can't update shockwave flash!

Happy July 4th.
I can't watch videos. :cry I received a message from helpful Firefox telling me that they have blocked shockwave flash 17 for my own protection and that I need to update it. In a frenzy of gratitude I immediately went to the plug in page, where it said beside Flash - "upgrade". So I clicked on that and it took me to the adobe flash site download site, where it said to click to upgrade to the latest flash; I clicked and the download began. Did I want to save the file, clicked 'save' . Then 'do you want to run this file' page came up and I clicked 'run'. At this point a box came up saying "adobe download manager has encountered a problem and needs to close". Asked if I wanted to send this error message to microsoft. I clicked 'send' the first five times this happened. Surprise! Nothing got fixed. Never does. Tried about 20 more times. Same thing. So came here. Help me. [always remembering that you are the geek and I am the klutz, so talk slowly in lay terms. :-D ]
Thanks,
Alterintel

 

"adobe download manager" isn't required, you should use the Adobe uninstall tool and then reboot and install Flash directly without anything else attached, see Corrine's blog for details and clean links: http://securitygarden.blogspot.co.uk/2015/06/out-of-band-critical-adobe-flash-player.html

 

I had similar problems getting the latest version of Flash player installed in FF 39. What I ended up having to do was Google for the full stand-alone installer and now have it installed. You need to run the Flash uninstaller prior to trying to install the latest version of Flash.

I run WinPatrol Plus and had a warning about Flash updater trying to set up the task of doing so multiple times even though I had clicked Allow in the dialogue box. I wound up removing the task via WinPatrol.

 

The latest offline installers are always available at https://helpx.adobe.com/flash-player/kb/installation-problems-flash-player-windows.html#main-pars_text_4

 

Thanks to all who replied. I will try these suggestions.

alterintel

 

Pwillener,
I wish I could thank you again. Randomly, I chose your suggestion to try first; followed your link, and the installation seemed quick and smooth. Both c-cleaner and ff add-ons show Flash 18 has been installed. Haven't had time to try it out yet.
One question; I read on mg that adobe wouldn't let one download from any site but theirs.So is this download site a part of adobe? You refer to it as an offline installer. Could you explain what that is and how I could find such things on my own?
Thanks, alterintel

 

An off-line installer is a setup file you download and then install it - instead of having the program install directly from the site you visit. If you have more than 1 PC, you can then install that program to the others. Microsoft refers to it as a redistributable.

The link posted are for the official downloads from Adobe.
They're safe. Bookmark the link for future use.