Things To Keep In Mind While Downloading And Updating Adobe Flash Player. 1-Always download Adobe Flash Player from the official website only. 2-Update Adobe Flash Player in each of your web browsers. Some people thought that by updating Adobe Flash Player in one browser will also update the program in other browser. This is a common mistake.
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Not a computer person, but a website I am interested in registering with requires Adobe Flash (along with Microsoft Edge browser and Java).I've seen warnings here and there about Flash being dangerous, but never looked into them from a technical perspective, nor followed up with those news bits (I just chose to never install it).Now, I'm in a position where I would need it for a site to work (although, I don't have to register with that site, as it's not essential for my life). Any idea if Flash (or those other programs I listed) are dangerous to use?Thanks! Those technologies are being deprecated. They have many security flaws and even thought some browsers have removed support for them, Flash at least continues to release new versions which keep getting exploited time after time.Firefox was going to ditch the Java plugin by the end of 2016 and if I am not mistaking, we are in 2017 and it should be gone already.-Source:Edge already ditched java at least for version 9. It doesn't support plugins at all:BrokenI leave this link here for the sake of completeness of the answer:(A list of vulnerabilities of Flash Player.). Flash technology was a monopoly for many years and as such it became target of various kinds of attacks. Now, while there were some good efforts to patch vulnerabilities as soon as they were getting discovered, there were many flaws in the software of the plugin itself and of course there is a fair share of responsibility for this, belonging to the companies that developed / maintain it.
But I think that browser and other software vendors involved, have their fair amount of responsibility too, as they didn't like to adopt it, because of its monopoly state and this, in my opinion, is only partially justified. No one can deny its usefulness but it really ended up being a big unpatched vulnerability hole the recent years. Good thing is that HTML 5 specs have almost render it unneeded (not totally as of now) but there are still many websites utilizing it. Now, that said, if your OS is properly patched and you have firewall and anti-malware protection properly updated, I don't think that you run any big risk. But, as always correctly stated, the most important thing is what websites someone visits and what is doing there. After establishing this front line of defense, it is up to everyone to use the plugin or not.