Another week, another flash exploit.

Another week, another Adobe Flash vulnerability. It seems like every few days there's another one. Hackers exploiting Flash Player XSS vulnerability | ZDNet

I think it has become abundantly clear that Flash is never going to be safe. Perhaps Adobe doesn't have the brainpower to fix it, or maybe they make so much money from Photoshop that they just don't care. Or perhaps it is fatally flawed from the get go, and can never be safe.

I dunno, and at this point, I just don't care anymore... I just want someone to find a universal replacement for it.

I hoped it would be silverlight, but that doesn't seem to play .swf files... at least, I cannot get it to play 'em.

I'd love to dump flash, but I like my youtube and news-site videos too much. Does anyone know a way to get flash videos to play without flash? Will someone (hint hint MS) develop a replacement for this piece o' crap?

You'll be protected from most XSS attacks with NoScript, but even on Debian, I run Flash. As you said its a necessary part of internet life. I can understand why the poisoned apple refuses to run it. HTML 5 looks like an answer.

cmd187 said:

You'll be protected from most XSS attacks with NoScript, but even on Debian, I run Flash. As you said its a necessary part of internet life. I can understand why the poisoned apple refuses to run it. HTML 5 looks like an answer.

Maybe MS and Apple can bury the hatchet long enough to work together on some sort of safe, universal replacement for it. (Yeah, I know... I'm dreamin'.)

I have never liked Flash Player. It seems all that websites used it for was to introduce more advertising to my "web experience". I uninstalled it and simply refused to load Flash Player. I know I missed out on YouTube and a few other sites but never felt bad about it. If a video was that great, I'd see it on the nightly news. :) I was never so happy when I moved to IE8. With it's site specific control and protected browsing, I was finally able to enjoy some video. But I certainly don't allow all sites to use it--In fact, less than ahandfull. I remain cautious.

Airbot said:

By the same logic, you could say the same for Windows or most other software too.

You can opt into this for most of your youtube vids.

YouTube - Broadcast Yourself.

Thanks for that link. I signed up, and I'll forward it to my relatives.

I have somehow become their help desk, and they seem to specialize in clicking every link and opening every attachment they can find... well, the older relatives anyway. (Except, of course, legitimate updates... especially the security-related ones. Those they hide and ignore. )

I may actually get in a few peaceful minutes of surfing time for myself! Heh.

I guess it's nice to be needed... Maybe I'll get extra socks come Christmastime. :)