit that Flash was bad. That's confirmed by everyone who has used it on mobile so why would Apple have used it even if it filled a hole (a premise I'm not so sure I buy, but for the sake of argument I'll let it go.)



Games, huh? Let's leave aside all discussions about the importance of porting over a bunch of old games and the fact that games are going to be a billion times better when rewritten in Objective-C. You complain instead that Javascript and HTML5 rely on browser compatibility but then apparently ignore the fact that a majority of Flash games require a keyboard and mouse to play as well as the fact that Flash had no support at the time for mobile-specific features like multi-touch, gestures and device movement (tilting, shaking, etc.) If I'm not mistaken, Adobe still hasn't fully supported mobile-specific features in Flash. That's incompatibility taken to a whole other level than concerns about a browser.

So, I guess I'm at a loss to understand the complaint. Flash was a lost cause and it was not Apple's fault. Apple just had the guts to point it out and not include it.

You do know that if Apple had wanted, they could have made it to where you could have used a mouse with iOS. You certainly can use a keyboard. By the way, there are quite a few excellent flash games on Facebook that I use on my Surface without a keyboard or a mouse.

Blasphemy, right?

The complaint, when there was a major one, centered around Apple's insistence on not using flash (except it allows the equally buggy Air, but whatever) when people wanted it a lot. But people should be used to that. Apple knows what you need better than you.

 

[inkswamp]

You do know that if Apple had wanted, they could have made it to where you could have used a mouse with iOS. You certainly can use a keyboard. By the way, there are quite a few excellent flash games on Facebook that I use on my Surface without a keyboard or a mouse.

You're shifting the goalposts. We're talking about when the iPhone first came out, not many years later. What does Surface have to do with Apple's decision so many years ago to abandon Flash? If you have to keep changing the context of this discussion (which you've done several times) it's a sign that maybe you have no real argument. You're flailing to make your case.

Blasphemy, right?

So, this is what? An attempt to paint anyone who agrees that Apple made the right decision as a religious fanatic? I hated Flash for many years before the iPhone ever saw the light of day and I wasn't alone. It's not a religious thing. Let's stay on point.

The complaint, when there was a major one, centered around Apple's insistence on not using flash (except it allows the equally buggy Air, but whatever) when people wanted it a lot. But people should be used to that. Apple knows what you need better than you.

Apple doesn't know what we need better than we do, but they do know what makes a good product and what doesn't. Including Flash on the iPhone would have been a disaster. I assume we both agree that that's beyond argument because so far you haven't presented me with a reasonable case against it.

 

[Michael Goff]

You're shifting the goalposts. We're talking about when the iPhone first came out, not many years later. What does Surface have to do with Apple's decision so many years ago to abandon Flash? If you have to keep changing the context of this discussion (which you've done several times) it's a sign that maybe you have no real argument. You're flailing to make your case.



So, this is what? An attempt to paint anyone who agrees that Apple made the right decision as a religious fanatic? I hated Flash for many years before the iPhone ever saw the light of day and I wasn't alone. It's not a religious thing. Let's stay on point.



Apple doesn't know what we need better than we do, but they do know what makes a good product and what doesn't. Including Flash on the iPhone would have been a disaster. I assume we both agree that that's beyond argument because so far you haven't presented me with a reasonable case against it.

I wasn't trying to make a case against Apple eschewing Flash, I was telling you that the argument was always the 'too soon' one. You just decided to try to continue defending Apple. Clearly they were right, they made a ton of money.

I'm sure they can withstand me saying things contrary to their wishes.

Edit: Also, the whole mouse and keyboard thing was because you said that you need a mouse and keyboard to use flash games. And me brining in my surface was to point out that it isn't always the case.

 

[inkswamp]

Edit: Also, the whole mouse and keyboard thing was because you said that you need a mouse and keyboard to use flash games. And me brining in my surface was to point out that it isn't always the case.

My exact quote was (with added emphasis): "...a majority of Flash games require a keyboard and mouse."

I didn't say or even imply that it was needed for all Flash games. I'm sure some Flash games work on a tablet without but there are very few. You still haven't addressed the fact that Flash has never supported mobile-specific input like gestures, hardware cues (shaking, tilting) and multi-touch. What about those?

Anyway, this is unbelievably tiresome. You keep changing the focus of the argument, trying to put me in the position of playing whack-a-mole which is boring.