Is there any attempt at ADOBE to mitigate the 'FLASH Update', twice a week, on every browser, on every platform?

[xkater]

in my household we run 3 Win laptops, 2 Win tablets, 2 Win Desktops, 2 Win SmartPhones, an iPad and an iPhone (as well as 2 Linux boxes).

Now, one might say, OH, there's your problem, right away - i concur, that IS my problem.

I wish i didn't have to run all these machines, and 3 or 4 different browsers that EACH require different FLASH implementations - but, please, don't bother to argue that case.

Nonetheless, if FLASH needs updating, i must spend over an hour, sometimes days in a row, just to get FLASH current!

Part of this issue is that updating involves 3 or 4 steps, (depending), that you must monitor - this seems highly inefficient. (i am aware of the security implications)

The situation Is really unworkable, and am considering uninstalling FLASH on ALL systems, just to remove the headaches - and costs (my time > potentially $100/week X 52 weeks = eek ! . . . for FLASH, really?!?

For comparison - my Windows machines update (everyday, or so) the OS, applications, malware updates, etc., without having to restart, automatically in the background.

what to do?

[wvoyek]

You can enable automatic silent updating on Windows:

IT Administration | Configure auto-update notification | Flash Player

[xkater]

many thanks, wvoyek !

[chris.campbell · Accepted solution]

Hello,

We plan for releases once a month.  Cases where we push multiple updates in a single week (or month) are done because a security vulnerability has been found.  Our absolute top priority is keeping our customers secure.  We work around the clock (and over weekends and holidays) to make sure we get a fix out to our customers ASAP when issues like this occur.  We know keeping up to date is difficult but you do have a few options to choose from that will ease the pain.

My first recommendation would be to select "Allow Adobe to install updates (recommended)" from the Advanced tab of the Flash Player control panel.  Alternatively, you can also choose this option during the installation of Flash Player.

Once selected, all of your machines and browsers will get most updates silently installed without any user interaction within 24 hours of an update being made available.  There will be a few updates (typically once a quarter) that you'll see a notification dialog appear. These typically occur when a major version change is being made available.  You can choose to either manually install via that dialog or you can simply dismiss that dialog and we'll silently update you within 45 days.

You could also switch your browser to Google Chrome, in which case Flash Player is built in.  No need to update, Google does it for you when they push out their auto updates.  Chrome is available on Mac, Win, Linux and of course, ChromeOS.

If you have Windows 8, you could use Internet Explorer.  Flash Player for IE is built into Windows 8 and customers receive updates using the standard Windows update service.

On Linux, I'd again recommend using Google Chrome.  If you need the NPAPI plugin, then I'd utilize one of the distro's update services and install Flash that way.

Thanks,

Chris