Editorial: Adobe's Flash Updater is Bloated and Shady

Yet another flash bashing post, just install Google Chrome and get over it already. When your using Internet Explorer what do you expect? Also please stop spouting the HTML5 to replace Flash crap already. Flash ins't going to disappear anytime soon, so quit complaining.

Great article!
thanx for the PDF-XChange CViewer

This does seem like a bit of a "Waaaaaaaaaahmbulance" story. And in what way is the updater "shady"? Does it only conduct it's business down dark secluded alleyways in the middle of the night? I get you may not like the way it works, but there's nothing mysterious about it. And if you don't want the bloatware, uncheck the boxes which install it. Isn't really hard. Obviously would be nice if they weren't selected by default but it's not the end of the world.

If flash updater is so much pain in the ***, then why bother with using automatic updates?

I have installed the free update notifier from filehippo.

and the title is "adobe flash" but contains rants against adobe flash player, adobe reader, the toolbar bundled with adobe flash player download, the bloated size of winzip 17 versus the competition, even the point of praising sim2000 running fine.
maybe for uniformity sake, the article should have inluded the bloatware that was/is vista/7/8.

if the story was told by somebody not from the techspot staff, I could swallow it but since it was, then here's my two thumbs down.

editorial is meant to be a mouthpiece at something specific, a personal bias against something.

+1

From a technician's standpoint, working with non-tech savvy end users, I can agree. It would make my life a whole lot easier if they fixed the issues you speak of.

We have been experiencing the issue of end users installing crome and unwanted software on our network. We will have to disable the updater at this point or block the web traffic it generates.

It appears we will have to handle any flash upgrades with in house software distribution.

Simple solution, remove flash, install Chrome. Tada, no more updater, no more unwanted software + a very secure browser.

We have several in-house apps have been built on IE, one the culmination of 3+ years of 20+ programmers work interfacing with a couple different IBM mainframes and Imaging applications. Chrome is not really an option.

Divvet
I dont want o be give all my data to Google. That what Chrome browser does. Read Google's privacy policy and how they can use your data. when you dealing with internet and nothing is secure.
Since there is not much alternate to flash (at least for now)Adobe should be more careful about less technical users and bloatware. somebody should remind them what happened Real player.

Good article. I noticed the download page, too. It is time for Adobe to step up.

@Divvet,

You can't be serious to advise switching corporate browser choice just because of a plug-in. BTW, Chrome does not make it to more than a handful of big companies who have invested a lot in their web-based applications, simply because Chrome have new releases every three months. Those corporate apps need to be thoroughly tested and it is time-consuming. Each browser version update is a big undertaking. You can blame it on the developers/programmers/proprietory code, but that is what's taking place in big (and slow-moving) corporations.

For the record, I used to use Chrome exclusively but Opera is way cooler to use even on my Android tablet. Not going back to the lousy Chrome. Not sure what the big fuss is with Chrome; it sucks.

I had same problem and my solution was to use Secunia CSI. I disabled all softwares' auto-update and allow Secunia CSI to take care of it.

At home, I use Secunia PSI in all computers.

I agree with this article, I prefer html5 over flash any day. And the author makes some very good points say what you want but flash has been a weakness for a very long time.

Thanks for the article, didn't know adobe installed two different versions (?) on the same install (different processes as well?, and I assume different registry entries) they seem determined to loose what market they have left between this kind of thing, what you describe in the article, of course the security risk, and the difficulty of administration.
Tired of hearing about google and chrome as well b/c tired of being the product (iron anyone?) and having little alternative to flash. Bring on html5 asap. For pdfs, I like sumatra, as it comes with a portable version at 2.4mb - so does iron, but I've never gotten the portable version, windows only, to work.

Adobe is crap and has been for years. I never install their stupid Flash from their site.

Filehippo.com rules for that, they even allowed for clean, offline installations of YM when Yahoo's online downloader would bundle it with lots of crapware.

So... Always download Flash from http://www.filehippo.com , x32 or x64, both the activeX and the plugin versions, install, select "never search for updates" when asked and you should be fine.

And btw, a Pentium 486 doesn't exist, different generations.

I just use ninite to update the adobe crap

Totally agree with the article, nothing to add. And no, I won't install more bloatware that looks for updates of programs I have installed.

Best way to deal with this: http://ninite.com/

Check Flash and flash (ie) and download the little exe. Each time things need updating just double click and its done.