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Mozilla To Bug Firefox Users With Old Adobe Reader, Flash, Silverlight

Posted by timothy on from the they-should-hire-an-annoying-mascot dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Mozilla today announced it will soon start prompting Firefox users to upgrade select old plugins. This will only affect Windows users, and three plugins: Adobe Reader, Adobe Flash, and Microsoft Silverlight. Mozilla says Firefox users will 'soon see a notification urging them to update' when they visit a web page that uses the plugins."

16 of 247 comments (clear)

  1. update by ryzvonusef · · Score: 5, Funny

    Update at 5:10PM EST: No dice. “At this time, Mozilla does not have additional information to share beyond the blog post content,” a Mozilla spokesperson told The Next Web in a statement. “We’ll be sure to update you once we have additional details to share regarding the timing, version(s) impacted and visual look of the message.”

    --
    I am an ACCA student. Got a query on Accountancy/Finance? Maybe I can help!
    1. Re:update by JakeBurn · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Last year I read that 30% of internet bandwidth in North America was being used to watch Netflix. Netflix still uses Silverlight.

  2. turn it off? by sumdumass · · Score: 4, Interesting

    anyone know if it can be turned off? I got some crap that gets broken with new versions of reader.

    Maybe i'll just have to switch browsers.

    1. Re:turn it off? by 1u3hr · · Score: 3, Interesting

      I run Win2k and Flash can't be upgraded any more anyway. And I use Acrobat 4. I don't want any later version. I don't want to be nagged to upgrade things. I know what I have and I know what I need.

    2. Re:turn it off? by SpaceCracker · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I run Win2k ...

      Firefox has detected an old version of Windows. It is strongly recommended that you upgrade Windows to the latest version.

      --
      sigo ergo sum
    3. Re:turn it off? by jones_supa · · Score: 4, Informative

      I run Win2k and Flash can't be upgraded any more anyway. And I use Acrobat 4. I don't want any later version. I don't want to be nagged to upgrade things. I know what I have and I know what I need.

      Actually, when you look at the Archived Flash Player versions, it seems that the 10.x line (the last one compatible with Windows 2000) still gets some kind of minor updates.

    4. Re:turn it off? by mister_playboy · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Opera is probably the wisest browser choice for Win2K.

      Then again, using an OS that stopped getting security updates more than 2 years ago on an Internet-connected computer implies you don't care much about making wise choices.

      --
      Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law ::: Love is the law, love under will
    5. Re:turn it off? by 1u3hr · · Score: 3, Insightful

      You don't have to use IE on the Internet, so it shouldn't matter whether IE is on your computer.

      Its very hard to stop Windows form using IE in one way or another. Every now and then it pops up when hardcoded in some applications. But I've blocked it at the firewall so it's effectively neutered (I hope).

      I gave up on Windows 2000 two or three years ago when most developers stopped supporting it

      It's only this year the apps I need to use have started to become incompatible. MS made changes to their compilers last year I think and basically forced the issue. While modders are fighting a rearguard action to patch Win2k, I'll probably move to XP next year. I regularly use a lot of quite old software so am dragging my feet. I could do it all in emulation on a newish PC, and may end up doing that a few more years later. Maybe hosted on Linux. Unix was my first OS, so I'd be happy if I could get back to that and still use my DOS and Windows apps.

  3. Before by Culture20 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    It should prompt to update every day, regardless of whether they visit a site with flash/PDF/etc. That way the update gets applied before they "want to view content NOW". Otherwise they'll click cancel.

    1. Re:Before by pla · · Score: 3, Interesting

      It should prompt to update every day, regardless of whether they visit a site with flash/PDF/etc. That way the update gets applied before they "want to view content NOW". Otherwise they'll click cancel.

      You realize, of course, that not all of us need or want to stay at the bleeding edge of every product we use?

      Most people just want the same thing they used yesterday to work today. Most people get really, really annoyed when what worked yesterday starts nagging them to upgrade today (or worse, "Adobe Flash (malware) has been blocked for your protection" - Fuck you, Moz!).

      Keep it up, guys... Google can't thank you enough for pushing us to use Chrome. And yes, I know that Chrome updates itself, but it doesn't change (aka "break") anything each time.

  4. Mozilla targetting wrong people by Wowsers · · Score: 5, Interesting

    As a Linux user, Mozilla should be targetting Adobe not me. For example, Adobe released a not working version of their flash player, it changes the colours of video on places like Youtube if you have hardware acelleration enabled. To get proper colours you have to disable hardware accelleration, which has a massive impact on system performance, even on a dual core machine.

    To add to the problem, Adobe said they will no longer be working on Flash for Linux (at least the 64 bit version). So they released a known buggy version, and refuse to revert to previous version that worked.

    Me updating is not the problem, it's companies like Adobe that need to be targetted.

    --
    Take Nobody's Word For It.
  5. Disable by markdavis · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I have no problem with Mozilla doing this as long as the user (or admin) can disable it through about:config.

  6. Pale Moon? by C0L0PH0N · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Pale Moon ( http://www.palemoon.org/ ) is a long-standing fork of Firefox produced by Moonchild Productions, which is distinguished by being optimized for efficiency and speed in 64 bit Vista and Windows 7. There are 32 bit versions as well. Firefox does not provide a 64 bit version at this time. If you've never heard of Pale Moon, check it out. It is now my main browser of choice. Here is a review: http://www.softwarecrew.com/2012/08/pale-moon-15-building-a-better-browser/.

    Perhaps this browser will give you your "Firefox" experience without the upgrade "bugging" that Mozilla is introducing.

  7. catering to the tards by Cyko_01 · · Score: 4, Informative

    They are trying get everyone to upgrade because the number 1 issue they have had on the tracker for months is related to people using old versions of flash and it reflects negatively on peoples view of the browser

  8. Flash's own updater royally sucks by Dwedit · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Flash Player's own updater never seems to appear until I reboot the computer, which is quite a rare event for me (sleep mode works fine, no need for shutting down). This is a bad design.
    It took me a while to figure out what triggers the Flash Player updater to appear: It's in the Scheduled Tasks area. It runs daily at about 12:30PM, and It's set to stop trying to update 72 hours after it starts. So if you rarely reboot your computer, you don't get Flash Player updates.

  9. None of this should be needed. by Zaphod-AVA · · Score: 4, Insightful

    None of this should be needed.

    Microsoft should just allow third party critical updates through Windows Update. Flash, Reader, and Java flaws account for most of the malware installs, and most users are bad at keeping these things up to date. Running a stack of update utilities is irritating to advanced users and confusing to novice users. All this does is make the malware industry happy.