back to article Since you love Flash so much, Adobe now has TWO versions for you

Adobe says a buggy installer is the reason some people have two different versions of Flash Player on their Windows PCs. The software house told The Register it had to create an additional build of the browser plugin specifically for Microsoft's Internet Explorer after the version made for other browsers – such as Mozilla's …

  1. DubyaG

    Kill it! Kill it with fire!

    1. Anonymous Vulture
      Thumb Up

      That says it all

      I had a pithy comment but the above addresses it so very succinctly.

      Have an upvote

      1. davidp231
        Mushroom

        Re: That says it all

        Can we nuke it from orbit to be on the safe side?

    2. Steve Foster
      Devil

      @DubyaG

      I was tempted to ask whether you were referring to IE or Flash, but decided that the advice could usefully be applied to both targets.

    3. Roq D. Kasba

      And then...

      After killing it with fire and beating it to a pulp with a baseball bat, lock it in a room with a Java runtime browser plugin and let them fight to the patchy death.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: And then...

        After which the only browser left functioning will be IE6 running under a Virtual PC image. This will of course have two separate ask.com toolbars installed.

        Luckily this config will work just well enough to download Linux Mint...

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: And then...

          I don't know why (I've never seen either IE or ask.com toolbar in any of my computers) but the thought of two separate ask.com toolbars made me laugh out loud.

    4. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      yesterday

      I took the decision to totally remove flash from any machines on my network.

      Missus isn't happy but the security of my network and files is WAY more important then her being able to play some stupid idiotbook based game.

      The only site it's an issue on is the bbc new site, but then again, the Biased Broadcasting Corporation isn't the only place I can get news.

      1. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

        Re: yesterday

        Have you tried http://www.bbc.co.uk/html5?

        1. illiad

          Re: yesterday

          which is more secure, a dodgy BETA, or a final product???

    5. chivo243 Silver badge

      @DubyaG

      Start the fire with thermite!

    6. Fibbles
      Mushroom

      Take off and nuke it from orbit. It's the only way to be sure.

      Edit: Bah, beaten to it.

      1. davidp231

        Too slow, chicken mirengo ;)

    7. Disk0
      Mushroom

      You deserve

      A complimentary icon for so clearly verbalizing my sentiments on the matter.

      (Let's just hope 3 nukes suffice or we may have to deploy the Bieb)

  2. TXITMAN

    Sick joke

    We managed to uninstall flash from all but a handful of machines and now see that M$ is backdooring it into IE like some kind of sick joke.

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Still sites like Twitch / BBC insist on it...

    WTF?

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    20 years from now

    Business schools will study the examples of the past of just how sideways off shoring can go and I imagine the whole moving Flash development to a certain sub continent will be the classic case study.

  5. PhilipN Silver badge

    Administrate

    Is this a word?

    Answers on a postcard to ....

    (Here's a clue: No, and persistent incorrect usage does not make it otherwise)

    1. Wensleydale Cheese

      Re: Administrate

      Well this is in my OS X Dictionary:

      administrate |ədˈmɪnɪstreɪt|

      verb

      less common term for administer ( sense 1). the person administrating the database system has left the company. the cost of administrating VAT.

      ORIGIN

      mid 16th cent.: from Latin administrat- ‘managed’, from the verb administrare (see administer) .

    2. allthecoolshortnamesweretaken

      Re: Administrate

      It's in the Oxford English Dictionary, that's good enough for me.

      Kinda worried that their website features a 'Lolcat generator' though.

    3. dajames
      Headmaster

      Re: Administrate

      Is this a word?

      One of the wonderful things about the English language is that almost anything can be a word. We can form nonce-words from the kits of parts that make up the established words of the language, and we can do so with fair expectation that our meaning will be clear.

      We have the word "administrator" (presumably because the alternative, "administerer", seems faintly clumsy) and the word "administration" (which does not have the same meaning as the gerund "administering") and it seems obvious (if misguided) to form a verb "administrate" from them (even though "administer" might be preferable). It's ugly, yes, but even I find myself unable to rail against it given its ubiquity.

      So, yes, it's a word. Get used to it.

    4. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Administrate

      You do realise that English is pretty much entirely the result of persistent incorrect usage of other languages, of course?

      1. PhilipN Silver badge

        Re: Administrate

        Come on - that's language anarchy. The French would never tolerate....... Oh .... Hang on...

        .........

        OK changed my mind. You are all right.

  6. gollux
    Mushroom

    Oh, JFC...

    Can't we just put the stupid package to permanent death already. I've given up on the games as an enticement to keeping Smash Player loaded several years ago, and would like to see any accounting package (Sage, you're in the crosshairs) that demands Flash Player be loaded for part of their software display interface to be removed from the planet.

    1. VinceH

      Re: Oh, JFC...

      "and would like to see any accounting package (Sage, you're in the crosshairs) that demands Flash Player be loaded for part of their software display interface to be removed from the planet."

      Which piece of Sage software is that? It wouldn't be the newer cloudy rubbish, would it?

      I use Line 50 - the 2013 desktop version* - and I've never encountered any call for Flash.

      * I stopped updating after I decided they had become spammers.

    2. Charles 9

      Re: Oh, JFC...

      "Can't we just put the stupid package to permanent death already."

      Not as long as there are very expensive pieces of kit that require Flash to operate. Since the costs are sunk and being actively amortized, they cannot be replaced. Since they already exist, they cannot be forced to be replaced by legal means (because they're currently legal, they can't be made illegal retroactively).

      So IOW, SUAUI (Shut Up And Use It).

      1. R Soles

        Re: Oh, JFC...

        "Since the costs are sunk and being actively amortized"

        Sunk costs are costs that have already been incurred and cannot be recovered.

        Amortisation is the practice of reducing the value of assets to reflect their reduced worth over time.

        Ergo, You can't amortise sunk costs.

        1. Charles 9

          Re: Oh, JFC...

          "Amortisation is the practice of reducing the value of assets to reflect their reduced worth over time."

          No, that's depreciation.

          Amortization is the practice of smoothing out financial shocks (such as a large one-off like a capital investment) over time by splitting the large single payment over the expected useful life of the investment. It's still been paid for, but by spreading the cost in the books, it helps provide a better long-term view of its impact on the business (of course, if something happens to cause a write-off, the balance has to be immediately applied).

  7. MatsSvensson

    Which one is for porn, and which one is for hacks?

  8. Tromos
    FAIL

    52 fixes

    But how many new bugs? What's the net score? Who's winning?

  9. Packet

    This article made me chuckle in a schadenfreude kind of way.

    Have been free of the flash scourge for a couple of years now

  10. Dieter Haussmann

    After taking it off my own and then all the ones I look after at work over a year ago, I now uninstall it from family and friends computers without telling them.

    If they ask me to install an application or look why the printer doesn't work or some such, I fix that, uninstall Flash and then pass it back.

    What's more, if you do find a page that requires Flash, change the UserAgent to iOS iPad and it almost always works fine. Why do BBC still demand flash but it still works fine if it thinks you are using an iPad.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      > Why do BBC still demand flash but it still works fine if it thinks you are using an iPad.[?]

      They don't. BBC's iPlayer supports HTML 5 on most browsers, except for Safari on OSX. You can easily search Google for the BBC's technical rationale, along with a list of supported browser/OS combinations.

  11. choleric

    Patches

    Now when they issue a patch to fix this and it doesn't install correctly on machines that only have Firefox so they issue another patch to cover that scenario users could end up with four installations of Flash (because the patch for Firefox-only obviously won't apply smoothly to IE-only scenarios). Which means that they will have to issue another patch to fix it...

    That will escalate quickly.

    And yet it is strangely reassuring to know that while the number of bugs in Flash is being chipped away at, the total number of Flash-related security holes on machines with it installed is only increasing, exponentially. All is as it should be.

    1. davidp231

      Re: Patches

      "IE-only scenarios"....

      If someone has IE as their only browser... the Firefox NPAPI plugin is pretty redundant as IE doesn't use it.

  12. stucs201
    Coat

    Since you love flash so much...

    Flash, I Love You! But We Only Have Fourteen Hours Left to Save the Earth!

    Sorry, wrong Flash...

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Mushroom

      Given the choice between Adobe Flash and the mercy of Ming

      ...make mine "Hot Hail"

      1. Dave 126 Silver badge

        Re: Given the choice between Adobe Flash and the mercy of Ming

        HELLO! I'M BRIAN BLESSED!

        (Caps because...)

  13. davidp231

    Wait...

    "it had to create an additional build of the browser plugin specifically for Microsoft's Internet Explorer after the version made for other browsers – such as Mozilla's Firefox and Microsoft's Edge – wouldn't install properly for IE."

    Hasn't that always been the case? IE uses the ActiveX plugin, and Mozilla uses the NPAPI plugin. Of course the NPAPI plugin won't install properly for IE - it was never intended for IE....

  14. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Flash is.........

    Jason Voorhees.

    No matter what happens....

    No matter how much you think nothing can take that, this has to be the end of it....

    It just keeps....

    COMING BACK!!!

    Seriously I think the adobe flash icon (the white F in a red box) should be replaced with a hockey mask.

  15. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Look at all the ActiveX tomfoolery from Microsoft

    You would think that Edge is backward compatible with IE and hence they can use the same plugins... but no...

    By the way, I'm not an anti-Flash fascist. Flash is required for some websites, and of course, those excellent classic Flash games. There are instances where HTML5 just wouldn't give the same quality experience.

    1. hellwig

      Re: Look at all the ActiveX tomfoolery from Microsoft

      I never cared before, but I didn't realize Edge was another ActiveX browser. I thought they honestly re-booted their web browser, but I guess not.

      Good to see nothings changed under the hood.

  16. adam payne

    Internet Explorer - ActiveX - Alpha Build 0.0.0.00902

    Internet Explorer (embedded - Windows 8.1) - ActiveX - Alpha Build 0.0.0.00901

    Version numbers fixed.

  17. PeterM42
    Facepalm

    OMG!!!!

    TWO versions of CRASH!!!!!!!!!!

POST COMMENT House rules

Not a member of The Register? Create a new account here.

  • Enter your comment

  • Add an icon

Anonymous cowards cannot choose their icon

Other stories you might like