Adobe Flash 16 and 17 cause safari & Firefox browsers to jump up and down the page

[DJSFO]

Running MAC Pro 2010   10.10.2 Yosemite - Version 15 of adobe Flash was working fine. When version 16 came out the problems started with web pages jumping up and down and not being able to type/ edit things as web page jumps up or down away???  I Used the adobe Uninstaller , restarted the MAC, looked for the files in the library adobe said to look for ( non were there) and tried to install Adobe ver 15 of flash

And it starts to install, then the install window turns BLACK then the error message says install failed?? Try again? I have tried this a few times and always the same message.

Any idea how to install this older version 15??

[jeromiec83223024]

Each version of Flash Player includes important security updates.  Moving to an older version puts you at significant risk for a malware infection.

I haven't seen the problem you're describing with focus or type, but I'd be happy to look into it.  Can you tell me how to reproduce the problem?

[DJSFO]

If I go to like CNN web page on Safari and scroll down to see an article it may jump back up on its own. If I select a link to see a article it will jump too??

On my bank site and medical plan site when I go to write message in the message area the page jumps up or down. If I go back to the text area and eventually get a message in the box and see i have to go back and make a correction, then when I click on the spot the page jumps up or down again. When I remove Flash I do not get this reaction???

I also followed the directions from Adobe to try and go back to ver 15 of Flash but it will not allow that to happen. keeps saying install failed and the install window

turns black and stops. Not having flash means some web sites won’t work for me i need??

I would rather have an old ver vs not any access...

[jeromiec83223024]

Wow, that's really strange.  Safari blocks older versions of Flash, so you probably can't roll back without a lot of hassle at this point. 

You may just need to go to Preferences > Security > Manage Websites and set Flash Player to Always Allow.  I'm wondering if Safari is doing something weird with trying to block the old plug-in or turn it off intermittently.  I've never heard anyone describe these symptoms, and I can't come up with a reason for why the page would just jump around at random.  It's odd behavior for sure.

You'll need to uninstall Flash:

Uninstall Flash Player | Mac OS

Try the Extended Support Release, which you can find here.  It has all the same security fixes, but no feature work.

It would be interesting to know if this goes away for you with the ESR:

Adobe Flash Player Distribution | Adobe

If it does, I'd like to know specifically what model of Mac you're using (Mid-2011 15" Macbook Pro, etc)

[DJSFO]

over the years I have had Flash interfere with viewing my security cameras by flickering all the time. back then I just uninstalled the new version and went back to the old and all was well. but now that is not possible it seems. so I am stuck between na rock and a hard place, If I remove Flash then I cannot view many things I do all the time.

Computer politics is get pretty bad now days.

thanks for trying!!

[jeromiec83223024]

It's not really the politics -- we're all pretty friendly on an engineering level (the business stuff is competitive, but that's always the case), but in how serious the security landscape is.  There are armies of people reverse-engineering and weaponizing bugs in all popular products (often times way more people than work on the products themselves), and the time it takes to reverse-engineer the patches in a current version to weaponize and use against older versions is really short now.  If you're not staying updated, you're a sitting duck.

If you look at this from an immunology perspective, what we don't want is an epidemic, so just like we do with childhood diseases, we want to maintain herd immunity.  If 95% of the population is patched, it's difficult to deploy malware that spreads like wildfire.  If you have a population that never updates (it used to take about 6 months for the majority Flash users to pick up the latest version, now it's closer to 48 hours with background update), even attacks that you've already fixed remain viable for months.  If attacks have a short shelf-life, this pushes up the cost of developing the attack to where it's out of reach for most bad actors.

The Extended Support Release I linked to above *is* an older version of Flash, but it has all the latest security updates.  It also won't be blocked by Safari.  If the problem goes away, it's something that we broke in a new feature.  If it doesn't, it's fallout from a security change, and I'd like to get more info on how to reproduce it, so we can try and fix it for the next patch update.

[DJSFO]

Thanks for the info….

Where is this link to older version you said was attached??

[jeromiec83223024]

Adobe Flash Player Distribution | Adobe

Scroll down until you get to the extended support release section.