On Tuesday, Mozilla announced that it would block all versions of Adobe Flash in its browser, Firefox. According to Mozilla’s support team, “Flash would remain blocked until ‘Adobe releases a version which isn’t being actively exploited by publicly known vulnerabilities.’”
Before Mozilla’s announcement, Hacking Team, a notorious security firm “that sells intrusion and surveillance tools to governments and law enforcement agencies” revealed security issues with the software, which Adobe later labeled “critical vulnerabilities. Soon after, Mozilla made its decision to disable plugins that support the software.
Many companies and tech mavens are on board with Mozilla’s decision. In a Wired article, “Flash.Must.Die,” author, Brian Barrett, calls Flash “that insecure, ubiquitous resource hog everyone hates to need…a popular punching bag for hackers, which puts users at risk over and over again.” And Facebook’s Chief Security Officer, Alex Stanos, said in a Twitter update, “It is time for Adobe to announce the end-of-life date for Flash and ask the browsers to set killbits on the same day.”
Most applications and websites do not require Flash to work – particularly on desktop because of advances in HTML5 – so disabling the software may be completely seamless and go without notice to users. Additionally, it seems that many companies will be moving forward without Flash to avoid security risks, so the end of Adobe Flash is in the near future.
In the meantime, SeedSpark suggests disabling Flash from your browsers to prevent security threats and vulnerabilities. Want to know how you can get rid of Adobe Flash player from your browser? Below, is a step-by-step guide for each browser from Wired.
Chrome: Go to chrome://plugins in your search bar. Scroll down to Adobe Flash Player. Click Disable.
Safari: Go to Safari > Preferences. Click Security. ClickManage Website Settings. Click Adobe Flash Player. Go to the When visiting other websites dropdown and click Block.
Firefox: Go to the hamburger icon in the upper righthand corner. Click Add-ons. Go to the lefthand column and clickPlugins. Go to the dropdown next to Shockwave Flash and select Never Activate.
Internet Explorer: Go to the gear icon in the upper righthand corner. Click Internet options. Click Programs. Click Manage add-ons. Click Shockwave Flash Client. In the lower righthand corner, click Disable.
Uninstall Flash on your Mac or Windows by clicking the links.
If you have any questions about Adobe Flash and how it impacts your security, please give us a call or email us. Additionally, if your business website currently runs on Adobe Flash, let us know – we can help!