Flash Player

I'm confused. I ran a scan on Secunia and it showed Adobe Flash Player, Shockwave Flash Player, Macromedia Flash Player. They were all listed as out of date and in need of an update. I got to searching around and my question is, are these all the same or do you need to install each one?

Thanks,
Nikilet

P.S. Sorry, but I forgot one. What about RealPlayer One? The scan also showed that as out of date but in going to Start/All Programs/RealOne Player I see that I don't even have it installed. Do I need this or can I remove it?

 

It's all just Flash, just different things it's been called. See Adobe Shockwave - Wikipedia for a full explanation. Then visit Adobe - Test Adobe Shockwave and Flash Players, that page will detect if your version is outdated and update it automatically.

If you don't have RealPlayer installed, how are you going to remove it?

 

Don't you have to wonder about that Secunia scan? If it told you RealPlayer is out of date but you don't even have RealPlayer, what does that say about the validity of Secunia's recommendations.

I visited http://secunia.com/ but I don't see a scan option. Where is that?

 

This is the link for that Secunia test for software. http://secunia.com/software_inspector/
This was a recommended site in my CloudEight Info Ave Premium newsletter. I trust those guys 100%.

As to the RealPlay One, it appears in my All Programs, but when I went to it and clicked on the update option it told me that first I have to install it. I've run across this before -- programs that are apparently loaded on this Dell computer but not actually installed. Another one like that is Abbyy FineReader 5.0. The program is there but if I click on it I get a sign that says I have to run the installer.

I think I've got the flash deal worked out but I have another little problem -- seems like it's been one little thing after another lately. I went to my Info Ave Premium home page and the Google ads along the side are just a bunch of little boxes; when I clicked on them it said I had to download Japanese. So can you tell me what I've done to cause that?

Thanks,
Nikilet



Nikilet

 

I suspect what you have is installation files to install a program but, as you said, the program has not actually been installed. This is not uncommon; it's just a way of various software vendors offering their product to potential users. For example, a new computer might have both Norton and McAfee introductory programs on it, but the programs are not actually installed in Windows yet. But, they can readily be installed by just starting the installation, since the program files are already there.

The Secunia Software Inspector does not hold much interest for me. Some or many programs will prompt the user for updates when they are available. And, the user can always manually check for updates. And, I'm really not concerned about whether I haven't gotten the latest version of Adobe Reader or Yahoo Messenger, or whatever. If the versions I have are working fine for me, I see no need to be concerned about not immediately getting my software updated with the latest updates.

 

Thank you for your response. Could you comment on what I mentioned about those Google ads being in Japanese?

Thank you,
Nikilet

 

I believe that (japanese ads) is a Google problem, something called adsense they are using. If you find a better search engine let me know, I do use Dogpile occasionally, and do Google searches in other languages, rarely.

 

I always just use Google. I don't care about their ads being in Japanese; just was concerned because I thought I might have accidentally done something to make things show that way.

Thanks,
Nikilet