Do I have the Adobe Flash Player Virus?

[Tom Keller]

Keep getting this pop up to update my adobe flash player. More prevalent in internet explorer than fire fox. How do I get rid of it?

[winston]

go to adobe.com and update the flash player.

[Wiz Feinberg]

You can go to your Windows Control Panel and search out the Flash Player icon. Click to open it and then click on the Updates tab. Normally, the automatically apply updates option is preselected. If not, select it and save. Then, click on Check Now. It will open your default browser at the Adobe page that verifies what version of Flash is installed and shows if a newer version is available. If a newer version is listed, click the on-page link to go to the Flash Player Download Center. There you can download Flash Player for most modern browsers. Firefox uses a different version than Internet Explorer and Chrome uses its own version. Download the appropriate versions and run the installers.

Updating Adobe Flash is critical. Exploits are already in the wild for the previous versions and are usually written and released as soon as patched versions are released. It's a cat and mouse game between the good guys and bad guys.

If you don't update Flash (only at Adobe.com!), sooner or later your computer will come across an exploit kit and it will become botted, or have ransomware installed, or other nefarious stuff that operates behind the scenes to steal information.

[Doug Beaumier]

I've been getting Adobe Flash update pop-ups every day this week on my iMac (Safari). Today I HAD to update it because when I went to Youtube no videos would play! Every video was just a black screen with a "Blocked plug-in" message. I went to the Adobe site and downloaded the latest version of Flash and all is well now!

[Jon Light (deceased)]

For the past week I have been unable to update my Flash.
On my up to date Win7 Firefox system I am attempting to update Flash 17.0.0.169 to 17.0.0.188 from the Adobe page.

It correctly identifies my system (Win7, Firefox), downloads the update file when commanded to, asks if I will allow the changes to my computer, then when I say yes, a box/window pops up called Adobe Download Manager. This box is empty. It just sits there and nothing happens. When I shut the box, an IE window opens up (I NEVER use IE, ever). It asks if I want to make IE my default. I say fk no and shut the window. End of update session with no update installed.

I have repeated this scenario around a dozen times.
Have no idea what's happening.

[Tom Keller]

I was told by a co worker that there is a virial pop up that causes these messages that for most folks there is nothing wrong with their flash player. The question how to get rid of it? Malware Bytes didn't detect anything. nor Norton.

[Todd Goad]

It got me to. Some of my saved bookmarked websites I can log into and some I can't. I really don't know what to do to fix it

[Wiz Feinberg]

To help quell misconceptions or misdirections from possible malware, here is a link to the official About Flash Player page, on adobe.com. This is the only place one should download any Flash Player updates from.

Upon landing on the About Flash page it scans to see if your browser has Flash installed and enabled. If so, it shows what version of Flash that browser is using. Below, there is a table showing the most current version of Flash for various browsers and operating systems. If you see that a newer version is available, click on the link to visit the Flash Player Download center.

The Flash Player Download page will preselect the correct newest version for the browser you use to open that page. There are different flavors for Internet Exploder, Firefox and Chrome. Note that Adobe has partnered with third party software makers to bundle things like McAfee Security Scan with the Flash Player download. You can uncheck this option to avoid getting additional software with the player.

When you click to download the latest version, you get a stub file. This stub is clicked upon to download the actual Flash Player software pertinent to the browser selected in the Download Center page.

Adobe has community forums where problems with downloading the Flash installer files can be discussed. That is the go to place if the stub fails to open the destination.

[Wiz Feinberg]

As soon as I get some free time and renew my befuddled braincells, I will write a blog article detailing the reasons why it it so important to update Flash Player as soon as a new version is released. I will post a link and excerpt here.

[Wiz Feinberg]

I neglected to mention in both of my previous replies that the now current version of Flash Player (for most commonly use OSs and browsers) is 17.0.0.188. This may be superseded on the next Update Tuesday, or sooner if circumstances require it.

[Jon Light (deceased)]

This is quite confusing. My problem persists. Via the Flash support page I directly downloaded the Firefox specific 17 Meg installer, closed FF per instructions and seemingly successfully loaded 188. But this is what I get in my Firefox > Tools > Add-ons readings :







It shows 17.0.0.188 dll and it shows today's date for 'last updated' but the page is titled Shockwave Flash 17.0.0.169

Does this appear to be correct & current ?
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.
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[Jon Light (deceased)]

Control panel Programs & Features says I've got 188. Guess I'm good. I guess.

[Jon Light (deceased)]

For the record, I uninstalled Flash and reinstalled it via the 17 meg FF-specific installer (the 1 meg installer still gets me nowhere) and now my FF pull down menu reading shows me the full-on 17.0.0.188 installation. Looks like THIS time I'm good to go.

[Wiz Feinberg]

Always restart your browsers after updating any plug-ins or add-ons. In some cases, it may even be better to log off your computer user account and log back on, or even do a reboot.