help with flash

[t_jennifer20]

I have Windows 8 with the 8.1 update. My flash player is up to date and i've never had any issues with it until tonight.  It tells me that need to update it. When i check it, i have the newest version and am up to date but when i run the test on it, i get a message that says it is disabled.  In the tools menue and managing the add ons says that it is in fact enabled.  How do i fix this?

[C_F_McBlob]

What you see  is a result of this:

"User-Agent Strings"

That doesn't mean a lot, I'm sure, but it's the root of your problems, and Flash Player has nothing to do with it.

Microsoft "rewrote" the User-Agent Strings for the abomination they call their latest and greatest browser (Read more here).

User-Agent Strings are what websites use to identify the browser you're using and provide the proper content for it's browser engine, like ActiveX stuff, and Flash or HTML5 video.

Thanks to the geniuses in Redmond, WA, the User-Agent Strings for IE11 (which has a Trident engine), ID it as either "Gecko" (Firefox) or "Webkit" (Chrome).

Trouble is: when the site the directs to the content for one of these two engines, the Trident engine in IE can't intepret it and the site then sees IE as an "unidentified" browser.

The problem with an unidentified browser is that the plug-ins in that browser aren't recognized either, so even though you're up to date, it says you need the latest Flash Player when you use IE11, or it says you have no Flash Player.

Microsoft has no plans to "fix" the mess they've created because they think it's a great idea to block you out of the websites you visit.

They recommend using "Compatibility View" and pretending that you're using an older verison of IE...

The Problem with THAT is that it's seen limited success, and you have to enable it for EVERY page that has problems... individually.

I'm not big on "pretending" so I recommend actually using another browser.

Firefox (from Mozilla)

Opera (from Opera)

Safari (from Apple)

Chrome (from Google)

ANY of those will work where IE11 won't, with the Flash Player Plug-in (For all other browsers), and Chrome doesn't even need that, because it has its own Flash Player plugin built in.