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Apple blocks all outdated versions of Adobe Flash in Safari due to vulnerabilities

adobe-flash

Due to a security flaw discovered in its Flash Player software, Adobe released an update to the web plugin earlier this week. Today Apple confirmed that it had updated its plugin blacklist for OS X to stop the system from using a version of Flash Player older than 14.0.0.145 (or 13.0.0.231 on older systems).

According to Apple’s product security team:

Due to security issues in older versions, Apple has updated the web plug-in blocking mechanism to disable all versions prior to Flash Player 14.0.0.145 and 13.0.0.231.

According to Adobe, the vulnerability could allow malicious users to take control of a computer running affected versions of Flash Player. The block only affects Safari, not third-party browsers, so users running outdated versions of Flash Player in other browsers will need to manually update.

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Comments

  1. driverbenji - 10 years ago

    I really wish webmasters/developers would stop using Flash altogether and just switch to HTML5 or newer, better standards. …i.e. when I go to youtube, on my mac it still reverts to flash, but, on iOS devices HTML5…just get rid of flash already! Flash is outdated and a memory hog, and always needs updating for security flaws, leave it!

    • Florin Nica (@iampiny) - 10 years ago

      You would be surprised by the HUGE number of people still using outdated browsers that don’t support HTML5 (mainly the rubbish that is IE). We live in a sad world. :(

      • bfredit - 10 years ago

        Not true anymore, the last IE version without “HTML5 support” (in this case “HTML video”), was IE8, which is at less than 10% globally.

    • macmann1980 - 10 years ago

      I feel your pain.
      I believe if you go to YouTube.com/html5 you can set your browser to default to the HTML5 version. But, I use Clicktoflash on my mac which blocks it all anyway.

    • mpias3785 - 10 years ago

      That might not be such a bad idea if Apple practiced what it preached, but if you go to HTML5test.com and click on “other browsers” you’ll see that Chrome, Opera and Firefox all score much better in HTML5 compatibility than Safari, with only Internet Explorer 11 scoring worse.

    • PMZanetti - 10 years ago

      Why don’t you get on it then since you know everything, driverbenji.

      Never fails. Every article about Flash brings 25 idiots with no programming experience or even general knowledge of the vast user base of Flash, that scream for its end.

      Have you ever gotten a virus on your Mac from Flash? NO. You haven’t. STFU

      • mpias3785 - 10 years ago

        A lot of Mac users have a deep seated dislike for Flash for two reasons: It’s a resource hog and for years it was the number one source of system instability.

        Now with sandboxed apps, separate sessions per Safari tab and slow improvements in stability by Adobe, Flash is less of an instability problem but remains a resource hog.

        With Intel processors becoming more efficient and OS X being extremely frugal with power usage, Flash still being a pig snorting at the power trough goes against the grain, particularly for laptop users.

      • Tom Who (@TommieWho) - 10 years ago

        Are you mad bro?

      • mpias3785 - 10 years ago

        Too much coffee I think. Either that or a programmer who knows only flash.

    • But isn’t Safari getting HTML5 in OS X Yosemite this fall?

      • mpias3785 - 10 years ago

        It isn’t a has or hasn’t thing like Flash. HTML5 isn’t a plugin, it’s the 5th revision of the language used for creating content on the web. Browsers have varying degrees of compatibility with HTML5 (see html5test.com). Compared to HTML5, Flash is utterly insignificant.

  2. zombiecodekill - 10 years ago

    Reblogged this on Zombie Code Kill and commented:
    I agree with driverbenji here. We are witnessing a very long and painful death of flash and I wish more companies would take the initiative and upgrade to HTML 5 sooner rather than later.

  3. drtyrell969 - 10 years ago

    This is 100% great.

  4. HTML5 is not a simple answer. Because of the religious schism on supported formats, in order to support HTML5 properly, even for HTML5 browsers you would have to have at minimum an H.264 version (Safari, IE) and WebM (Chrome, Firefox). And then for non-HTML5 browsers, Flash fallback is the easiest way to go.

    In order to avoid transcoding and hosting multiple versions of the same video, I tend to use an H.264 version using HTML5, and use Flash + the same H.264 asset for Firefox, Chrome and legacy browsers. The sooner that Firefox and Chrome stop dicking around and support H.264 – which on the majority of platforms is supported and has hardware decoding on pretty much all mobile platforms – the better.

  5. scumbolt2014 - 10 years ago

    Adobe Flush.

    Because Macromedia was shit.