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Mozilla To Protect Adobe Flash Users

Posted by Soulskill on from the helping-those-who-don't-help-themselves dept.

juct writes "Beginning with versions 3.5.3 and 3.0.14 of Firefox, Mozilla is going to check the version of installed Adobe Flash plug-ins and warn users if it discovers an outdated version with potential security holes. Mozilla confirmed this new security feature and said that the Flash version check was part of a wider commitment to 'protect users from emerging threats online.' Just recently, a study confirmed that 80 per cent of users surf with a vulnerable version of Adobe's plug-in."

3 of 132 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Does flash not already do this? by postmortem · · Score: 4, Informative

    It does, sometimes on system startup; however it only installs updated plugin for Internet Explorer.

  2. Yeah, I got that. by thePowerOfGrayskull · · Score: 5, Informative
    Signed up for beta/testing FF updates. I get notified by FF that adobe is out of date. I click to install it. And lo! what installs? Not Flash... but some crappy Adobe Download Manager plugin whose sole purpose seems to be to download and install Adobe products. The Flash update did not ever download, even after FF restart.

    Broke my own first rule on this one -- never download anything you're not 100% certain of - but it's still frustrating. If FF tells me it's taking me to install Flash, I think I should be able to trust that Flash is what I'm going to get.

  3. Re:Does flash not already do this? by A+Friendly+Troll · · Score: 4, Informative

    I have never had Flash notify me that it needs an update. Ever. The only time I've seen the notification was on a single computer at the office.

    A few days ago I was given this link http://www.macromedia.com/support/documentation/en/flashplayer/help/settings_manager05.html - I think it was somewhere on Slashdot, either in the article, or in the comments. Sure enough, I went there, and Flash was set to never notify me of updates.

    Worth checking out.