Adobe Security Updates For Flash and Shockwave

nlewis writes "Adobe has finally released updates for their Flash and Shockwave Players. These updates should, in theory, address the security issues outlined in this security bulletin. This issue has been mentioned here previously. Don't expect an update to the equally flawed Acrobat Reader until sometime tomorrow, though."

Comments

Not to worry about Reader!

[EkriirkE]

While we may be stuck with adobe for flash & shockwave, users should not be using reader at all. It is complete and utter bloatware.

FoxIt or Sumatra for Windows are the better, slimmer PDF reader alternatives. And Linux has its many other readers.

Re:Not to worry about Reader!

[tyrione]

Acrobat is Acrobat Writer and Professional Pre-press publishing suite.

http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/

Acrobat Reader and Acrobat are not remotely the same beast.

Re:Not to worry about Reader!

[Serious Callers Only]

Does SumatraPDF and the rest remotely support the following PDF standards?

Do we need or want it to? I know I don't. PDFs are a useful format for interchange and storage of documents while preserving formatting. I don't use SumatraPDF, but I imagine it covers a subset of features which covers reading most PDFs in existence (like the reader I use).

I don't want embedded flash, or any of the other bullshit features listed on that page as standards. The first one (for example) claims to support the long-term preservation of digital documents - perhaps they use extra long-lasting bits to store the data? The PDF explaining the standard is full of obvious advice which has nothing to do with PDFs at all, and some features which belong more properly in CMS software for all documents, like signing or user tracking....

If you do feel you need those sort of misfeatures then please feel free to suffer and use the Adobe Acrobat/Adobe Reader, but I'll continue to avoid it - because it is an invasive, resource hogging, security risk which is more about getting Adobe a foothold on every desktop than it is about facilitating document exchange/storage.

The PDF format is useful. Adobe's attempts to take over everything on the corporate desktop with it are not.

Extra! Extra!

[chickenarise]

Adobe sends waves of shock over the world when they flash their IT prowess by delivering much awaited security updates!

When will Adobe learn?

[judolphin]

The incredibly slow, huge and intrusive Adobe Acrobat Reader updates are the main reason I (and I'm sure many others) switched to FoxIt.

That aside, to this day, the innovations created by the Adobe of twenty years ago rivals that of any company of any time: TrueType, PostScript, the PDF standard, Photoshop (which is just as much a verb as "Google")... Adobe in the 1980s almost single-handedly created the desktop publishing industry. They made the software, technologies and tools achievable for individuals and small businesses.

Adobe Updates are Exhibit A of how they've fallen from one of the great software companies ever, to the punchline of a joke.

Re:When will Adobe learn?

[Burdell]

The TrueType font spec was developed by Apple to compete with Adobe. PostScript uses a different font system (PostScript Type 1 being the most common). Adobe didn't want to license just license the Type 1 format (or at least not for a reasonable fee), and it was also somewhat complex to implement (Type 1 fonts being mostly a subset of the PostScript language), so Apple developed TrueType (and then Microsoft signed on) to compete with Adobe. Adobe eventually released the Type 1 spec for free, but the damage was done.

That was probably the beginning of the downfall of Adobe from their high-point of technical excellence.

Flash for 64-bit linux

[GF678]

I'm rather impressed Adobe even updated the alpha 64-bit plugin for Linux at the same time as all the other platforms:

http://labs.adobe.com/downloads/flashplayer10.html

I was kinda expecting they had forgotten about it, so it's nice they didn't.

Google Chrome install?

[Brian Gordon]

The installer doesn't work for Chrome. Flash reports that I'm using 10,0,22,87 but the latest is 10.0.32.18. That means I have to extract the plugin from the installer with winrar and install it manually....... come on, get on top of this, Google.

Corporate Crapware.

[eddy]

Love it how you don't get to chose where it's installed (on MS Windows). It requires me to exit Opera for the installer to run, even though I don't want the plugin installed in Opera (in fact, it's blacklisted there). Guess simply allowing me to check the applications where I want it installed would be too dangerous, someone might back out at the last minute and all...

How are these updates pushed out onto the unwashed masses anyhow, will the client update itself? If not, when are people who don't care about security-bulletins going to get updated? Will there be an update to flash-authoring tools such that this is the new minimum req. version, forcing updates, or what?

Resolved!

[antdude]

From http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/debian-26/sid-adobe-flasplugin-is-reinstall-required-but-apt-cant-find-archive-for-it-727572/ and http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/debian-26/cant-open-synaptic-after-trying-install-flash-deb-of-ubuntu-739384/:

"... edit file /var/lib/dpkg/info/adobe-flashplugin.prerm and removed all lines after set -e. This solved the problem."

I guess deb file was for Ubuntu and not Debian. :(