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Bad Flash Player On Windows 7

Anonymous
2018-09-18T22:20:12+00:00

If I found Adobe easy to work with, then I would not post to this forum.  Recently, last week sometime, Adobe issued an update for Flash Player.  Now, I thought, as was the case with Java, we were not going to have to use this plugin.  This is a Windows 7 64-Bit OS where IE11 is my default browser.  The newest version of Flash Player is 31.0.0.109, both ActiveX and NPAPI.  Besides other problems installing this update, it wasn't worth all the work.  After installation I noticed that pages I regularly use did not work right.  Search engines did not turn up the usual pages of hits.  In fact, where there were once images to show, they no longer show, only some icon that acts as a placeholder.  Of course, as I just thought of, I could revert back to an older version of Flash.  In fact, I had trouble from the site page for these forums doing a search on the terms "Adobe Flash Player" which brought me out of the Windows forum to an Office forum.  That was a crazy search result unless this troublesome Flash Player was behind it.  Has anyone else experienced trouble since installing the recent Flash Player?  As I said before, as with Java I wish this one would go away.  I hope I chose the right place to start this thread.

Windows for home | Previous Windows versions | Internet and connectivity

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  1. LemP 74,925 Reputation points Volunteer Moderator
    2018-09-19T23:27:02+00:00

    History:

    • First, there was Netscape Navigator, a browser.
    • Then came Netscape Communicator, which was an "all in one" product, including a browser, an email & newsgroup client, an address book and an HTML editor.
    • Then came Mozilla Application Suite, which was similar to Netscape Communicator.
    • Mozilla being an open-source project, not everyone agreed on the direction development should take.  One group focused on a browser; that became Mozilla Firefox.  Another group focused on email/newsgroups; that became Mozilla Thunderbird.  And yet a third group liked the idea of an all in one suite; that project became SeaMonkey.

    Basically SeaMonkey is a combination of Firefox and Thunderbird. 

    When you wrote "what about Firefox?  Additionally, I use SeaMonkey," I thought that perhaps you were using both Firefox and Seamonkey.  If you're satisfied with SeaMonkey, stay with it, although it's my understanding that SeaMonkey isn't as robustly supported as Firefox and Thunderbird.  See, e.g., https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1200012

    5 people found this answer helpful.
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  2. Anonymous
    2018-09-19T19:45:16+00:00

    Despite all the input here, nothing here is going to improve the appearance of my sites.

    "As far as SeaMonkey is concerned, if I were you, I'd stick with Firefox and Thunderbird."  No way!  I do not know if I was clear enough previously; but I use SeaMonkey as my default email client.  Microsoft does not offer one with the same level of security.  I am not inviting major disruptions to my system through this thread.  Despite the articles you both provided, I am concerned about my seeing websites as they are supposed to look.

    2 people found this answer helpful.
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  3. LemP 74,925 Reputation points Volunteer Moderator
    2018-09-19T17:38:32+00:00

    The current versions of both Firefox and Chrome discourage the use of Flash. 

    I'm not certain of how closely the timetable described in the following article has been followed, but it's pretty accurate:

    https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Plugins/Roadmap

    At the moment, the current versions of Firefox (62) and Chrome (69) can use Flash if you're really determined.  I regularly use FF, do not have the Flash plug-in installed, and can't recall having come across a website that uses Flash at least for the past several years.  As of this past April, Flash is used on less than 5% of websites (https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/software/flash-used-on-5-percent-of-all-websites-down-from-285-percent-seven-years-ago/).  Currently, that number seems to be 4.3% (https://w3techs.com/technologies/details/cp-flash/all/all).  Flash isn't as unused as Silverlight (or Java), but it's getting there.

    As far as Seamonkey is concerned, if I were you, I'd stick with Firefox and Thunderbird.

    2 people found this answer helpful.
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  4. Anonymous
    2018-09-19T15:55:41+00:00

    Canadian Tech, that all sounds fine.  However, what about Firefox?  Additionally, I use SeaMonkey, the former Mozilla Suite, which is browser, default email client and newsgroups (I do not use that service).  Also, though I thank you for both your intentions and promptness, this longterm solution does not solve the immediate problem.  My preferred search page has links; but regardless of which browser, instead of looking for the quick links to click on to go to commonly visited sites, I must read fine print under their placeholders.

    2 people found this answer helpful.
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  5. Anonymous
    2018-09-19T13:53:02+00:00

    My standard practice for all my clients' computers is to download and install Chrome and make it the default browser.  You can debate if it is a better browser, but....

    1. Internet Explorer has had no development work in years.
    2. IE has fallen  from over 50% of the market to under 15%
    3. Chrome has risen from 1% to over 65% of market
    4. Chrome does not need Adobe Flash Player, Adobe Reader or Java.  Those three are some of the most favoured routes that hackers and viruses use to take over your computer.
    5. As a standard practice, I uninstall all three.

    2 people found this answer helpful.
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