Apple today has confirmed that is updating its web plug-in blocking mechanism in OS X to disable all versions of Adobe Flash Player prior to the most recent, which is version 17.0.0.169. On older systems, all versions of Flash prior to 13.0.0.281 are blocked.
Apple notes on its Support page that if you must run an older version of Flash in Safari, you can do so by using the Internet plug-in management option in the browser. With this option, you can choose to run the Flash Player plug-in in unsafe mode on websites that you trust.
Apple cites security issues for its reasoning to block old versions of Adobe Flash:
Due to security issues in older versions, Apple has updated the web plug-in blocking mechanism to disable all versions prior to Flash Player 17.0.0.169 and 13.0.0.281.
This isn’t the first time Apple has taken steps to block potentially insecure versions of Adobe Flash on its machines. Last summer, Apple pulled a similar move and blocked all outdated versions of Adobe Flash in Safari due to similar vulnerabilities.
The most recent version of Flash Player is available on Adobe’s website.
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Glad to see Apple sticking to it’s guns.
Avoid installing flash at all and just keep an installation of Chrome for the odd time you need to visit a page that needs Flash.
Exactly what I do.
Man, Flash is just like Internet Explorer 6. It is years later and just refuses to die already.
Yeah, cuz there’s been so many hacked Macs via Flash. Oh wait, none.
Because of Apple’s aggressive stance on the app. Well said.
http://occupyflash.org
Enough said!
Maybe if that worthless software didn’t come out with a new patch for some new lethal vulnerability every Monday…
The versions of Flash Player prior to 13.0.0.281 mentioned are NOT for older OS versions. This refers to the Extended Support Release (ESR) version of Flash Player. This is a release of Flash Player that is only updated for security reasons. It is not updated with new features. The ESR version is intended for users who value stability over new features. (However if they REALLY valued stability, they’d forgo Flash Player altogether!)