Mozilla has had it with Adobe Flash Player!! If you're on
the Internet a lot and you frequently use Mozilla Firefox as your main Browser,
you may have noticed since Monday July 13th 2015 that it's blocked.
It's not your imagination and neither is anything wrong with
your Browser. Mozilla has disabled Adobe Flash in their Browser as reported in
the article “Mozilla
Firefox Now Blocks Adobe Flash By Default”, published July 14, 2015 By
Kristofer Wouk, Digitaltrends.
 |
On that day Head of Mozilla’s Firefox support team Matt
Schmidt made it known via Twitter that all versions of Mozilla Firefox had
blocked Adobe Flash by default:
BIG NEWS!! All versions of Flash are
blocked by default in Firefox as of now. https://t.co/4SjVoqKPrR
#tech
#infosec
pic.twitter.com/VRws3L0CBW
—
Mark Schmidt (@MarkSchmidty) July
14, 2015
The reason for the block seems to be continued problems with
vulnerabilities with the software plugin commonly used for Video playback.
Mozilla blocks
Adobe Flash – Alternatives to Flash exist as YouTube has gone HTML5
What's strange to me is that there are alternatives to Adobe
Flash as reported in the article “4
Most Amazing Alternatives To Adobe Flash Player”, published October 3,
2013, Steve, Transitioning blog
and “Adobe
Flash Player Alternatives You Can Download”, published Mar 27, 2015 By OD, Ordoh both for mobile and desktop applications:
1. LightSpark
3. GNU Gnash
4. Silverlight
So why aren’t people not using them, especially as some of
them have backward compatibility with Video formats that Adobe Flash can play?
Also, the main source of Videos, YouTube, had long switched to
HTML5 since the start of 2015 as noted in my Geezam
blog article entitled “YouTube
switches to HTM5 with Adaptive Bitrate for Better Streaming”.
In fact, the pre-2012 version of the YouTube app on older
versions of Google Android on smartphones and devices no longer works as
pointed out in my Geezam blog article
entitled “YouTube
App support on pre-2012 devices ending April 30 2015”.
Google Chrome has also joined Mozilla Firefox in blocking
Adobe Flash as reported in the article “Google
and Mozilla pull the plug on Adobe Flash: Tech giants disable the program on
browsers following 'critical' security flaw”, published 14 July 2015 By
VICTORIA WOOLLASTON, UK Daily Mail,
which I've noticed on my Google Chrome Browser when I'm online.
So now that BOTH Browsers agree that Adobe Flash is a menace
to privacy online, why did it take so long? And are there alternatives to Adobe
Flash?
Mozilla Blocks
Adobe Flash - How to watch Videos without Adobe Flash
Good to note here that Mozilla's action isn't permanent, as
it's meant to force Adobe to step up their game, to quote Head of Mozilla’s
Firefox support team Matt Schmidt: “To be clear, Flash is only blocked until
Adobe releases a version which isn’t being actively exploited by publicly known
vulnerabilities”.
You can still enable the Adobe Flash plugin by going into
the Firefox Settings menu, but for your safety, Mozilla is advising that you
not do so until Adobe makes an update available. Up until now, I'm being
prompted on both my Mozilla Firefox and Google Chrome Browsers to update my
Adobe Flash.
I'm one of those persons that believes that we should have
moved away from this relic from the 90's that required a periodic update,
especially as not doing so often crippled your browsing on the Internet.
So too does Facebook’s chief security officer Alex Stamos as
mentioned in the article “Facebook
calls for end to Flash as Firefox blocks it over hacking holes”, published
Tuesday 14 July 2015 Samuel Gibbs, The UK
Guardian, who tweeted on Sunday July 12th 2015, quote: “…..it is
time for Adobe to announce the end-of-life date for Flash and to ask the Browsers
to set killbits on the same day.”
It is time for Adobe to announce the
end-of-life date for Flash and to ask the browsers to set killbits on the same
day.
— Alex Stamos (@alexstamos) July
12, 2015
Adobe Flash has long been dead on the Apple iPhone's Safari Browser
from day one. Since 2012, Adobe has stopped updating the mobile version for
Google Android as noted in “Adobe
halts Flash player support for all future Android updates”, published June
29, 2012 By Mike Flacy, DigitalTrends.
Perhaps we all should do the same, as alternatives to Adobe Flash
abound as reported in the article “4
Most Amazing Alternatives To Adobe Flash Player”, published October 3,
2013, Steve, Transitioning blog
and “Adobe
Flash Player Alternatives You Can Download”, published Mar 27, 2015 By OD, Ordoh.
Your choice if you wish to watch videos or be exposed to
hacking vulnerabilities!
Here’s the link:
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