New
#21
I think I have found the problem: the Adobe Updater.
I turns out that McAfee Firewall automatically allows the Adobe updater in C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\Adobe\C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\Adobe\Updater6\Adobe_Updater.exe to go online whenever it wants to run.
I believe this updater checks for all Adobe products, be it Adobe Reader or Adobe Photoshop which are the other adobe products I have installed on my machine.
The Reader is not supposed to auto-update and I never had any problem with this setting.
It must have been installed with Photoshop. This particular version of Photoshop does not give me the choice about updates.
I have therefore blocked internet access for the Adobe updater.
I thank everyone for their input.
For now, I will upgrade to IE11 and see how it works with flash support.
When or if I install the Adobe Flashplayer in the future, I'll see if the problem re-occurs with the new flash version.
I will report back here whether I have issues or not, so that the thread can be marked solved or not.