Old Flash in new Firefox refuses to perform, without warning.

Open my laptop by using the current version of FF but with 11.9 Flash. Seen one of my pages with Flash and content... nothing, just an empty div. No warning that Flash was outdated, etc. So if I have this right FF won't work obsolete Flash for security reasons. Fine. I've always seen warnings in these cases. But apparently if Flash is old enough FF just doesn't bother. Visitors don't know what is happening. It seems just wrong.

Is this correct? What is the best way to deal with this point of view of the developer?

We strongly recommend that users always run the latest version of Flash Player.  Running an old version puts users risk of malware infection.  The vast majority of users is included in the background update and is kept up-to-date automatically, but there are users who, for some reason, chose to stay with an older vulnerable version of Flash Player.  It's a bad idea, people are certainly free to do so.  The advantage is that the affected population that you describe is quite small.

The history of upgrade will actually improve over time.  The latest versions of Google Chrome and Internet Explorer include Flash Player as a component integrated, distributed with the browser.  Users are always up-to-date with the latest version of Flash and new updates are available online via the updater Chrome or the update of Windows, respectively.  Mozilla has spent a few years talk about how Flash needs to go, while the other browser vendors have invested in modernized plugin interfaces and plugin safety improvements, and unfortunately the hierarchy is visible in the user experience.  We are hopeful that Windows 10 will pick up most of the stragglers Windows XP and Vista as well as good number of Win7 - Win8.1 users, which means that the Flash all updated for a very large number of people will be resolved in Internet Explorer after upgrading of the people.

It is difficult to say what is the origin of the specific issue you describe.  Major browsers on 4 or 6 week major upgrade of cycles (we publish every month to make sure that we intercept and process all new injections in browsers that could happen every night in beta versions before touching the whole population and to align with Microsoft patch tuesday), if you talk about something like 18 months with a value of changes between the version of Firefox you are using and the version of Flash you use.  All Mozilla done with bugs, and we certainly encourage you to fill out a bug report on the user experience that you see.  They operated a place of reagent lately, and some of the changes that affect Flash certainly seem a bit sloppy.  It's ultimately good for them to hear from the community of developers and not just me all the time, but feel free to add me to the CC: list in the bug.

Ultimately we have no control over the lifespan of a particular build of Flash - there are far too many external variables - we also invest an enormous amount of effort in the proactive security work (and it is our priority to engineering for years).  So each build includes usually large number of changes to harden either the player or the responsible address disclosed to researchers, major of computer science and security communities and whatever the last testing and verification tools, we can get the questions.  The continuous flow of innovation and ingenuity in space of the offence is impressive, but he keeps us very busy.  Changes on the browser side can easily break older versions of the plugin, and running an older version is just a bad idea.

So we have really simplified the installation process to keep people on the current versions, and Windows 10 will be hopefully a massive displacement of older versions and the most vulnerable Windows.  The landscape is so different that even 4-5 years ago... enforcement of what days whether for years (or months) in your browser are gone for a long time.  The pace will not slow down anytime soon, either.

Tags: Flash Player

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