Why? Because once software goes EOL the company completely stops supporting it, even if there are exploits and hacks that show up. Most users probably never even noticed, and in 2017 Adobe (who had acquired Macromedia) announced that Adobe Flash would reach its EOL (end of life) on January 1, 2021.įour years later and that’s today! Which means that it’s important you spend a few minutes and make sure that you don’t have Flash on either your Mac or PC systems. But Flash has always been plagued by security problems and about a decade ago, Apple announced that it would stop supporting Flash entirely, deferring to JavaScript, CSS and HTML 5.0 interactive features. In its heyday, being a Flash developer was a skill much in demand. Flash also allowed sites to embed video content and even create slick, highly interactive games too. It added animation and a much higher level of interactivity than the then-current HTML used for Web page markup. John is available to speak at conventions, conferences, groups and events, so please get in touch to enquire or make a booking.It’s hard to believe, but Adobe Flash has been around since it debuted in 1996 as “Macromedia Flash”. This article has been cross posted on koolth's blog. Please feel free to chat to me about this in the comments. So, if you can’t uninstall Flash Player quite yet, please keep it updated! How to uninstall Adobe Flash Player However, saying that, there are still a lot of websites that utilise Flash to deliver their content - especially for online gaming and some media streaming sites. In addition, most software developers moved away from using Flash for internet applications a number of years ago. With HTML5 becoming more and more prevalent, we no longer need Flash to deliver rich, embedded content, with many websites providing Flash Player alternatives (including YouTube and Spotify). The web pages that power the internet have moved on considerably since Flash was introduced. More worrying is that in the past, Adobe has been very slow in fixing known vulnerabilities within Flash Player i.e., in 2010 Adobe apologised for taking over a year to fix a “ critical vulnerability”. Systems running Internet Explorer for Windows 7 and below, as well as Firefox on Windows XP, are known targets. Just a couple weeks ago, there was another security scare when a different vulnerability also allowed 3rd parties to take control of a system using Flash Player just by loading up an infected Flash file.Īdobe is aware of reports that is being actively exploited in the wild via limited, targeted attacks. This latest critical update comes hot on the heels of yet another in a long line of security updates for the software. It’s release (nearly 20 years ago), heralded the first wave of interactive and multimedia-based websites. If you aren’t running the latest version on your system then you are at risk! What is Adobe Flash Player?Īdobe Flash Player is a browser plugin that allows you to stream video and audio, and run certain internet applications - many people know it as Shockwave Flash. The latest Windows/Mac version of Flash Player is v18.0.0.203 - you can check what version you are running via These updates address critical vulnerabilities that could potentially allow an attacker to take control of the affected system. This underlines why we think you should disable/uninstall Flash Player as soon as possible.Īdobe has just released another critical update to its Flash player to plug a serious flaw identified following the recent Hacking Team breach. At the moment there is no patch for these issues as Adobe are working on a fix - until then, even if you have updated your system, you are at risk. UPDATE (13/07/15): Adobe has confirmed (yesterday) that more critical vulnerabilities in Flash Player have been identified.
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