“Adobe has urged users of its Flash Player plug-in to install an update to protect themselves against the risk of hackers hijacking their PCs,” BBC News reports. “It cited a “critical vulnerability” in older versions and said it had become aware of reports that cybercriminals had worked out a way to exploit it.”
“A new version of the multimedia player has been made available for download for Windows, Mac and Linux computers,” The Beeb reports. “This is the latest in a series of setbacks for the company.”
“The California-based software maker acknowledged that usernames and encrypted passwords had been stolen from about 38 million of its active account holders last year. And Flash vulnerability alerts frequently appear on security firms’warning lists,” The Beeb reports. “Apple is now blocking the use of older versions of Flash on its Safari web browser. The firm introduced a ‘sandbox’ feature to its Mavericks operating system in October that stops the Flash plug-in from running automatically. Users must first give it permission to activate and Apple can also disable the software remotely.”
“Although many websites still use Flash to provide videos, graphics, games and other content, large numbers of developers have switched to using the web language HTML 5 to create such effects,” The Beeb reports. “This has been spurred on by the fact that Flash is not supported on Apple’s iOS platform and has been pulled from Google’s Android Play store.”
Read more in the full article here.
Related articles:
Steve Jobs wins: Adobe Flash for Android dies tomorrow – August 14, 2012
Adobe ceases development on Flash Player for mobile, refocuses efforts on HTML5 – November 9, 2011
Study: iOS users view 80% of mobile video – May 23, 2011
Apple CEO Steve Jobs was right about Adobe’s Flash – May 2, 2011
Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen believes his firm doesn’t need Apple or the iPad – August 16, 2010
Steve Jobs posts rare open letter: Thoughts on Flash – April 29, 2010
I did the best update possible. I deleted it and all traces of it.
heh, good work.
Well, that explains the “blocked plug-in” message I got when I visited YouTube with Safari before. I had on multiple occasions been prompted by Flash to download an update, but this was the first time that Safari wouldn’t let me use the plug-in before I updated it.
Why the hell is Flash still the go-to software for distributing streaming video, anyway? Wasn’t HTML5 supposed to have taken over by now? I’m really surprised that YouTube is still stuck on Flash, considering that they had been experimenting with an HTML5 player, which I used to use.
——RM
HTML5 doesn’t let Youtube (google) insert ads before and during the video. Download the Youtube5 Safari extension and see how much cleaner the experience is.
(There’ll still be a few videos on Youtube which force Flash because of DRM or other commercial reasons. I either fire up Chrome to watch those or don’t bother watching at all).
I still don’t get why video providers use it given the absolutely horrible security record. It’s been years of this now.
A reblogué ceci sur dnslookupfr.
I refuse to have Flash installed on my Mac, relying on Chrome’s native ability to run Flash.
Not that I use it often…
With helpful technologies such as Flash and Java 7, who needs enemies?
Shantanu Narayen has proven to be a terrible CEO. Under his leadership (and I use the term loosely) Adobe 1) continued to push Flash even as it became apparent to everyone (including Steve Jobs in his famous Thoughts on Flash) that the software was not workable on mobile, 2) made the Creative Suite more and more expensive to the frustration of many once loyal users, remain in reactive mode regarding Flash security instead of attempting to nip the who thing in the bud by rewriting the code from the ground up or moving exclusively to HTML.
I got the “blocked” message from Safari when I tried to create a link to a file in my DropBox account. I didn’t realize before then that DropBox was using Flash for anything. Highly disappointing–I otherwise like DropBox.
Didn’t even know flash was still around.
That pos software always was crap.
I leave the Flash Player plug-in turned off when using my default Safari browser. I’m on a MacBook and hate it when the fan spins up to a howell because Flash using using 68% processor cycles to give me idiotic animated ads.
For those occasions where I need Flash (often to look at a video on CNN), I just launch Google Chrome, which has Flash built-in (not an add-on). Watch the video. Quit Chrome. Go back to Safari. Quite Mac. No worries.
Flash does not exist on my Mac! I have utterly destroyed it with extreme prejudice. So I ignore any media and websites that run on that odious and malevolent relic.
So I guess this shit’s never going away.
No, the giant carcass will continue to stink on the beach until fully reduced; until the last gull flaps off with empty beak and the last mollusk oozes away.