What's the risk with Adobe Flash Player

I have just attempted to watch a video clip on the BBC News web site. The browser I was using was Mozilla Firefox 38.0.5. It said that I could not play the video clip because my Adobe Flash Player Plugin was out-of-date. I opted to update. Mozilla offered me the update but states it's "Vulnerable". Is it unsafe to use Adobe Flash Player plugin on Mozilla Firefox? If the answer's in the affirmative, why? What can I use instead?

 

Damn. That's worrying. I use Flash all the time. How else are we supposed to watch YouTube?

 

There's always an isssue with Adobe Flash Player. How vulnerable or unsafe the latest version is, is anyone's guess.

Can you not play the video with the current version of Adobe Flash Player?

 

I'd consider Flash ESR to be their stable version:

https://www.adobe.com/mena_en/products/flashplayer/distribution3.html

Works great here on the BBC website.

Use the Flash uninstaller before rebooting and installing a different version (there are some very dodgy versions out there, any dregs left over from them might lead to further problems) direct (live) link to the uninstaller: http://download.macromedia.com/get/flashplayer/current/support/uninstall_flash_player.exe

 

Done! Problem solved. Thanks.

 

NP :major

 

Er, my earlier quote from the Adobe distribution download page makes it quite clear that ESR is aimed at stability + security, mainstream versions are aimed at newer features.

The bug fixes needed by the mainstream versions, I would suggest, are primarily due to those newer features and would mostly, if not entirely, be n/a for ESR.

 

Um, are you implying that normal PC users should have no concerns regarding stability?!

FYI, apart from malware-related Flash issues, the vast majority of Flash issues I see are from Release version users and many of those are concerning lack of stability = crashes/hangs etc.

 

Users are only aware of and can make that choice once they realise there is an alternative to the Release version.

 

Without dragging this topic too far away from the OP's (fixed) problem, what diagnostics steps would you propose?

Would those steps prove faster or easier to work through than using the workaround I suggested?

 

Flash isn't required for the majority of recent YouTube videos, they're updating them to HTML5; set your Flash to "Ask to activate" and they should play with HTML5 instead if your browser supports it.

 

What are your suggested diagnostic steps?

 

Stability and security are not as separate and distinct as you seem to think, "use after free" might make a good search term for starters.